Was literally just wondering when John would bless us again

Omg dragon's lair... Aladdin's castle, Oakdale mall in new York... It was THE game. There was a crowd around it but the cabinet also had a monitor like 10 ft above it so the crowd could see the action. That's arcades man...they were incredible.

John, how did you miss the mini laserdisc player in the back of the cabinet? I couldn’t wait to see how giddy you would get to discover it

I was so ready for him to find the mini laser disc...

🤙🏾💯 Damn right there was a draw bridge. It's even on the sega cd version.

Totally worth the $100. I was 13 when it came out in the arcades. I’ve always wanted that game and cabinet in my house, even at 50 years old now I still do. Since having the real deal seems out of the question at this point, this little beauty will do just fine. Just looking at the cabinet takes me back. I love it! They did a wonderful job. I use to play it at a Chuck E Cheese in Newport News Va in ‘83. A guy much older than me would beat the game on one life. He helped me with the levels I couldn’t do. Eventually I was going through the game like that and a crowd would get behind me and watch. It was great. The 80’s...I’d go back and stay if I could.

There WAS a drawbridge. A tentacle came up out of the moat

Hey John, its me Jesse (with the Street Fighter 1). I finally fixed the monitor issues, and am still working on that dirty dip switch, thank you so much for answering my email! Love the videos man, keep it up!

There's a little drawer in the back that had a mini laser disk player replica that you can put the tiny laser disk in.

John the "screen blanking" option mimics the black screen you get when the laserdisc seeks. Eg when you die, or between scenes.

I remember when this came to Lynchburg, Va in 1983 and there was a drawbridge at the beginning. Love this game and like you, my meager allowance didn't allow me to play it often. I also remember that the arcade (Video Voyage) had a spectator monitor installed and there was a crowd gathered around this game.

:O new John's arcade videos? Umm.. yes please!

Amazing Collection!!!!! Always LOVED Dragon's Lair. So miss those days in the arcade. Great times!

Yes another video! Was actually thinking about getting one of these, Dragons Lair is a classic, hope all is well with you and your family! 😎

This video made me fire up the home arcade tonight! Thanks John!

Easily worth the $120. The amount of detail, quality, and extras are quite impressive. I was also surprised by how playable it is. Dare I say this is the coolest "toy" I own (and I have a lot of toys hah). You must do a follow up showing your discovery of the LaserDisc player in the back :P :P

Keep the videos coming. Get the love for the games back. Been there done that. Thanks

Christmas came early! A new John’s Arcade!!!!

Great to see you John. Just got one of the Dragon's Lair Replicades also. I love it. It is just so well done.

So good to see you ! Thank you for posting

So glad your uploading again John! Great Video! I just went to the site and these are out of stock, so hoping to snag one up soon!

That difference from the 80's mini cabs to today is amazing!

I thought I saw that the mini Dragon's Lair came with a mini laser player for the mini laser disc it came with.

50 cents? You were lucky, it was 1 dollar where I lived. By that time most current games were 50 cents but this was the first game that cost a full dollar followed shortly by games like Daytona USA being a dollar or if you were lucky 75 cents...

He’s back! Good to see ya John!!

Drawbridge does exist. It was not on the US versions of the game. It was on non us versions of the arcade version of the game. It did however, appear in the home ports.

I will tell you this, the scene where you jump on the platform and you jump off on the third plank...the mirrored scene of that you can keep dropping until the 9th plank. You’ll know because it’s darker and the planks start on the right side. I love all of Dirks yells and screams when you let him fall for that long haha.

Did he not open up the laserdisc player door on the mini cab? There's a little model laserdisc player in there!

john, miss your content, even just walkthrough's. hopefully see you back soon my man.

Great to see another Video, I'm sure that table has got even more wobbly than before, also I'm sure there was a Drawbridge at the start of Dragon's Lair when I played it years ago

Very entertaining and fun to watch. Thanks for posting this.

