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Dragon Blaze

ドラゴンブレイズ

Developer / Publisher: Psikyo
May 2000
Dragon Blaze [ドラゴンブレイズ] - cover art
Glitchwave rating
3.63 / 5.0
0.5
5.0
 
 
37 Ratings / 2 Reviews
#3,235 All-time
#57 for 2000
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Title
In my opinion, arcade shmups don't get much better than this. Or more fuckin' metal - this is literally a game which consists of bodyslamming enemies with a dragon while dodging hellish sprays of bullets. Of course, you can also command the dragon to blast the enemies with lasers, thunder, or gouts of flame...

I really should just close up the review right there, since that should be enough to make the acquisition of this game #1 on your priority list. But oh my god, it's so much better than that. Each of the 4 characters has a totally distinctive playstyle, which requires separate approaches to both survival and scoring. For example, Ian is very fast and has the best control of his dragon, making him best for scoring, but his charge attacks drain quickly and take a long time to refill. His bomb also is useless as a panic button. Sonia, on the other hand, is unwieldy but packs piercing and spread shots for extra crowd-control capability.

The level design, as is the case with most Psikyo games, is pretty to-the-point. Enemy formations rarely repeat, and only the final stage has a stage portion that reaches the 2-minute mark. Both loops can be finished in less time than it takes to beat one loop of Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu. Contrasted with that brevity are the boss fights, which - also in typical Psikyo fashion - show off elaborate transformation sequences and pack incredibly dangerous attacks if you let them live too long.

Yes, the pace of the game is incredibly frantic. Absolute aggression at all times is the only way to survive the constant spawns of nuisance enemies and avoid seeing boss desperation moves. Of course, the bullet patterns are eye-searingly fast on top of all that, and the loop versions require pinpoint accuracy and timing to dodge. As such, despite being a relatively short game, it's one of the hardest arcade shmups to get a full 1cc of, next to its fellow Psikyo title Gunbird 2. The approach to balls-out challenge is a bit different from GB2, with less emphasis on random suicide bullets and more on Touhou-esque bullet density and visually dazzling patterns.

The reason I consider Dragon Blaze the ultimate arcade shmup is the scoring, of course. It's an elegant and intuitive system that boils down to "hit things with dragon, get coins", but the implications of that mechanic are deceptively deep. Each time you shoot the dragon out, you move more slowly and have lower firepower, and it takes some time to call it back so you can line up the next shot. As such, every single shot comes with tradeoffs - hitting one group of enemies means you won't be able to kill another group before they leave the screen, but it puts the dragon in place to catch a stream of falling coins from an earlier dragon-shot. It's proof that you can make a deep and nuanced scoring system with only one simple ability. One button, no need for the super-finicky clusterfucks you'd find in ESPGaluda II or Akai Katana. Just the satisfying experience of smashing A Fucking Dragon into a clump of enemies and seeing them explode into showers of gold. If only all games could be so fun.

Oh, the music sucks, I guess, but I just mute it and play power metal anyways so that's irrelevant to my review.
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RNG 2016-04-04T04:26:20Z
2016-04-04T04:26:20Z
5.0
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Title
First of all, I should mention that my opinions seem to be almost exactly the same as RNG's, so you can go ahead and skip this review and read his instead if you just wanna know why Dragon Blaze is a fucking masterpiece. I'm going to talk a bit about Psikyo's game evolution in my review first.

Psikyo is developer of many shmup classics known for their overall outstanding quality and simple no-nonsense gameplay. Because many of Psikyo's games are very similar in mechanics, level design and pattern design, if you're a fan of one game you're probably gonna be a fan of a lot of them. However, if you look at how Psikyo evolved going from their first game, Sengoku Ace, up until the final scrolling shmup, Dragon Blaze, then It's going to be clear that they've changed a great deal. The interesting thing is that Psikyo shmup evolution was less about experimenting and trying new things (like what CAVE was doing in the late 90s) but more about slightly altering their formula and perfecting it more and more with each game, all while veering slightly more towards Danmaku design and making the games more manic and hardcore. They started making games that felt more classic, without much of a scoring system, with bland patterns, simplistic and slow paced stages, often empty of enemies. These simplistic and old school games includes Sengoku Ace, Gunbird, and (arguably) the first Strikers 1945. They'd add in a new mechanic or two with each game, and often keep that mechanic for the next game, making the games increasingly more complex. With Strikers 1945 II, Gunbird 2, and Strikers 1999, the games got a lot tighter and way more interesting. I think the ship selection got even more amazing in these, and familiar weapon charging mechanics are better worked in. Item chaining is present in these three, and Gunbird 2 and Strikers 1999 got better at giving you visual cues for the chaining. Gunbird 2 added hidden gemheads, and Strikers 1999 gives you a technical bonus if you defeat bosses in a certain stylish manner. More immediately obvious is the increase in difficulty, the more manic stage design, and the more elaborate boss patterns and transformations. Psikyo games were improving at a rapid pace over the course of just a couple of years, and the aforementioned Gunbird 2, Strikers 1999 and Strikers 1945 II are must-plays, however... they still fall short compared to the next game.

