It follows the adventures of a barbarian warrior sorceress, Alisia, and her four familiars - Dragon Frye, Thunder Raven, Boomerang Lizard, and Ball O' Fire - as they seek to stop the revival of the demon Baldour, whose followers tortured Alisia's wizard father to death in front of her when she was young. Standing in their way are Baldour's followers and minions, highest among them his aide, Ornah.
Alisia herself uses Thunder Magic, which auto-aims at nearby enemies. The game is a combination of platforming and shooting, and a cautious attitude helps; Alisia's magic needs to be recharged between each shot, as well as the familiars' attacks. Dragon Frye shoots up to three fireballs, Thunder Raven takes the longest to charge up but has quite a payoff with a massive thunderclap that damages everything onscreen, Boomerang Lizard throws up to three homing boomerangs from his back, and Ball O' Fire can be manipulated into ramming enemies to do damage and absorb projectiles.
Tropes:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese box art by Takehiko Itō nails the presentation of her character and the elements she uses in-game, while the Western box art
◊ portrays her as a chainmailed barbarian. - Ancient Astronauts: Implied with the amount of technology seen in-game.
- Barbarian Hero: Alisia is a female example.
- The Beast Master: Besides her Thunder Magic, Alisia has four familiars to help her out.
- Big Bad: Baldour, the demon of the Silver Star. His followers spend most of the game trying to revive him.
- Blob Monster: Show up in various levels as mooks.
- Bloody Murder: One of Baldour's attacks is to shoot blood bullets at Alisia from his exposed heart.
- Boss-Only Level: Stage 8 is not so much a stage as a showdown with Ornah followed by the final battle with Baldour.
- Breath Weapon:
- This is Dragon Frye's attack.
- The fireballs spat by the Stage 4 boss.
- The various things such as sparks and worms that come out of Baldour's mouth.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: Stage 2 takes place at a swamp.
- Catch a Falling Star: The familiars do this in order to save Alisia after she defeats Baldour.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Three of Alisia's four familiars, and then even Dragon Frye skirts it.
- The Dragon: The wizard Ornah, Baldour's aide.
- Dual Boss: The boss of Stage 1 is a pair of ninjas.
- End-Game Results Screen: The Game Ranking screen lists the stage that was cleared, the level of Alisia's Thunder Magic, the shoot down rate, and the rank based on the player's performance.
- Eternal Engine:
- Stage 3 manages to cross this with Womb Level on a giant aircraft.
- Stage 6 appears to be the ruins of the demons' spaceship or something.
- Evil Is Visceral: Baldour is basically a huge flying Body of Bodies with exposed internal organs.
- Excuse Plot: There are some interesting things going on with Alisia's vendetta against Ornah and Baldour, but for the most part it's all about the lightning-slinging.
- Expy: Alisia looks very similar to Yohko from Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko.
- Fairy Companion: Helpful fairies show up to power up Alisia's Thunder Magic temporarily, make her invincible, or provide platforms now and then.
- Fan Sequel: Return of Alisia Dragoon, as a Warcraft III campaign.
- Floating Continent: Where the Sky Palace rests.
- Giant Flyer:
- Thunder Raven is a pretty big flighted bird.
- The Stage 4 boss is a giant wyvern.
- Gorn: While there isn't any blood, Alisia's battle with Baldour is surprisingly brutal for a Genesis game. She tears him apart one piece at a time.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Feeding meat to the familiars heals their injuries.
- Kill It with Fire: How Dragon Frye and Ball O' Fire damage enemies.
- Killer Rabbit: Boomerang Lizard looks like a cute little gecko, but it throws boomerangs at enemies with deadly accuracy.
- Leg Focus: Alisia's outfit appears designed to show off as much leg flesh as legally possible.
- Lethal Lava Land: The second half of Stage 5.
- Load-Bearing Boss: The Sky Palace falls when Baldour is defeated.
- Marathon Boss: The wizard in Stage 7 has a lot of HP and a pretty narrow window during each round to hit him in.
- Ominous Floating Castle: The Sky Palace.
- Our Demons Are Different: Baldour is weird. He has white angel wings, no feet, and about half of his internal organs are exposed. He also may or may not be an alien.
- Our Dragons Are Different:
- One of the familiars is Dragon Frye, a fairly standard Western dragon, albeit on the side of good.
- The Stage 4 boss is a giant wyvern that's missing its skin.
- There's the small Eastern dragons that Ornah shoots at Alisia during their fight; they're made of blue fire.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Quite a few of the enemies, and Boomerang Lizard is a small floating lizard who throws boomerangs from his back.
- Punny Name: Dragon Frye = dragonfly, as well as referring to his breath attack.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The latter parts of Stage 1.
- Rule of Three: The familiars each have three levels.
- Science Fantasy: The game takes place in a fantasy-esque world which has airships, tanks, robots, and so on.
- Sequential Boss: In Stage 8, Ornah is directly followed by Baldour.
- Shock and Awe:
- Alisia fights with auto-targeting Thunder Magic.
- Thunder Raven uses a total-screen-kill thunder attack.
- Shout-Out: The cockpit on Stage 3's airship seems to resemble an Ohmu.
- Summon Magic: This is how the familiars are used.
- Tank Goodness: The Stage 5 boss is a tank.
- Terror-dactyl: Some dactyl-like monsters attack Alisia by throwing rocks at her in Stage 4.
- Underground Level: Stage 5 takes place inside a cave.
- Waterfront Boss Battle: The Stage 2 boss fight takes place at the end of the swamp and the boss dives underneath it during the battle.
- Womb Level: Stage 3's aircraft appears to be modeled on a giant demon fish. As such, it's uncomfortably organic at times.
- You Are Too Late: Alisia is naturally too late to prevent Baldour's resurrection, so she kicks his ass instead.
- Zerg Rush: The strategy of a lot of small, flying enemies.