That table is wobbly as heck

Howdy John, first, Dragon's Lair is my most favorite and my most sought after game, I own 2 digital copies, but would love to have the original arcade version, after watching your channel for the past several months, it has reignited my desire to have my own original arcade games at home, so far I have a multicade cocktail, Thank you for reminding me just how much I love video games, I've always been a gamer, I played Dragon's Lair in the arcade when it came out in 1983, at the age of 13, as I said, my most Favorite arcade game hands down, I also really love GORF, looking for that original arcade game as well, Just as a side note, I've watched your videos from years ago, and in all this time, you still have that tiny wobbly table ?? Surprised you haven't had anything fall off of it lol Thank you again for the game review of the new Dragon's Lair 1/4 scale home game, Stay safe and game on my Friend, Peace

Good review. I have the Replicade mini cabinet, and I’m jealous of your real arcade cab. I first beat the game at age 12 in the arcades, and the Replicade machine is very playable. I’ve made it back to the Dragon’s Lair, but I still need to beat it. First, Dragon’s Lair is a 4 way game, not 8 way. There are no diagonal moves. Also, screen blanking is to simulate the pause between Laserdisc tracks. Thanks for the great video!

Good to see you back man!

That’s f-in’ awesome. We must be about the same age, because I had the same experience, with the $.50 thing and watching older kids. Remember Thayer’s Quest? I dunno why that’s never around, anymore. There is a bridge scene-with a tentacle eye monster who just takes one swing, then you swing into the castle, right at the beginning. The iOS port has that scene on it, straight away... Space Ace, flying through the maze and traversing the passage, while those smashing machines took out parts of the ground, around you, were so tough. I have that on DVD, playable on regular DVD players, from the LATE-‘90s remakes they made. I got it at EB, before they were sold to the dark side...

Funk yeah. I love you and your videos, John!

Hi John . Its nice to see you again . Right on ⚓🇺🇸

That machine is epic. I'm building a mini arcade corner. John get the CHANGE MACHINE charger

I love your videos a lot and I love your arcade

The screen blanking is supposed to mimic the search that would happen on the original laserdisc game. They called it the NTB, or necessary technical blackout. It's what happened to old laser discs when you would search or even pause the image. I would turn that back on because the game is playing so quickly from scene to scene. Also I would turn the difficulty to easy, because that allows more time for joystick movements. There is a half random half sequential level sequence. There was a website that described the sequence of the scenes and how they were picked. but I haven't seen in a really long time and I can't seem to find it either. Great video thanks for posting it. The drawbridge scene was supposed to be in the original. But it never made it into the production. Although it is contained on the laserdisc, and made it into most of the home versions.

Johns back!!

your memories of seeing the original are exactly how i felt seeing this in showbiz pizza.

19:50 - After Dragon's Lair came out in 83, Cinematronics was acquired by Tradewest and renamed Leland Corporation in 87, which released Dragon's Lair II and Ivan Stewart's Super Off Road. In 94 Leland was bought by WMS Industries (formerly Williams). Around 2015 WMS merged with Scientific Games (who also owned Bally and Shuffle Master, manufacturer of shuffling machines and slot machines).

Great Video John. I been a Dragon's Lair nut since 1983 and was able to finish it in the arcade back in the day. Please check out what iircade is doing and their version of DL. Can't wait to get mine so I can get atop the worldwide global leaderboard on iircade. As far as these little machines. Bought 2 of them and love them. As beatable as a real size machine.... The drawbridge scene was removed from the arcade game. Developers thought it was too hard for an opening scene...

The 'Screen Blanking Feature' is to simulate the access time of the old laserdisc players. Since rooms could be accessed randomly, the player had to read different parts of the laserdisc at different times. Random Aside- Just in case people here didn't know, Laserdiscs are NOT a digital medium, like Compact Discs or DVD's. Though a laser is used to read the discs, they are very much like vinyl records. As a matter of fact, in the 1970's there actual was a disc-based video format that used a needle instead of a laser. Though it's kind of a shame that time will eventually render all laserdiscs unplayable, we can take some comfort in knowing that all the information on those discs will not be lost & ultimately, that's more important.

OMG, Im dreaming? YESSS NEW VIDEO!!

That’s piece of metal that comes in the bag, is to cover up the Replitonics logo on the coin door, if you want too.

Depending on the version of the DL rom, there is a drawbridge at the beginning. I have it on my mame cab. I believe it was adjusted in a future rom as too many people were losing all their lives before they could even got into the castle !

That's one beautiful toy. You need to make a little scaled down corner of your basement to put it in with a scaled down John playing it XD

love the vid-this game was soooo hard - i was just a spectator as a kid. would be cool to use this as the hardware for a fresh dragons lair build.

