Dragon Spirit (Arcade) Playthrough [4K]
2"Dragon Spirit" is a vertical-scrolling shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco in 1987. Players control Amul, a human soldier who’s transformed himself into a huge fire-breathing dragon, flying over volcanos, jungles, and glaciers, and through the depths of the ocean. There are nine stages in total, each stage ends with a boss that players must fight in order to progress to the next stage. The last stage culminates in the final battle with the evil snake-thing Zawell to rescue Princess Alicia, the princess of the kingdom of Mitgult.
Amur can use flame projectiles and bombs and can collect power-up orbs for additional abilities. Amur also utilizes a projectile weapon for airborne enemies and a bomb for ground targets. The bombs can be used to destory eggs scattered across stages. These eggs yield one of two power-up items: a blue orb that grants Amur an extra head, enhancing firepower, or an orange orb that amplifies the strength of Amur's shots after collecting three of them. Players can take two hits before dying, indicated by a life bar at the bottom-left of the screen.
The game stands out among other shooters with its unique Paleozoic setting, with detailed sprites and colorful graphics, and a great soundtrack. The difficulty is very high from the start, with long stages containing waves of enemies constantly flying at you or littering the screen with bullets. Amul is also a relatively huge target, especially with three hits, making it particularly susceptible to fire.
"Dragon Spirit" was followed by two sequels, Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (1988) and Dragon Saber (1990). Dragon Spirit was ported to several home consoles and computers, including the Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Sharp X68000 and PC-Engine.