Dragoon Might Game Sample - Arcade
55Ah yes...Dragoon Might. You know, when fighters were all the rage and everyone wanted to have fighting games in their "portfolios", due to the success of Street Fighter and a couple others, there were a HUGE number of fighting games, shooters, and more...way back when. Konami wasn't exactly "new" to fighting games, when Dragoon Might was made, but they weren't exactly a "household name" in the genre. Actually, oddly enough, most people that I talk to about Konami fighting games only really knew of "Deadly Arts", which a lot of people thought was pretty bad...a "cult following" amount of folks knew about "Kensei", which had some awesome music and some cool "block and dodge" system within it, which, while the blocking itself was nothing new, the way they made the characters do different dodging of techniques with standard blocking procedures gave the game a more "martial arts movie" feel.
Being released in 1995, Dragoon Might is possibly one of the best, if not, "the best", fighting game under Konami's belt, which is a shame, because I believe the game never saw any sort of release outside of an arcade machine (well...and "this method"). It was largely a "standard" fighting game of the time, but that is not a bad thing. Using the "Konami GX Hardware" (some others using the hardware include Sexy Parodius, Lethal Enforcers II, and Salamander 2), Dragoon Might sports excellent visuals, good music, and a "not broken, doesn't need fixing" fighting system, Dragoon Might features a total of twelve selectable characters, as well as a non-playable final boss during the game's single-player mode (there might be a code or hack to play as Dogma, the boss, though). The story centers around a mythical relic known as the Dragon Medallion that will grant its collector one wish. The Medallion has been broken into thirteen fragments that has subsequently come into the possession of each main character, who must fight each other for their fragments until one of them collects all thirteen of them.
Characters have different strengths and weaknesses...for example, Drake, the spear wielder, has great strength and range, but is naturally relatively slow and his moves leave him pretty open, if you aren't careful. Layla, on the other hand, is faster, but as a tonfa wielder, her range is naturally on the shorter side. Yamato, the man male of sorts, is the "balanced" type, pretty strong, reasonably faster, with a useful moveset for most situations. Characters have numerous special moves, a "Bomber" that takes a small bit of life in Single Fight mode (think of a super move), and a "Super Bomber" that takes a small bit of life and can only be done at low/flashing life (think of an ultra move). In Team Fight mode, you choose three people and have a "POW" meter, similar to some King of Fighters games, and when it is full, Bombers and Super Bombers do not take your life. The "POW" activation can also hit and damage opponents (did not know this during this video, lol) and one is invincible while the activation is occurring.
A bit of less unusual things about the game? Most fighters have weapons, which can be knocked away. When they are knocked away, various moves will not be available to them, so it is good to retrieve them as soon as possible. There are also "hang points", shown in the video, where you can escape to quickly and work towards mounting counterattacks/countermeasures. You can also hit downed opponents, by using a "pursue attack", and downed opponents can perform "rolls", when they are attempting to stand back up. Characters also have a lot of different color variations, which sounds pretty normal, but it isn't as normal as it sounds. The game has adjustable blood settings too --- this video has the setting at the max.
All that said, the next time one thinks of Konami and fighting games, it might be better to think about this, rather than games like Deadly Arts (or known by the hilarious and said to be fitting other name, "G.A.S.P!! Fighters' NEXTream")...unless you like DA...which is fine. Different strokes for different folks.