Dragons of Flame (video game)

Dragons of Flame is a side-scrolling action RPG based on the campaign world of the Dragonlance role-playing rules Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which was developed by British developer U.S. Gold on behalf of Strategic Simulations, Inc.. It is the sequel to Heroes of the Lance, and the second so-called Silver - boxing title. The game was first published in 1989 and appeared for the platforms Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, MS- DOS, NES, PC-98 and ZX Spectrum.

Plot and gameplay

Dragons of Flame sets the action of its predecessor continues and is an adaptation of the eponymous second Dragonlance campaign module or the second half of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, in German as a dragon hunter published ( The Chronicles of Dragonlance, Volume 2 ). The novel's hero Raistlin Majere, Caramon Majere, Tanis Half- Elven (German: Tanis Half - Elf), Gold Moon (Gold Moon), Riverwind ( Riverwind ) Tasselhoff Burrfoot ( Tas Barefoot ), Storm Bright Blade ( Storm Fire Blade) and Flint Fire Forge (Flint fire blacksmith ) explore in the fight against the dark goddess Takhisis and in search of the sword Wyrmslayer the Dungeon of Pax Tharkas. Furthermore, they try to free the enslaved 800 people there. Their struggle is aimed primarily against Verminaard, a dark cleric who is in league with a red dragon.

The game principle corresponded to that of its predecessor, was established only in detail. The group size was increased from eight to ten characters, the two non-player character, such as the scattered mage Fizban the Fabulous (German: Fizban the Fabulous ) can be occupied. Also the play area next dungeons included now also exploring a surface world, which was presented from a bird's perspective and also wandering hordes of enemies indicating where you can dodge with the corresponding control skill. In skirmishes moved in the familiar side-scrolling perspective.

Reception

Michael Hengst criticized in his Atari ST Review for Power Play that the player could only helplessly look forward to in too many situations the death of his hero group, for example because the response time in case of attacks is too short. He therefore awarded only a game score of 42%. Torsten Blum of Current software market, however, responded positively and awarded in test 7 out of 12 points for the Atari ST version, the graphical representation and the challenge of fighting praised and principally criticized the complexity of side-scrolling perspective. His colleague Eva Hoogh awarded for the C64 version even 9 of 12 points, praised the quick loading times and the largely smooth scrolling, but criticized the acoustic background and the low-detail background graphic.

Allen Rausch GameSpy called Dragons of Flame in his retrospective as no improvement over its predecessor and in comparison with other D & D titles as unimpressive.

" The dragon 's flame breath from: tired sequel. "

" All in all had a DRAGON FLAME OF SSI just fascinating to me. [ ... ] Accessing really worth it. "

Successor

Followed in 1991 with Shadow Sorcerer, the third Dragonlance title of U.S. Gold. As mentioned in Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Flame, it was a realization of the third and fourth official campaign module, but the former compared to the two significantly divergent gameplay possessed.