I find the Dragon's Lair replica fascinating. Such a replica was impossible to make in 1983, because only in the 21st Century, computers can display full-motion video directly instead of controlling a laser disc player, the video is stored on solid state memory chips, and there are tiny hi-res screens. Back in 1983, you could only do a half-assed Pac-man with fixed LED's, as tiny hi-res screens weren't possible.

I remember the draw bridge too, it was like the very first level and you had to get past some tentacles coming up through a hole in the middle of it, it's shown in the attract mode of your game.

Hi John Dragons lair has a tictactoe , heads or tails thing going on for scene selection there are 13 grids of 3 scenes which are set and a scene is choosen at random from 3 set scenes then it moves down the grid till the falling disc 9 levels then it goes back to the top and plays one of the two remaining scenes that gives the game its randomness

That level that you haven't seen is a standard level on the original - I certainly recall playing it.

Pac-Man guy. The cabinet to jamma adapter I bought had an option to make player 1 and player 2 fire buttons. You can also solder on extra wires for the extra buttons as well, in case you get another control panel. You can play the track ball games with the joystick. I think you can play every game on the 60-in-1 except gunsmoke, because you can't shoot left. I do think there was a look and shoot option for it, so maybe you can play it. The worst part of the 60-in-1, is going one by one and setting up the virtual dip switches to factory settings. If you don''t all the games are set on easy mode, so it can get boring. I did the same to a Miss Pac-Man I got free from a friend, when your starting out, just don't hack the cabinets if you can help it.

Waiting for new video drop. Cant wait for the arcades to reopen.

Really cool, I think it’s a bit too fast though switching between the scenes so the screen blanking feature probably helps a bit.

Man I cant wait for that table to finally break, Like the popcorn machine

Excited to watch this.

The only drawbridge I recall was in the beginning of Dragons Lair Time warp. It took me a minute to figure out the blank metal piece can replace the labeled one on the coin door. Was expecting him to review the mini laser disc player but oh well.

I knew this was coming. I got the replicade because my full-size (ld-v1000 powered) machine is in storage. Can't wait to do the same comparison when it gets out. I love how the replicade one has a slight cabinet resonance sound to it. And yes, if you want a laser disc feel, you want screen blanking. Oh, and it's not the emulation doing the latency, so much as the digital display. Funny thing, they could recode the roms to compensate for that - perhaps a firmware update via a USB link? That or just amend your timings for 37 years later.

Literally the game that blew me away as a kid. Saw it when it was first released in The Mall of America. The crowd of kids around the machine was so big, they mounted a 2nd monitor 10 feet up so you could watch. Then I had to go home and play my crappy Atari 2600...

Screen blanking is what the original LaserDisc did when it was loading transition screens.

Finally a new episode

Nice, I hope we will get a second channel John's Mini Arcade!

There's a miniature LD player in the little pretend drawer like the big machine

Hey John great video, I absolutely love dragons lair, just a fyi, you can get the rims that play the drawbridge scene for your cabinet. I had the Roms in my cabinet before I sold the machine like an idiot.

"I'm pretty bad at this game." Well, you're doing a hole lot better than I could.

Just catching up on these, that mini cab is pretty cool, nice display item even if it isn't played often.

Great to see some more Johns arcade updates! That dragon's lair mini looks cute but for over $100 I'd like to at least see both games and space ace. Wonder if it's hackable to add anything else to it...

There is a draw bridge at the start!.... wonder why it's not on you's

A Shinobi mini Replicade would kick major butt hopefully it comes out some day.

Regarding the ropes level, there is a timing bug in the software, and only when the ropes go left to right. It's definitely in the mini-Replicade version, but I don't know if it's in the actual arcade version (I would assume yes since it's supposed to be the same thing). If you hit "right" immediately as soon as the rope is near, then each swing you just have to wait until Dirk's hand leaves the rope to reach out for the next one to go right and you will hit it every time. HOWEVER, if you wait for the scene where the ledge starts to retract and then hit right, you have to hit right BEFORE Dirk's hand leaves the rope each time or you will die. This is only when the ropes go from left to right. Going right to left is always after Dirk's hand leaves the rope, regardless of whether you go left immediately or wait for the ledge to retract.

