GameGear Dragon Crystal
Jim Omura
Dragon Crystal: Some Early Comments
Dragon Crystal is a variation on the "Hack" or "Rogue"
type of adventure game. "Hack" was one of the earliest computer
games and "Rogue" is the best known commercial version of
this game and plays very much like the earlier versions of
"Hack". In fact, I'm not entirely sure which came first. It
may have been "Rogue", but I think it was "Hack." This type
of game was played on video display terminals and drew maps
as you wandered around the screen. Although I'd played this
type of game before, the first time I actually had a good working
version on a computer of my own was when I bought "Rogue" for
my Color Computer 3. Running under the OS-9 multi-tasking window
system on this computer it made sense. What I did on occasion
was to play a game of "Rogue" while the computer trundled away
at a crossload. At that time I only had 300 baud, so it was a sure
bet that I'd have plenty of time to wander around for a couple of
levels. The official Radio Shack disk controller, unfortunately
doesn't allow this to be entirely painless because it occasionally
interrupts your keyboard input while disk IO is occurring, but
it's a fairly enjoyable way to pass a few minutes.
But the question is whether such a game can become popular
as a cartridge for a handheld? In the earlier days of this wave
of handheld game machines the "common wisdom" was that "the right
way" to design these was to have a game cartridge that was "compatible"
with a table-top console machine. But the only major manufacturer to
go this route was NEC. It's becoming more and more clear that the
the advantages of this type of compatibility were not so great.
It seems that the factors that make a good console game are a bit
different from those which make a good handheld game. There are
some games which, provided you have adequate screen visibility
(visibility being a combination of screen resolution and size) are
fun on both, but often, features that make a game good for one
detract from the other. For instance, a good complex adventure
on a console would be huge and could have lots of text on the screen
and highly detailed screen maps. But all that detail and text
would be hard to read on handheld, and the time it takes to
play would be too long for having a bit of fun standing in line
waiting to see a movie. Likewise, the new multi-player handheld
games are going to be much more satisfactory than trying to share
a single screen, particularly for "hidden strategy" games like
football or war games.
Brief Description:
Dragon Crystal is an exploration game. One begins in a random
point in a map which is camoflaged. As you walk about, the camoflage
is removed exposing the area of the map that you have explored.
At various points on the map one finds various objects and creatures.
All creatures are "enemies". You can avoid or kill enemies. You
have no "freinds". The objects, on the other hand can be good or
bad for you, but mostly they are good. Money is *always* good for
you. Food usually is, but only up to a maximum of 99 food points at
any given time. Armour, weapons, rods, potions, rings and books
are only "usually" good for you.
A full game of Dragon Crystal requires exploration of
30 levels. A level seems to be selected with an element of
randomness from a master set, though it might be generated
completely by an algorythm. There's no way to tell for sure.
Within any level you can move freely in 4 directions. To advance
to the next level you walk onto a "warp point". There is only
1 warp point on each level and you can only move onto higher
levels. If you find the warp point, you need not progress
immediately, again, because you have freedom of movement within
a level. You can continue to explore the level and come back
to the warp point later. The levels generally get harder as
you progress, but mainly due to the "enemies" rather than
inherent complexity of the mazes. In the first couple of
days I've had the game, my best effort has only gotten me
as far as 12 levels. A level seems to be roughly 2 screens
wide and 2 screens high. Much of the screen is therefore
not visible at any given time. Experienced Rogue players will
appreciate that this can add to the difficulty since one cannot
see the whole map and therefore sometimes follows a wrong path
trying go get from one point to another.
Dragon Crystal comes close to the edge in terms of playing
time for a handheld. In fact, it may that it is not completeable
on one set of internal alkaline batteries. See the sample playing
times below.
Sound: Music changes occasionally. Some things have their own
sound effects. Sometimes though, fighting a blob you hear
clanking weapons.
The following details are NOT a complete list of objects and
characters in Dragon Crystal. I've only listed most of what I've
seen and I have NOT finished playing a full game.
Scenes: Pine forest (white to green),
Sunflowers, Cactus, Stone faces
Enemies:
blobs (red, blue, green)
Green, Red Frog (toad?)
Ninja (White)
Magician? (white)
Scorpiox
Siro Me (White Eyeball)
Flame Bar
Metal Orb
Killer Bat
Small winged eyeballs
Books:
Blank book (?)
Bless Book
Map of Level
Shift Book
Potion Book (Changes all your potions to Mid Heal)
Summon (Random Enemy) Book
Potions:
Fog (resets camoflage)
Confusion (temporary randomness to walk)
Mid Heal
Min Heal
Sluggish
Water
Armour: Strength relative to Robe
Robe
Leather Suit +2
Cuirass +5
Chain mail +9
Scale Armour +19
Weapons: Strength relative to dagger
Dagger
Short Sword +2
Hardbreaker +11 (?)
Long Sword +6
Broad Sword +12
Rings:
Food Ring (?)
Shift Ring (Can't take off)
Shield Ring (magic barrier)
Sight Ring (see better)
Toy Ring
Rods:
Flash Rod (temporarily blinds you?)
Thunder Rod (defeats 1 enemy -- most types)
Spirit Rod (Summons an Enemy)
Wither (Weakens you 1 level)! (throw? drop?)
Time Travel Not sure exactly what it does.
(I used it to escape numerous enemies but it may take you to next level)
General Tactics:
It's best not to rush around too much until you locate the
Warp Point. You can accidentally walk onto it and be transported
to the next level before you want to. After finding the warp
point I "run" all over the rest of the map area.
Read new book as soon as get to new level or immediately
Maps are good early on a level. Note that reading the map frees
all the enemies to roam around too so you can get trapped.
Use Rod first when faced with many enemies
Best Run (1991/05/26)
Play Time:
Begin: 0:00
Restart: 0:24 0:24
Restart: 0:55 0:31
Restart: 1:24 0:29
Restart: 1:31 0:07
Restart: 1:36 0:05
End: 2:52 1:16
Swordsman, FL 12 Gold 355, Killed by Bat
Second Best Run (1991/05/27)
Begin 0:00
Restart 0:43 0:43
End 1:59 1:16
-- (Swordsman again?) FL 11
It would seem that it takes about 1 1/4 hrs to complete 10
levels, so 3 3/4 hours would be the expected playing time
for a whole game. But your likelihood of succeeding in your
first run as soon as you put in a fresh set of batteries looks
very slim.
NOTICE all the restarts. These were because I died and had
to start from scratch. It is possible to die and *continue* sometimes
if you have enough "gold". How much gold is enough seems variable.
In the better runs I was able to "continue" a couple of times to
get that far, but eventually died without sufficient "gold" to be
given a "continue". Because of this, I think you'd have to be very
skillful and luck to actually finish a full 30 levels of Dragon
Crystal on a set of batteries. I think you'd have to do it on
a power cord. And at that point, you might as well be playing on
a console anyway.
I'm undecided how this game should be rated.
--
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
lsuc!jimomura
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