DRAGON BLAZE

By Psikyo Arcade 2000
Review By Mike
 



Choose your character - Click for more info

Psikyo were never really one for elaborate plots in their games and Dragon Blaze is no exception. Pre-game cut scenes spout some obscure malarkey about releasing magic crystals to return peace to an enchanted land. But personally I'd rather just blast stuff with dragons so let's skip this bit..

Your dragon's rider starts each game stage mounted to their dragon. In this form players can move and blast away in a very similar fashion to previous Psikyo shooters. Veterans of these games will experience a certain sense of deja-vu as you pick up the familiar 'P' and 'B' icons to build up your fire-power and bomb stock along with gold and silver 'coins' dropped by destroyed bad guys to boost your score. Each mounted character also has the familiar Psikyo 'charge shot'the use and effectiveness of which is governed by a weapon charge bar which builds steadily as your fire hits home on any enemies and is unleashed by holding down the fire button for a second or two.


'P' Icon -
Increases Firepower
'B' Icon - Gives you
one Smart Bomb

Silver Coin Pickup - appears after killing enemies with standard shot
Gold Coin Pickup - appears after killing enemies with the Dragon Shot
Gold Coin Chest appears usually just once per stage on discovering a 'Hidden Bonus'
Coin Chest Locations
    Here be Dragons..
again!

Dragons in shoot-em-ups are great. Think Dragon Breed, Dragon Spirits, Saint Dragon, Xexex's Chinese dragon boss and the infamous 'Fire' Dragons and 'Dragon Lasers' in Salamander and countless other Konami shooters. Every shooter designer and his dog it seems, loves dragons. So apparently, do Psikyo.

Psikyo’s previous dragon-themed shooter 'Sol Divide' was a graphically ambitious but ultimately disappointingly pedestrian horizontal shmup. Dragon Blaze, Psikyo's second crack-of-the-whip at the dragon-based shooter returns to the format they do best, namely the vertical shoot-em-up. I was very eager to try this game so after finally managing to procure the arcade PCB from a kindly chap in Hong Kong I settled down eagerly for a session of gung-ho airborne serpentine action.

From the offset it's obvious this is totally different beast from Sol Divide. Using a revamped version of the Strikers 1945/Gunbird engine the game is a frenetic fast-paced shooter. Players control one of four dragon-riding heroes, each one aligned to one of four pseudo-elemental properties - Fire, Water, Thunder and Darkness. (No - not cheesy Queen-lite MOR rock group The Darkness you understand, that would be silly. Not that anyone would want to align themselves to Mr Hawkins et al unless they were re-making Spinal Tap.)


Arcade Flyer - click for biggie scan

Dragon Blazes's 'twist' however comes on pressing the separate 'Dragon Shot' button. This releases the dragon from under the rider from where it will shoot vertically up the screen taking out smaller enemies while releasing extra gold bonus coins, and inflicting big damage to bosses. Note that dragons are invulnerable to enemies while their riders are not and the dragon and rider will stay separated until you recall your dragon with the same button or make contact and remount. All very R-Type really, but effectively done and it's a lot of fun.

In addition to the standard Dragon Shot the third button releases your bog-standard, screen-filling 'smart bomb' destroying most enemies on screen or in the area with varying degrees of success depending on the character used. Rob's bomb, for
instance, obliterates everything on-screen while granting temporary invulnerability, while Ian's bomb does much less damage and gives none.

Finally, if your weapon charge bar is full enough, activating a 'charge attack' (holding and releasing fire) while dragon and rider are separated after a 'Dragon Shot' unleashes the 'Dragon Special' which has similar effects to the smart-bomb but concentrates fire on the area around your dragon and is therefore good for damaging bosses (especially with the double whammy of a Dragon Shot followed by Dragon Special aimed at the boss's weak spot or its head). During boss battles, after being weakened enough every boss has an attack phase which reveals a "core" that resembles a glowing ball. After damaging a boss enough to kill it with a Dragon Shot or Dragon Special, waiting until it shows its core and destroying it with one of these attacks gives a satisfying Technical Bonus. Other hidden bonuses of coin-producing chests, accessed by killing certain enemies in a pre-determined sequence, and which can drastically improve your score are hidden around the stages to be found by the player,giving added-replay value. (See Coin Chest Locations)


The graphically lovely 'Jungle' Stage, packed to the rafters with weird
carnivourous undergrowth and this nasty laser spitting plant-boss.

Dragon Blaze's seven stages paint a varied and graphically lush fantasy world, much more colourful than the drab military greys of the Strikers 1945 games. From underwater reefs to deserts and nightmarish jungles the scenery is certainly never drab, in fact some may find it not a little garish. Not that you'll get much of a chance to look at it as the game's fast pace and intensity will command most of your attention. Like previous Psikyo titles the first few levels play in a randomized order with the final three stages coming subsequently. I did find the difficulty curve to be ramped quite steeply in this game with the first couple of stages being passable if manic but further levels becoming near-impossible bullet-storms rather quicker than I was comfortable with. Ah well.. it's not like I was putting any money in. Later levels rely on mastery of timing the Dragon Shot to take out mini-bosses before they can spray the screen with an unavoidable bullet curtain, with absolutely no margin whatsover for error. Miss and.. bye bye Draco.

Overall: Dragon Blaze is a very solid if not exceptional title and represents a welcome step forward for Psikyo with the Dragon Shot/Special combo attack system and hidden bonuses giving much-needed depth to a game developed by a company whose recent run of titles were beginning to become a little samey and stale. However due to the sale of Psikyo Co.in 2002 and a subsequent shake- up of in-house development staff this game along with Strikers 1999 were to be the last arcade shooters the company would produce.
  The only home game port of the game was in 2004 to the PlayStation 2 as part of the Psikyo Shooting Collection Volume 3 which also includes Sol Divide and comes highly recommended.

Score out of Five:

1/2
Mike B

  


(Left) Quaid's Smart Bomb in action on the underwater stage
(Middle) Rob's Charge Shot is unleashed on some nasties
(Right) Dragon Shot Technical Bonus on the Desert stage boss.
Some Dragon Blaze bosses for your visual delectation:
(Left) Aerial stage boss is this enormous 'who ate all the pies' dragon (being charge-blasted by Sonia)
(Middle) The Desert stage tank/ship hybrid thingamyjig.. watch those gun emplacements!
(Right) Stage 5 boss is a sort of Aztec Mecha Turtle who zaps lightning all over the shop.
(Left) Level 6 mid-stage boss - the game becomes mercilessly difficult from
here on out and bombing becomes your only effective survival strategy
(Middle)See what I mean about impenetrable bullet storms? Fail to take out
these red/green eyeball mini-bosses as soon as they appear and you are in BIG trouble..
(Right) Final boss.. Very Salamander. Not that you'll being seeing it for some time..
 
Top Home