Dragonsphere

Moby ID: 2257
DOS Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/22 10:07 PM )
Included in

Description official descriptions

The young Callash has been just crowned the king of Gran Callahach. Twenty years ago the land was in grave peril, as the evil sorcerer Sanwe planned to conquer and ruin it. But the old king's court wizard Ner-Tom magically imprisoned Sanwe using the powers of the Dragonsphere spell. The sorcerer swore to avenge his humiliation once the spell's energy runs out. Now, this time has come, and the young hero must defeat Sanwe before he breaks free. As he approaches the sorcerer's prison, he is yet to realize that dealing with Sanwe will lead to startling realizations concerning his own self, and unravel a new sinister plot...

Dragonsphere is a graphic adventure in the classic third-person LucasArts and Sierra style, and the third adventure game by MicroProse, similar visually and gameplay-wise to Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender. The interaction with the game world is performed by applying one of the ten different verb commands to objects and/or people. Additionally, each object has several unique, specific verb commands that can be applied giving the player quite a number of possible combinations of object usage and sometimes more straight forward resolution to the problem. The game contains vast amounts of unique text responses to player's actions and branching dialogue with characters. Some of them are fatal for the main character so they need to be chosen wisely or accordingly to the presented facts and observations. The puzzles are, for the most part, inventory-based. The game features hand-painted backgrounds and some digitized animation.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

72 People (64 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 18 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 44 ratings with 5 reviews)

Decent Graphic Adventure

The Good
"Dragonsphere" (1994) has all the basic ear marks of a great third person perspective, point n' click, graphic adventure game, i.e. an original storyline, locations to explore, characters to talk with, items to pick up and puzzles to solve. For the early 1990's, the graphics and music are good and the game even tosses in some nice, unexpected, plot twists.

The Bad
Michael Bross worked on the music and has talent shines through. However, the other sound effects are largely forgettable. The voice talents are not bad, but they never go far beyond what one might expect from a B movie on the science fiction cable channel. While the storyline does demonstrate real creativity, it’s hard to avoid the homage’s to Tolkien and other well known sources of fantasy art and fiction. In terms of game play, the Microprose Adventure Development System provides for smooth point n’ click gaming. Time limits in adventure games generally bother me, although it is a logical extension of the storyline. This is not for novice adventure gamers as many of the puzzles are actually quite challenging and death is frequent.

The Bottom Line
"Dragonsphere" (1994) is a challenging point n' click graphic adventure game set in an original, but familiar, fantasy based world of monsters, might and magic. It may be too hard for novice adventure gamers, and it is probably not the best introduction to the genre. Yet, more experienced adventure gamers should give it a try.

DOS · by ETJB (428) · 2010

Great fantasy-like adventure

The Good
Simple yet has great hand-drawn graphics. Good background music, while it's been out only at the begining of 1994. You don't get bored with this game. It's not too hard and not easy at all.



The Bad
What didn't I like? Umm, nothing? When I started playing it seriously I didn't stop before I managed to finish it. The ending was a bit disappointing but still, You can't expect a real outro for no CD games, could you?

The Bottom Line
If you liked the basic idea behind King's Quest series this one is kind of better since it makes a whole new world and doesn't use the Greek mythology and other things as in King's Quest.

DOS · by Auphyr Doitch (9) · 2001

Adventure game that gets only better with time.

The Good
I remember bits of the game from my youth, when my brother played it (I was 4 at the time, I think)...

I loved the graphic style, and when you bear in mind that this IS a 1994 game... it's brilliant. A bit kitsch, reminding me of Monkey Island 2.

Storyline? Great. Don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The Bad
Puzzles got a bit anally retentive at times, with the One Correct Way to do things. But it was worth playing with a walkthrough ready at hand just to continue.

My only major qualm in the game is the gambling sequence, when the character involved repeats the same line over and over again... It's a flawed "puzzle" concept itself, with the protagonist gambling for nothing and the other giving things of great value away as if there were several million in the world.

I found the fetch-take-fetch-take "puzzles" a little annoying. But the more experienced adventure gamer will be better at going through backgrounds to find that little item that you missed.

The Bottom Line
What's interesting is that despite being given a sword at the beginning, contrarily to many games of this sort, it is only ever used three times, and only once is it actually used correctly. :D

But the bottom line? Despite my apparent lack of description in favour of it, it's definitely not a game to be missed. I finished it in well under 12 hours, but still a fun way to pass the time.

And now it's free. Do you need further convincing?

Windows · by Darren Marcus (2) · 2011

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

CD version

In addition to the disk version, Dragonsphere was also released on CD-ROM that featured full speech.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2257
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by ududy.

Linux added by Sciere. Windows, Macintosh added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Roger Wilco, Jeanne, Patrick Bregger.

Game added August 29, 2000. Last modified January 20, 2024.