Dragonsphere

Moby ID: 2257
DOS Specs
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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.

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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)

Above average adventure from mid 90's

The Good
In the old days, when adventure games were in their infancy, the plot lines were quite simple. Perfect example out of this would be Sierra's King's Quest Series, of which two first games were rather simple "hunt for the lost objects without any bigger plot".

When the games grew, so did the stories, and Dragonsphere is a good example of how the plot can be more complex than it first seems, for it is the plot, that keeps Dragonsphere above the gray mass of "hero needs to save the day" games.

There also are a variety of puzzles, that don't require any object collection. Speaking and paying attention is enough.

The Bad
As much I did enjoy the plot line, I really need to say, that there are some elements in the game, which I could have lived without. Actually, if those elements would have been removed, or totally changed, like those pesky, annoying elves, the game could have been a lot better.

There also are some amount of leap of logic puzzles, which make the player think "What in the name of all mighty were the designers smoking?". But that is the case with almost all old-school adventures.

The Bottom Line
Dragonsphere certainly is above average adventure. The art is pretty enough, animation is well made and the story is rather interesting. Music in the other hand isn't anything worth mentioning, as it just lingers in the background. There isn't anything to complain about it, but nothing to remember about either.

Voice acting is decent, when compared in some of the mid 90's games, which truly gave new meaning to the phrase "bad acting", but the game works fine either way: with or without it.

So if you are interested about a game, with some interesting plot elements and all in all okay quality, then go for it, if you can find the game some where. It certainly has its place on the shelf of any adventure fan.

DOS · by tomimt (397) · 2006

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

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

[ 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.

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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.