Dragonseeds Game Sample - Playstation
47NOTE: Do not watch beyond 1:33:00 if you do not want to see "the ending"!
Dragons everywhere! Well, if you love dragons, that sounds great, right!? Hmmm...well, that is just too bad, because in typical fashion, this Jaleco title is rather strange. There are definitely dragons, but most of them don't look like any dragons you have come to see in most dragon-related lore. For example, one "dragon" is a bug...a wasp, to be exact. Clearly not a dragon...but HECK, who cares!? There could very well be a dragon wasp, since we don't know everything there is to know about dragons!
My silliness aside, Dragonseeds (sometimes known as Dragon Seeds) is another weird Jaleco offering and it is a "Dragon Breeding Simulation" that was trying to blend in with the "Monster Rancher" and such of the time. No, I don't compare it to Pokémon because you don't exactly "capture" monsters on a field (even though the game will let you "capture" various "dragons", depending on your memory card data, kinda like how you get random creatures in Monster Rancher depending on CD)...it is more of a breeding game, though sadly, the breeding is also very minimal, contrary to what one might expect. Dragonseeds is a game that has promise and EXCELLENT music from Kenichi Arakawa and Ryo Yamazaki, but the gameplay is just so limited and while we had a video for this ages ago, revisiting this game to do it proper justice hit my nostalgia in a negative way just a bit...
The basic story, deals with "you", a new dragonsage who has arrived at Warm City with dreams to become a top dragonsage. The story is EXTREMELY limited, so I will generalize; you give scientists "phrases" that they transform into a newborn "dragon", that you then take out of a nursery, buy a weapon and shield for (yes...dragons that fight with weapons and shields), and you "breed" it in a very plain way to boost stats to compete in an arena to become #1. The game has a handful of NPCs, very little dialogue, and little to do. The "sim aspects" to raise your dragon are nearly non-existent. With the exception of going to your apartment, moving from place to place costs time, which counts as "rest", which boosts HP, but increases weight, that drops your evasion rate. 3 hours pasts with each movement and your day starts at 6AM and the last action you can take in the same day occurs at 21 : 00 (9PM...had to space it so it isn't a "video time jump"). The exception is the arena...to a point. In the early levels of the arena, each session is 3 fights, and each of those fights take 3 hours, so 9 hours pass with one arena entry. Later, each fight costs 3 hours as you fight one battle. Fighting and/or training is how you avoid "resting" and you can build multiple stats from fighting, but only rest and items raise HP. You can also fight in a bar (Pablo's) and place bets, which is the EASIEST way to make crazy money.
Training can be done in three ways: "Muscle", "Special", or "Virtual". The first two are pretty generic "mini-games" that test your eyes, ears, and fast reaction. I actually have a "strange" thing I can do with my eyes so that I easily see panels in the "Special" mini-game...I even show you later in the video that it isn't cheating, by getting perfect multiple times in a row. I can do the same thing with Azure Dreams' slot machine...I can "see" the perfect line-up and get all 7s every single time...but anyway, "Virtual" is just a normal fight, but your dragon can't die. Speaking of death, if you feel your dragon will lose, you must surrender to keep it alive (not needed in "Virtual" training), otherwise, it dies and you must raise another. I don't want to say too much, but once you figure out the basic flow of the game, you really don't need more than one or two dragons to "beat" it, especially if you understand how "Super" dragons work.
The game is largely extremely easy up until the very end, because while the game uses a sort of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" system, there *are* things you can sorta exploit. For example, playing defensively is almost always better than playing offensively, because you can count how many times the CPU uses special attacks...in the early leagues, usually after 3 or 4 shots, you know they are out of special attacks, which is kinda like eliminating "Rock", so they only have "Paper and Scissors". I can say more, but I will let you figure out the rest, if this footage intrigues you. The video should explain the gameplay, generally.
While DS is limited on dialogue and gameplay, it does have a rather excellent soundtrack and the visuals are serviceable. Also, it goes without saying, but there really aren't many games like it, period. If the game had more interesting characters, a deeper plot maybe, and some other mini-games...maybe a small, traversable world, it would have appealed a lot more. However, I still remember Azami all the same. Her and the music were all I remembered, lol...