Suishō no Dragon

Transcription

I’ve written about some odd crap in my time. But Suishou no Ryu… no, wait, they want it spoken as “Suishou no Dragon?” And they’re just going to call it Crystal Dragon anyway after you beat the game? Seriously, I don’t even know what to call this thing. Here’s what’s easier to pin down: It’s a 1986 point-and-click adventure game, from Square of all people - meaning, yes, that’s Nobuo Uematsu doing that pretty awesome title-screen song - with character design by Nippon Sunrise. What does that mean? You’ve got the firm responsible for Gundam, working with the firm that - a year later - would go on to create Final Fantasy. Unfortunately, this is one of the games that gave Final Fantasy its name. As stock teenage protagonist Hugh, your goal is to rescue your telepathic would-be girlfriend Cynthia after a giant freakin’ dragon… which I suppose is made of crystal… blasts your shuttle right out of space and you’re forced to evacuate. Along the way you meet the enigmatic Eugene… weird name for a woman, but we’ll chalk it up to Japan not really knowing any better… scam a space-scooter off the geriatric Dr. Obaba, engage in shady dealings with plot-related junk merchant Mr. Gee… all while using an icon-based command system to point and click and interact with your surroundings. Yeah. Not exactly the most riveting television, I know, but Suishou no Dragon does bring some welcome, if basic, animation to the table… in places. You might notice that Nobuo Uematsu title-screen track looping throughout this footage, though… owing to the fact that the game itself doesn’t actually have any music. Occasional sound effects, yes. But they’re very occasional. Here’s a chunk of what you’re dealing with, otherwise. Yep, this is why Final Fantasy was FINAL Fantasy. Despite some envelope-pushing visuals, it’s just not a retail-level game experience, in a time when that was really all there was for getting your game out there. (Unless you felt like copying the entire thing, line-by-line, out of a magazine.) Fortunately, if you do sit down to play this thing, you’re not investing much; the entire game can be completed in 104 moves. 20 minutes, tops. Despite this, there is a Save function included, because why not. Honestly, I’ve shown only about two minutes of footage thus far and I’m feeling kinda scared about giving away too much of the plot. So let’s switch gears and talk about the MANUAL. Normally, this would be a cop-out, but just take a LOOK at this thing! This is the real attraction. Featuring all the game-related information you’d expect from such a book, plus a rather extensive manga-style prologue to the story, this manual is everything that the game isn’t. And, despite being printed on dead trees, in in the face of Dr. Spengler’s admonishment that “Print is dead,” it still holds up better than the game on the disk itself. I fear that, before Felicity in Worcestershire shipped these up to the Final Destination Space Platform or wherever we are, that a Hamster must’ve stowed a magnet in a cheek pouch and reenacted scenes from Saturday Night Fever all over these boxes. This apparently gave everyone in the game outbreaks of cold sores during certain animation frames. Don’t think about that too hard.