History Trivia / DragonsLair

* AcclaimedFlop: Due to being released around that time when ''Franchise/{{StreetFighter}}'' and ''Franchise/{{MortalKombat}}'' came out, as well as the start of the Console Wars that made things even worse, Possibly leading the game to flop and many Dragon's Lair Fans as well as many Don Bluth Fans being unaware that there was a sequel to the first game until years later. It's unknown if this is true but seeing the evidence and timing it seems possible. It didn't even get as many re-releases on home consoles as its predecessor did, even in the wake of FMV games for home consoles.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: There were plans for [[https://twitter.com/DonBluth/status/664179126303985664 seven more games with this playstyle by Don Bluth]] but due to UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 leading Cinematronics to go bankrupt, and to a lesser extent Creator/DonBluth by freezing the royalties to his animation studio, they were mostly scrapped. The only games that got made regardless of this was ''VideoGame/SpaceAce'' and ''Dragon's Lair II'', and the only other game that came close to getting produced was ''Sea Monster and Barnacle Bill'', [[https://t.co/kL2ki3mol4?amp=1 seeing that it's the only one with concept art and a magazine advertisement]].

* NoBudget: Initially, this game was produced on a shoestring budget of $1 million. Only one professional actor, Michael Rye, was invited (and only the attract mode gives him showtime as a narrator), while the others were voiced by the animators themselves: Dirk, for instance, was voiced by Dan Molina, the film editor, who in turn would later do the sounds for Fish Out of Water in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle''. Daphne's voice originally belonged to Vera Lanpher, who was the head of the clean-up department. All the soul the staff had put into the development, however, paid off magnificently [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 but only for a short time]].

* PortOverdosed: Almost every console and computer in the 1980s got some version of ''Dragon's Lair'', and the Laserdisc version has been ported many times, too, to Windows, early CD consoles, DVD players, and even the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor (!). It is one of the most ubiquitous video games in history.

** The SNES sequel to ''Dragon's Lair'' was planned to be ported to the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis as ''Dragon's Lair: The Adventure Continues'', but the port was canned for unknown reasons, presumably due to Taito's American branch going under. A prototype ROM has been dumped and shows that the port was nearly finished.

** The developers originally planned to include a longer battle sequence at the end if the player managed to collect all the treasures, and a shorter one if he missed any, but this idea was scrapped in the final version and the longer sequence is used regardless. In the final release of the game it was made mandatory to pick up all the treasures; if the player misses any, at the end of the game it loops back to the first treasure missed. [[https://vimeo.com/150957289 The animation for the shorter fight can be found here.]]

* TheWikiRule:
** Just visit [[http://www.dragons-lair-project.com Dragon's Lair Project]]. They've got information on this. They have documentation, a link to a game called [[http://www.studiohunty.com/dungeon Dungeon Escape]], etc.
** Even the competing [[https://dragonslair.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon%27s_Lair_Wiki Dragon's Lair Wiki]].

* TheWikiRule: See ''that'' above.

* TalkingToHimself: Mordroc, Daphne's mother, the Time Machine, the Cheshire Cat and the Card Soldiers are voiced by Hal Smith.

* BadExportForYou: Inverted for the NES version. The North American release was made with cartridge mappers that were inadequate and made the gameplay really slow. When the game was released in Europe and Japan, it came with much better cartridge mappers that allowed it to run much more smoothly.