The Dragon (NES) Playthrough
210A playthrough of Raman International's unlicensed 1995 beat 'em up for the NES, The Dragon.
The Dragon is an original platformer/beat 'em up/fighting game created by a group of people who had worked for Thin Chen (Sachen) until that company was disbanded in 1995.
You play as "The Dragon" through a series of side-scrolling action stages loosely based on popular Bruce Lee movies, each bookended by a one-on-one boss fight.
The gameplay is quite similar to Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero's (https://youtu.be/9X0aVSx8fO0) in how it combines the mechanics of a platformer with those of a fighter. Bruce leaps about between platforms breaking open crates in search of items, and when confronted by an enemy, he can punch, high kick, jump kick, leg sweep, or blast the screen with a super move providing he has built up enough power.
It plays unexpectedly well for a bootleg game of this nature. The controls are responsive, the challenge is fair, and I didn't come across any game-breaking bugs in my time with it. It also looks fairly good for an NES game. Flicker runs rampant throughout, but the ripped-off Mortal Kombat sprites stand out against the colorful backgrounds and animate well.
It's not an all-time great by any means, but The Dragon is a respectable effort that plays decently, and that is enough to make it worth recommending to anyone that gets a kick out of exploring the unlicensed side of the NES library.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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