Developed and published by Sega in 1991.
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Dragon Crystal is a roguelike RPG released in the early 1990's for the Sega Master System and Game Gear platforms.
The hero of the story stumbles across a crystal ball in an antiques shop. Upon gazing into the crystal ball, he is sucked into another dimension and loses consciousness. Upon waking, our hero finds himself in the middle of a forest, with a large dragons egg
behind him.
The objective of the game is navigate thirty labyrinthine levels to escape the curse of the Dragon Crystal and to return to your own time.
Each level is obscured by fog and requires careful exploration to uncover the exit. Walking around the level will remove the fog and reveal rooms containing loot, as well as monsters.
Although the game appears to be real-time, it is actually turn based. For each action you perform, the enemy can also perform an action. This introduces a level of strategy to the combat; finding the best place and anticipating enemy movement patterns is vital, especially in the later levels where enemies do not only do considerably more damage, but they can ruin your armour and weapons too.
Various weapons and power-ups can be collected, but many of these remain unidentified until you use (or throw) them. This will reveal the true nature of the item; it could be beneficial, but it could also be cursed! The colour codes assigned to the items are randomised each time you play, so each game is a unique experience.
Certain weapons do more damage to specific types of enemies, regardless of their base power rating. For example, the Dragonblade out-damages the Laserblade, despite almost thirty power points difference; it's important to maintain a stock of each weapon type to best deal with the various enemies that inhabit the levels.
The player must maintain a stock of food to provide sustenance on his travels. Food will heal injuries over time, but running out will result in the hero starving to death and losing health.
In the event that you lose all your health, it's possible to pay to continue by using the money that you collect within the dungeon. Each time you continue costs successively more cash until you reach the point where you simply don't have enough cash to go on.
Dragon Crystal is probably the first role-playing game that I'd actually played and I was extremely impressed by it. The fact that the levels, equipment and layouts are randomised each time give the game unparalleled replay value.
The graphics look great. The way the hero changes outfits depending on the armour he is wearing is a nice touch, as is the different weapon colours. The game music is extremely repetitive, but isn't too terrible.
Surprisingly, the dragon that follows you around serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It does occupy space within the game world, so can prevent enemies attacking you from behind, but little else; I suppose it's just there to look cool.
I never managed to beat the game and I must admit that I was disappointed with the ending. I was expecting a massive boss of epic proportions, especially given just how tough some of the enemies are in the later levels.
Ultimately, Dragon Crystal is a great little dungeoneering game that's still fun to play today. Just remember to pack your trusty Hardbreaker and Bless Book before venturing boldly forth...
#retrogaming