Arcade Archives Dragon Spirit

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1-2 Alternating (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Releasing in Arcades in 1987 before being ported to various other platforms, Dragon Spirit is a Shmup that follows in the footsteps of Namco’s own Xevious, with gameplay mechanics that allow you to target ground or air units, albeit this time with a medieval fantasy theme, power-ups, and lots of dragons.

The presentation in this game is pretty excellent, with a large variety of cool-looking 2D pixel art enemies, featuring a lot of creativity. This is backed by a chiptune soundtrack that’s decent, though not especially memorable.

When it comes to the gameplay… before even starting this game, go into the settings and turn on “Rapid Fire Ability” for both types of attack. Trust me, if you don’t, this game will be borderline unplayable, forcing you to tap the button for every single bullet you fire in a game filled with enemies you need to take down super-fast. Unless you’re a masochist, you want this game to basically have you using a “turbo” feature.

Even with this feature, this is a very difficult game, but a rewarding one. The great variety of both air and ground enemies, the way that one can become the other, the different ways you can power-up your dragon, the cool bosses… this is a solid entry in the Shmup genre that holds up even to this day. Again, provided you mess with the settings.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. Also, in addition to the “Old Version” of the game, there’s a “New Version” that gives players a level select, which is a nice option. In addition, this release of the game gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

At $8, the Arcade Archives release of Dragon Spirit seems a bit pricey, but there’s not currently another way to play this game on the Nintendo Switch platform, and I would argue that this is a game well worth seeking out for Shmup players. Again, as long as you change the settings. I cannot stress this enough. You do that, you’re in for a good (though still quite difficult) time.

tl;dr – Dragon Spirit is a Shmup where players control a dragon attacking targets in the air and on the ground. For this game to be playable, you really need to go into the settings and enable “rapid fire ability”, but once you do, you’ll find that this is a creative and enjoyable Shmup that still holds up today (though even with rapid fire, it’s still very tough).

Grade: B

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