Welcome to Modojo, 
Retro Spotlight: Dragon's Lair GBC
Written by Robert Falcon on Monday, March 3, 2008
Dirk the Daring's still making the rounds, and we look back at his portable stop on the Game Boy Color.
How can a twenty-something minute cartoon stand the test of time? When it's Dragon's Lair, my friend. The interactive laser disc arcade game made its debut in arcades exactly twenty-five years ago, back in one glorious arcade season in 1983. The conception of Rick Dyer, Gary Goldman and animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail), Lair put you in control of a heroic yet speechless knight named Dirk the Daring, who worked his way through a dark and stormy castle and its many traps in order to rescue the beautiful Princess Daphne. (Of course, being called Dragon's Lair, he has to contend with, well, a dragon at the end.)
The game has enjoyed enriched success across the board, with years of arcade enjoyment, a couple of faithful home ports, a recent release on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (well, it beats Divx) and an upcoming Nintendo DS port, due in summer 2008.
But out of all the home ports, the Game Boy Color edition is the most surprising. No, we're not talking about the crappy "let's collect 256 gems" Game Boy version, but an arcade-perfect port put together by retro masters Digital Eclipse and published by Capcom for the Game Boy Color in 2001. Dragon's Lair for the GBC got everything right, an accomplishment unheard of at a time when newer systems such as the Game Boy Advance was moving into the market. The game is essentially the arcade game, nearly frame for frame, right down to the cinematic introduction that gives you the lowdown on the in-game characters, such as the Lizard King and the Giddy Goons.
Controls work breezily in this game, just like the original arcade game. You have to time your moves with the animated sequences in order to survive your plight through the castle. Get it right and you'll hear noises of acceptance (bright ding noises), moving on to the next timed move. Get it wrong and you'll hear an error noise (a small dud noise) and Dirk will meet his doom right there on the spot, be it an electrical shorting throughout his body or a confrontation with an enemy that's not pretty to watch. They're arcade perfect, right down to the specific timing of individual stages. One requires you to tap Dirk out of harm's way when stairs shift into a ramp right from under him, or risk sliding down the ramp into a watery grave.
What's really surprising about the Game Boy Color port of Dragon's Lair, however, is just how smooth it runs. Keep in mind that the GBC hardware is inferior compared to the Nintendo DS, and is basically a handheld rendition of the NES. The last time we saw Dragon's Lair attempting to be run on NES-like hardware, we ended up with one of the worst 8-bit games ever made (the NES version, of course). But Digital Eclipse waved their magic wands (we're convinced they had them here) and created a solid port of the original, with most of the frames of animation intact and easy-to-see enemies and scenarios.
Even the stage involving the complicated "rolling balls" of multiple colors is a staggering sight, if only because you can actually see the balls rolling instead of just sitting there. The sound is muted by comparison, but that's okay, as the original arcade game is nothing more than Dirk grunting for his life and occasional musical interludes, rather than a full soundtrack. (The sequel, Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp, however, is a different matter - it boasts a full-blown soundtrack and longer sequences.)
The Nintendo DS version of Dragon's Lair will be arriving sometime this summer from the folks at Conspiracy Entertainment, through programming by Wizardry Engineering, so don't expect any amazing advancements forward like Digital Eclipse did with the Game Boy Color. We'll still get the game in all its glory, of course, spread across two screens. Still, we shouldn't dare forget the GBC port, an amazing piece of programming in its own right. Sure, it may be limited in scope and gameplay and the ride may be over once you figure out all the moves and plunge a sword into Singe's icy, dark heart, but it's all about the journey, not the destination. And Dragon's Lair on the Game Boy Color offers a fantastic one, one that should be honored, respected, and, most importantly, played. Track it down if you can.
And mind the Giddy Goons, they're just a pain in the ass.
