Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara

Genre: Compilation / Arcade Brawler

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local / Online)

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Review:

Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is a Compilation of two Arcade Brawlers. It includes Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom, first released in arcades in 1994, and Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, first released in arcades in 1996. This compilation of the two was released on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in 2013. Both included games are fairly similar in their structure and gameplay, so I’ll only be noting major differences where I feel they’re warranted.

The presentation for these games bear many of the hallmarks of games of its era. It features colorful, varied pixel art graphics that still look quite nice today, chiptune music that’s not especially catchy, but definitely evokes the era these games were created in, highly digitized voice clips that are wonderfully nostalgic… and a pretty terrible story that’s cheesy in the same way of any 90s arcade game that tried to jam a story into the game.

I suppose Capcom wanted to make good use of the Dungeons and Dragons license while it had it, and as such you’ll see this pair of games shoehorn in a lot of elements that don’t quite fit. As you proceed, enemies will be dropping tons of loot, which needs to be picked up manually. This is frustrating for multiple reasons – it slows down the gameplay, it forces you to juggle fighting and loot-collecting so you can grab the loot before it disappears, and any fighting that takes place near loot can easily see you stopping to pick up loot on accident and leaving yourself vulnerable. Suffice it to say, this is extremely frustrating.

Both games have you managing an inventory of sub-weapons, again befitting the theme, but this once again drags down the game’s pacing as you scroll through items looking for the one you want. Shadow Over Mystara even compounds this problem by bringing up a cluttered menu, something that’s highly distracting while you’re fighting.

As for the gameplay, there is some good action to be found here, and a good variety of characters to choose from (especially in Shadows Over Mystara, which adds two additional characters). Unfortunately, the hit detection in these games is spotty, with hit detection in Shadows Over Mystara being outright atrocious at times.

It’s wonderful that Capcom brought these classic Arcade titles to more recent home game platforms in one cohesive package, but these games simply haven’t aged as well as some of Capcom’s better Arcade Brawlers. Those who had nostalgia for the original games may want to snatch these up while they can, because who knows when they’ll be made available again in the future. But those looking for a truly great Arcade-style Brawler have numerous better options on modern platforms.

tl;dr – Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is a Compilation of two classic Arcade Brawlers – Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom and Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. Unfortunately, these games have terrible hit detection, and their insistence on constantly making players stoop down to pick up loot really hurts the otherwise action-focused gameplay. This is a release that’s only for collectors and fans of the original Arcade game.

Grade: C

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