Enter Dragon Blaze. This is the culmination of all of Psikyo's improvement and ideas, and easily their best game. It is also, sadly, their swan song, as no more scrolling shmups would be made afterwards. Unfortunately, shmupping was a dying market, which is why only companies catering to the remaining hardcore audience could keep alive... it is such a sadness that Psikyo didn't make it, because Dragon Blaze is shmupping at its most masterful. At a glance, you can tell it's Psikyo, It's as tight as any of them and has many of the familiar trademarks. However, it will become immediately clear, and increasingly more clear the more you play, that there is no other game at all like Dragon Blaze. Psikyo culminated with an experimental system unlike any other shmup that had ever been made before, and finally made a pure bullet hell game with intense and stylish boss patterns and enemies swarming the screen. The Dragon shot is just such an amazing mechanic. In Dragon Blaze, your fighter rides a dragon, and you're quickly going to run into a lot of troubles, and find your DPS far too low, unless you use Dragon Shot. Ramming enemies with your Dragon in order to deal massive damage is the most obvious use of it. After shooting your dragon, you can move around freely while your dragon sits still. Both you and your dragon can shoot at the same time. You can call your dragon back, or command him to wait in place. While dismounted, your dragon gets a new kind of charge attack (so basically all characters have two separate charge attacks). Psikyo were very fond of melee attacks in some of their past games too such as Sengoku Blade and Gunbird 2, but Dragon Blaze takes it to the next level. Also, in the second loop, some patterns will aim at your dragon and you have to dismount in advance in order to avoid those bullets. Your Dragon can pass through bullets harmlessly while you're dismounted.

But what really takes the genius of Dragon Blaze's gameplay system to the next level is the scoring mechanics and the complementing level design. If you defeat an enemy with dragon shot, coins will start to rain down, the bigger the enemy, the more coins. If you just shoot enemies, you get a lot fewer coins for doing so, so obviously you're going to want to dragon shot as much as you can. But, as RNG explained in his review, all your actions come with tradeoffs, you can't always just dragon shot every enemy and collect every coin. This is what makes Dragon Blaze so amazing, the stages are intricate and fascinating puzzles, all while being utterly satisfying to play. You're ramming things with dragons, collecting coins, and avoiding bullets. It just doesn't get much better than this. Also, even if your routing and dragon shot execution is excellent, it's seriously tough to collect most of the coins that end up dropping.

I'm hesitant to try to delve too deeply into the game in my review, as I don't exactly have the superplay experience (my best run got to stage 3 in loop 2, and I've practiced loop 1 light scoring strats and tried to learn most of loop 2 for survival only). So I'm just going to go ahead and agree with all the points in RNG's review, except I want to disagree that the music sucks (I think it fits the game) and I want to compliment the visuals as well. The character selection, in terms of usefulness and balance, (and perhaps even for its flair), is hands down the best that has EVER been made in any shmup to this day. The only games that could possibly compare are some of Raizing's. (OK, at least with Single player only. If you count Multiplayer then it's probably Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream.) The bullets are a great mix of lightning fast and danmaku-slow, with beautiful, sensible, and engaging patterns. The stage and enemy variety is absolutely phenomenal. The bosses have the Technical bonus, just like Strikers 1999, except the Tech bonus feels better implemented in this game. The bosses are very memorization reliant and there's no room to improvise, but that's just the Psikyo style. This is Psikyo's best, but also their most hardcore and deep shmup, so beginners might want to be wary of this one... unless you really wanna shoot a fucking dragon into enemies... you know you do...
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Catalog

eliottstaten ドラゴンブレイズ 2024-03-16T20:22:28Z
2024-03-16T20:22:28Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
5.555598416172731e+23 ドラゴンブレイズ 2024-02-04T22:49:02Z
2024-02-04T22:49:02Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Giann96 Dragon Blaze 2024-01-21T23:40:42Z
PS2 • XEU
2024-01-21T23:40:42Z
8.0 /10
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
hevykofe ドラゴンブレイズ 2024-01-14T07:32:26Z
Arcade
2024-01-14T07:32:26Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
dolu ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-12-16T03:16:05Z
2023-12-16T03:16:05Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
o______________________O ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-11-07T22:37:27Z
2023-11-07T22:37:27Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Kowareta99 ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-09-30T12:53:50Z
2023-09-30T12:53:50Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
SNA999 ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-09-27T14:09:31Z
2023-09-27T14:09:31Z
3.5
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Sgt_Garlic Dragon Blaze for Nintendo Switch 2023-07-05T14:15:06Z
Switch
2023-07-05T14:15:06Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
robert123451 Dragon Blaze 2023-06-05T20:57:36Z
Windows
2023-06-05T20:57:36Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
robert123451 ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-06-05T14:47:36Z
2023-06-05T14:47:36Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
BoostGuardian ドラゴンブレイズ 2023-05-03T13:43:57Z
2023-05-03T13:43:57Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Player modes
1-2 players
Multiplayer options
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  • ... 2022-02-22 13:53:05.150594+00
    I love this game. My second favorite shmup after Ketsui.
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