Rise of the Dragon

The Good
Rise of the Dragon for the Sega CD takes advantage of the CD storage capacity by having most of characters dialogue read by actors. Where as the original DOS version of the game had to rely strictly on-screen text.

The acting is actually quite good -especially the voice actor for Blade - and its probably some of the best example of voice acting in a classic point and click graphic adventure game.

The port over to the Sega CD did mean having fewer on-screens colors to work with in comparison to the PC. To address this hardware limitstions, the designers choose to give the game an green tint to the futuristic city.

It actuallys makes the game's environment seem a bit more mysterious. It is hard to describe, but the look and feel of the game reminds me of the first Matrix film.

The designers of this game did an excellent job in creating a dark sci-fi world that you want to explore and learn eveything about.

This game is an excellent story in the adventure game genre and one of the best games ported over to the Sega CD. It is a shame that this game was not ported over to a newer game system.

The Bad
Rise of the Dragon maintains most of the mature themes from the original DOS game, i.e. profanity, drug use (albeit a fictious one) and the many death sequences and bad alternative endings.

The Sega CD game certainly earned its MA-17 label by Sega's own short lived video game rating council.

It's alll rather tame compared to the content seen in Grand Theft Auto, but in the early 1990s home console systems tended to be much more leery about mature or taboo content in a game.

The censorship seen in the Sega CD port is mostly concerned about sexuality. Mild Some of the DOS violence was toned down, although the biggest censorship issue seems to have been all about s-e-x.

Sexual jokes and innuendos are left in tact, but French kissing and implied sex scenes were cut. Their is also a dancer in a night club who was much more "visible" in the DOS game.

Apparently, some things in the video game were just too mature for a CD game given a MA17 label. It is unclear whether or not Sega ordered the content changes or maybe the designer thought did so "voluntarily".

The censorship does not alter the story line significantly. However, given how the game was already classified as being for older games, it seems silly that the original content was censored.

The Bottom Line
Rise of the Dragon is a DOS classic adventure game that is well designed for the CD format. The futuristic setting is diverse and technologically advanced, but also ripe with corruption, urban decay, vice and a serious drug problem. Its a littke bit film noir, and a little bit Blade Runner.