I missed so much putting off wearing readers. I actually enjoy reading now. I had stopped reading books because I thought my ADD was getting the best of me, but found it was just having a hard time seeing the damn words! Wear your readers. Makes life much easer.

Earned 👍. My favorite game, I beat it few times on Legends ultimate arcade. Watch the dragon's lair documentary, it's interesting.

Now we just need a mini johns arcade high score card for this to put on the marquee

Yes Space was collapsing in the last videos

Hey John check out your mini dragons lair there is a laser disc in the back

I'll bet I can blow your mind, LOL. On the back of the Replicade unit there is a drawer you can open and inside is a replica laserdisc player and a replica remote control. You can even open the laserdisc player and put the replica laserdisc in it. The small black metal piece you can't figure out, that is a magnet to cover up the "Replitronics" logo on the coin door so you can use that to cover up the logo on the coin door if you don't like it. And speaking of the coin door, that opens too and is a good place to store those mini tokens so you don't lose them. See my comment below on game tips. :) I know this game like the back of my hand. I finished it back in the day by ordering a solution book that was advertised in the back of a video game magazine. About $30.00 in quarters later I slayed the dragon. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was at a Coney Island in a mall in LaCrosse, WI.

FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!

there are no diagonals, only U D L R

The table rocks worse than ever...time to not put anything on the table.

I like this video John. And I like you.

Please never change the intro.

You're not crazy, there's extra latency. That's just the price you pay for emulation. And your TV probably added even more because that's what TVs do.

This is kind of interesting, because the Lazy Game Reviewer just reviewed this too!

This was an excellent video that covered so much! I received my Replicade machine about 3 weeks ago and I’ve probably saved $200 in quarters so far! I was 13 when this game came out and it was one of the first 50 cent games so, needless to say, I didn’t play this much as it was a real money trap! Hahahaha. I can’t wait to receive my iiRcade (Dragon’s Lair graphic) machine. Have you posted anything about this new machine??!

John, let me help you. First, there are NO diagonal moves in Dragon's Lair. The first move on the Lizard King level is "left", you are probably pushing more left than up when you are pushing diagonally and that is why you don't get a death scene. The room you don't recognize is The Tilting Floor room and it IS in the original Dragon's Lair. "Down", "Up", and "Left" are the moves for that room. The board with the falling ceiling, it's "right" when Dirk starts to stagger, and "right" again when the door flashes so it is TWO rights. The Crumbling Room, the first move is to the same side Dirk's sword is on (so if his sword is on his left hip, the first move is "left" and vice-versa for the mirror image.) On The Black Knight, the first move is on the opposite side of Dirk's sword (so if his sword is on his right hip, the first move is "left" and vice-versa for the mirror image.) And the third move you missed in The Black Knight board is "up." Hope that helps.

The level of detail of this replica is very impressive! Unfortunately it is no longer for sale :(, don't be sad, your machines are perfectly repairable. Hug!

First time I seen this was @ the ground round. Stamford CT it was placed at the bar area 😇

awesome vid :)

i was part of kickstarter for this and some ppl didnt get there laser disk either. I dont know if u know this but on some levels there r diff ways of doing the level such as the lizard king fight at the end, u can just keep pressing sword or u can use the joystick by pressing in certain directions and dirk will still do the same thing, makes it more challenging.

The Man, The Mystery Himself.

Now if they would only come back in stock so i can get my hands on this it would be great!!!!

"Game facts" for the spit win! :)

Yeah, nice Dragon's Lair scaled cabinet, there..! But, Man what's about that New Super Mario Game and Watch Handheld??? That seems to be VERY interesting!!😃👍👍👍

To bad they are already all sold out so you can only get one second hand for well over $200 now. So glad I helped Kickstart this project just to make sure I received one before they were all sold out.

it's a pretty easy game to beat if you put in the time... I spent at least 40 hours watching people play this game before playing myself. I didn't have much trouble beating the game though I found it rather easy same with Space Ace. I wish game companies would make more games like this for the modern console era!!

My friend and I got so good with it that we would play it with our eyes close to see who got far into the game. I won by getting to the dragon. That's the tile room, the tiles will disappear and reappear as you go through that stage. Dude, do you have Crazy Climber? That used to be a game my best friend and I used to play like crazy.