Dragon's Lair, how you have fallen. True, I can't say I "fondly remember" the series, as I wasn't born when the original Dirk the Daring adventures hit the arcades. I can only imagine though, that fans of the series won't be too happy with the treatment their favorite clumsy knight has received.
Taking what was essentially an interactive movie and making it into a platformer isn't an easy task, but that's no excuse for the massive failure on hand here. First and foremost on my list of gripes are the sluggish controls: Dirk's normal movement speed leads me to believe that the developers were trying to make up for some sort of inconsistency in the framerate. Then again, you can run, but you have to hold a trigger down the entire time, and before you ask, no, there is no autorun function to be found anywhere. This alone makes the game a major pain in the rear, but let's move on: the camera is wobbly and seems to not want to cooperate whatsoever, and on top of all these silly technical flaws, the puzzles are tedious and of the "fetch, hit switch" variety, featuring ziltch imagination. Sure, the game is huge, but what good does "250 castle chambers" do you when you want to quit after just 5?
Since Dragon's Lair wasn't quite an actual "game" back in the 80s, it made up for it in presentation. This is preserved in the remake, to a certain degree: while the cartoon has been, by the grace of god, preserved in its original state, and the Dirk character model looks superb, the audio is excruciatingly hideous. I refer particularly to the screeching Princess Daphne, whose fingernails-on-chalkboard voice alone should be enough to ward off that poor dragon.
I suppose those nostalgic for this particular series may be remotely interested in this title, but you'd save yourself a lot of pain just picking a copy of the title as you remember it up on Laserdisc, CDi, or whatever format the original uses. Those who came after Dirk the Daring's time however, should just leave this one alone.
-George
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