Dragon Spirit: The New Legend

I move away from the sports game this weekend and move into the arcade territory, playing Dragon Spirit: The New Legend.  Developed by Namco and published by a combination of Namco and Atari, Dragon Spirit was released in 1989.  The game runs much like Galaga or any top down flight shooter where you move across a self-scrolling level collecting power-ups until you reach and defeat the level boss.  Then you start a new level and do it again.

So the game begins with you as the hero Armu, disguised as a Blue Dragon, finally about to fight the serpent demon Zawel.  You begin flying through the castle with a few simple enemies: a few fliers and some plant looking things on the ground.  The two buttons actually do different things, with one shooting a blast straight ahead and the other shooting a bomb shot a bit forwards, so you actually must use both to take out the enemies whether they are on the ground or in the air. 

So you continue on a bit and get to face Zawel, and he's simple.  He flies around with a staff to block your shots and a crescent flying off his head every once in a while.  You simply fly around and dodge the crescent and then shoot him when he moves his staff, very simple and straight forwards.  He really isn't difficult, and since he's basically the tutorial boss, he's not suppose to be.

Since it doesn't take too long to beat him, you do that and then get some nice story.  Armu saves the princess Zawel had captured, gets married and has twins... that was quick.  But it continues.  Armu becomes ill from the fight with Zawel and dies... that was quick too.  They apparently don't want you to be the same hero, but you in fact are the original hero's son: Lace.  So a new villan, Galda, appears and begins to conquer, before capturing Iris (Lace's sister).  As Lace, you take your father's sword (which enables you to turn into a new blue dragon) to take on Galda. 


So you start from the title screen and begin once more.

The new first level is the Paleozoic Era, where the ground is frozen and the water flows... for no apparent reason.  The game is like most scrolling shooters, like it was in the tutorial level, with just shooting, except now you can get some nifty power ups (you could actually get them in the first part, but they actually appear more often now).  You get the power ups either from killing the flashing enemies or shooting the egg looking things on the ground.  One of the cooler ones lets you get extra heads and have more shots.  Of course if you get hit, you lose your head as your life goes down. 

So as I went through the level I came to the realization that I'm not very good at scrolling shooters.  I tend to simple get overwhelmed quickly, stop paying attention and get hit a few times really quick.  One of the more annoying deaths was against a new enemy that appeared, they crawl on the ground for a short time before leaping up and flying towards you.  The first couple are just on one side, so I would just fly towards them and shoot them before they left the ground, but I didn't pay attention to them appearing on the other side and was taken out pretty quickly. 


But there is another game I'll call done, as I'm not quite good at everything, but I'll move onto something else tomorrow.  Perhaps something I'm good at.  Adios for today though.