Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair

Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair

released on Nov 17, 2002

Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair

released on Nov 17, 2002

Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair is an action-adventure video game released in 2002 by Dragonstone Software. The game is based on Cinematronics' 1983 laserdisc arcade game Dragon's Lair, and follows a similar story; the hero, Dirk the Daring, must enter the evil wizard Mordroc's castle to rescue Princess Daphne from Singe the dragon. Many of the characters and locations from the 1983 original make appearances in the game, along with new puzzles, rooms and enemies. Animator and director Don Bluth, who produced the cartoon animation for the arcade original, also produced two new animated sequences for the opening and ending of the game. The game uses cel shading to mimic the distinctive style of the original.


Also in series

Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread
Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle
Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair

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Reviews View More

Honestly I really enjoyed this. The choice of cel shaded characters over a non-cel shaded background looks fresh, and the music is phenomenal. Platforming itself can be clunky at best, but this game gets more love from me due to its oodles of humour and charm. Don Bluth was so goddamn passionate about this.

The most average game, which suddenly at the moment, thanks to its cartoonishness, looks quite beautiful, but the game deserves to burn in the hell of 3D platformers that make you die in one place 20 times over and over again. The game breaks up the original a bit with its plot, but overall it's not that different. You won’t find more adventures on Dirk’s ass, only here not only your ass but also your gamepad will burn.

Максимально средняя игра, которая внезапно на текущий момент благодаря своей мультяшности выглядит довольно красиво, но игра заслуживает гореть в аду 3д платформеров, которые заставляют раз за разом погибать в одном месте по 20 раз. Игра немного разбивает оригинал своим сюжетом, но в целом он не сильно отличается. Больше приключений на жопу Дирка вы не найдете, только тут сгорит не только жопа но и ваш геймпад.

This review contains spoilers

this game is not as good as the first 2 games, but it's still good. The Story is that Daphne gets kidnapped and you have to look for her, which is the same story as the first game, but with added twists hidden in the game that more than make up for that, and I won't dare reveal here. The Characters are the same as the first 2 games, and the new characters are a great addition. The Graphics are not as great as the previous 2 games, but does capture the art style into 3D form very well, and is very appealing. The Gameplay has you make your way from one area to the next looking for Daphne, while avoiding enemies, and traversing through tricks and traps throughout the castle, this is very fun to explore and play, there are a number of potions that can help you, fun secrets areas, and the traps are ones you have to be aware and think about sometimes, but I do have a few concerns with the gameplay, firstly it takes away from the original games by changing the deaths from not pressing the right button, to a health bar that requires being hit enough times to die, however I will say that it actually fits better for this 3D game, but that doesn't change the fact it is a downgrade from before, also the deaths themselves are nowhere near as hilarious as before, and that is something this game should have done to make it better, also some traps can feel unfair, and for some players impossible to avoid in time, and you do the same stuff over and over, during normal gameplay, so if you don't like that, this game will get tiring in that aspect, and that one line where Daphne tells you through magic that she is upset you are searching for treasures over saving her, makes you not want to sidetrack for her sake, which is a bad idea for a game where you do a lot of the same stuff anyway. The Music is fantastic and does make each level more enjoyable, and composed better than it needed too. Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair delivers a good mixture of difference and similar, mostly.

Dirk the Daring makes the transition to 3D with all the grace and elegance of... well, Dirk the Daring. Dragon's Lair 3D has the feel of one of "those games." The kind from this generation where it all works functionally and there's a clear amount of love put into it, but lacking any polish. Combat is extremely clunky, every enemy is programmed to stun lock you, jump inputs are often a suggestion, and audio bugs from huge differences in volume to sounds playing randomly in the background fill nearly every moment of the experience. In a very unintentional way, these flaws keep a lot of the "spirit" of the original FMV game alive. It's frustrating and often unclear what you did wrong or what was actually meant to happen.

All that said, it still works as an action-platformer. For the parts that work, there's a decent amount of charm in Dirk's character and animation, the environments are simple but vibrantly colored, and the cel-shaded graphics hold up decently (with the exception of Daphne, who appears to be made of 6 thick black lines fighting with each other for dominance). It's not the most compelling game in the world, and it gets very aggravating in the back-half when they start adding "new" content that goes beyond the ending of the original game, but there's a decent little adventure here led by one of gaming's more endearing heroes.

A hidden gem that added a whole new feel to Dragon's Lair, too bad others don't see it that way.

Not a bad game, but disappointing, as it doesn't really have much of what made the original games special. Instead, it plays like a passable but mediocre Zelda clone.

However, the story has a nice twist at the end, and the graphics still look good 20 years later, so it does have that.

Worth a try if you liked Dragon's Lair.