Quiz & Dragons: Capcom Quiz Game (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
141A playthrough of Capcom's 1992 trivia quiz arcade game, Quiz & Dragons: Capcom Quiz Game.
Played through on the machine's default difficulty level.
Quiz & Dragons was an unusual release in the US when it first came out. While there had been some popular bar quiz-style games throughout the 80s, not many were still being produced by 1992. Even fewer still were ever translated to English, and none before Quiz & Dragons had sported such lavish production values. I wonder what convinced Capcom to invest the resources to create what was essentially a brand new, equivalent game for western audiences, particularly because it represents such a niche genre.
Though the gameplay is based on trivia, Quiz & Dragons has some neat twists - rather than adopting the standard "game show" format, Capcom went with dressing it up as an boardgame-themed RPG. Each of the four selectable characters have a unique special ability (for example, the warrior can regain health faster, while the ninja has a chance to do double damage on any of his turns) that will help them on their journey though Capconia to defeat the evil Gordian.
Yeah. Capconia.
I know, right?
There are seven stages to play through, and each has its own map lined with squares for inns (to recover lost life), elves (to win the occasional bonus item), and of course, encounters with bad guys. A six-sided die is thrown to determine how far you move, and once you've landed, you enter a "battle" scene.
The trivia battles are the center-stage gameplay mechanic. Everytime you get a question wrong you lose a hit point, and everytime you get one correct, the enemy loses a hit point. There are items and abilities that can impact the flow of these rounds (for example, you can cut down the number of answer choices you're given, or choose a specific category for questions), and it's surprisingly tense for how goofy it all is. It all makes for a simple but effective system, and one that goes a long way to keep the (fairly long) quest from feeling stale halfway through.
The enemies love to taunt you with all sorts of violent threats, and the character art is really cool, even if there isn't much animation to show it off. The music sounds like typical Capcom arcade fare - a good thing - and the hilariously overdone sound and voice effects (that would feel right at home in any fighting game) are a perfect fit. Who doesn't love hearing a brave hero scream in agony at the hands of a giant dragon because they didn't know what year the Korean War began?
The only real downside to the game is that the questions, as you would expect for a game from 1992, are badly dated. They often expect you to have a good grasp on pop culture, so if you're younger than 35 or so, many of these questions will likely leave you completely clueless. I have to admit that there were several questions that I had to randomly guess at, probably in some part due to how I was just ten years old when this was released.
Still, I've always had a soft spot for this oddity, and I still find it an incredibly entertaining way to blow an hour. Your mileage may vary, though, depending on just how much of the material you do (or don't) know.
I would've loved to have seen a port of this back on the old 16-bit consoles!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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