Dragon's Lair

The Good
Older gamers will be able to appreciate the walk down memory lane, without having to invest in an arcade machine.

The Bad
The severe hardware limitations of the Sega CD means that this port of Dragon's Lair features grainy, low quality full motion video that is not even full screen. Much of the appeal of these type of games is visual and a great deal of the creativity Don Bluth Studios simply can not shine through the hardware limitations.

Setting aside the visual limitations, game play is reduced to a frustrating process of trial and error. Unlike similar games for the Sega CD, such as Revenge Of the Ninja, Time Girl and Road Avenger, their are no [with few exceptions] on-screen hints and your timing must be precious or else you get to witness Dirk's grainy full motion video demise.

The game does not offer you any additional options, such as adjusting the high difficulty level and their is actually very little in the way of music or sound effects in the game.

Dirk fails or succeeds without much voice work and their are mostly only brief sound effect.

If you are successful in defeating the dragon and saving the princess, a rather cliched objective, your reward is a brief ending and the opportunity to do it all over again.

The Bottom Line
Dragon's Lair is a classic full motion video arcade game that suffers from the hardware limitations of the Sega CD and the lack of even the most basic options. Older gamers may enjoy the walk down memory lane, but only briefly. Gamers would do better to look for a different pot of this arcade classic and look at this is a fine example of what was wrong with the Sega CD.