Has someone seen the dragon?
Once upon a time, the Great Dragon attacked an innocent city Dirindale, killing its king, burning a good couple of houses, causing a great uproar among local heroes and wannabe-heroes, and inspiring Monolith Productions to make a game based on the adventures of the former.
Yes, this 1998 PC game is a Spiritual Successor (not to say: a total clone) of good old Gauntlet but this does not stop it from being an extremely addictive Hack and Slash filled to the brim with an unusual if, perhaps, a bit exaggerated sense of humor, making it an Affectionate Parody of classic fantasy tropes and quirks. For today's gamers, it can have a specifically vintage taste, but when given a chance, turns out to be one of the best possible sources of mindless entertainment when you just need to, you know, kill some Demonic Spiders or other personal space invaders, earn some gold and lose some Hit Points.
Contains the following tropes:
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Boots of Mercury - which are the power-up that massively increases your character's move speed - are not very effective due to the fact that they make it difficult to control the character's actions.
- Bandit Mook: One of the non-standard enemies is a black ghost-like thing that moves very fast and, if allowed to get close to you, will steal all your scrolls, as well as your weapon and armor upgrades, then run away and disappear with them unless you can kill it and recover them. Suffice to say, if it happens before a boss fight, you are in trouble. They sometimes give something if you kill them before they reach you.
- Boss Battle: Every fifth level. All of them are of the damage sponge variety, but as the levels progress they will become increasingly difficult due to various obstacles thrown in.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: All the characters address the player if they stand around for too long.
- Curse: One of the non-standard enemies, faster than all player characters(save for Eryc) who can obstruct you by i.e reversing your controls, disallowing you ranged attack or by increasing your health drop rate. They are also tougher than normal monsters.
- Damage Over Time: As expected of Gauntlet's clone. Characters will lampshade the constant health drop if you let them stay in place for too long.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You just have to wait a couple of seconds for the character to respawn. Can be annoying if you start swarmed by monsters.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are some of the more advanced enemies in the game. They throw their swords at you to attack.
- Destroyable Items: Chests, weapon/armor Upgrades, life refills and scrolls can be destroyed. Characters or The Voice will comment on the matter.
- Everyone Is a Super: Even Kellina, who apparently uses a sword and a shield to fight, has a magical attack at her disposition.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Everything that moves in the levels is out to make sure you die. Nobody is out to help you.
- God Mode: There is a cheat code that makes you completely invulnerable. More literally, the God-Like powerup makes enemies grovel around as if you were a god, leaving them open to a quick application of your blade on their throats.
- Healing Potion: The powerups that recover your character's health look like colored vials with a heart, evoking the image of the classic fantasy healing potion.
- Intangibility: Hags, Phantom Knights and Wraiths have a brief one which can make player's projectile pass through harmlessly, complete with brief disappearing. Including bosses. Still vulnerable to Magic Scrolls though.
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: The keys disappear, but only those made of the same metal are interchangeable.
- Locked Door: Locked doors will bar your progress through the levels often. In order to progress, you'll have to find bronze, silver or gold keys depending on the type of door or, for some of them, locate a switch that will open them. All doors that must be opened with keys can also be opened by the Skeleton Key powerup.
- Man on Fire: While walking through the dungeon, you can very literally catch a hot by stepping into a puddle of flames drifting over the floor. Sadly, this does not apply to your enemies.
- The Maze: All of the levels are labyrinthine in design, but this trope fits more for the mazes you have to traverse after beating a boss in order to reach the next level set. To encourage you to solve them quickly, there's always a Skeleton Key powerup at the entrance, and the end, on top of the exit, also has a door only the Skeleton Key can open, behind which there is a stash of helpful items.
- Money for Nothing: Gold is here only to indicate how many points you scored - you can't use it to buy anything.
- Mook Maker: All enemies are spawned by various spawners that can, and should, be destroyed.
- Multi-Mook Melee: Like in Gauntlet, you can get close and personal when fighting enemies. It's usually discouraged to go against large hordes, though, since they will tear you apart before you can get rid of them all.
- Notice This: The Shiny Sense powerup allows you to locate treasures, and even helps you find out if a chest contains something useful or if you should leave it alone.
- One-Hit Kill: Even on the highest difficulties picking up Lvl. 2 weapon upgrade will allow you to one-shot any mook short of a Curse or Thief.
- Skeleton Key: One of the powerups you can get is a key with a skull emblem called the Skeleton Key. Like all other powerups, it disappears after its timer reaches zero, but during that time it can open any lock without consuming any of your other keys. Additionally, there are some doors that only this key can open.
- Sprint Shoes: The Boots of Mercury powerup, which greatly increases movement speed. It's more of a nuisance though as it's harder to control your character under its effect.
- Randomly Generated Levels: One of the game modes allow you to traverse endless random dungeons.
- Smart Bomb: The Magic Scrolls, which one-shot everything on the screen save for bosses.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Skeletons and Phantom Knights use swords as projectiles.
