Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 6: Namco vol 2

Honestly this was a nice little surprise. I've never been the biggest Dragon Spirit fan around and presumed for ages this was basically going to be the same sort of thing but no, I was totally wrong.

Unlike the likes of Xevious where Namco just hamfistedly jammed the game into a Famicom cart and hoped for the best, this is a fully fledged game of its own complete with new levels, new systems and all manner of scaling differences to actually compensate for the drawbacks of the system.

It makes the game a hell of a lot less frustrating to play and with some of the more 'Arcade' coin grind elements removed, it may have actually snuck into me thinking its the best Shmup ive played on the Famicom/NES. Whattya know... I still can get surprised by these Retro packs huh.

Let me start off this review by stating a take that may or may not get my Namco card revoked: I don't really like Dragon Spirit all that much. I understand it's a classic in many people's eyes for generally being a solid shoot-em-up and for defying general shoot-em-up conventions, but I always found it too difficult and fast for my likings, and always preferred Dragon Saber for being a generally more fair game. I will agree that OST is godly, though, and I can't trust people who doesn't like it's OST. So when I finally played this via it's inclusion on Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1, I figured it would be more of the same, but worse. Oh how wrong I was.

I think the porting to a weaker console really was for the better, forcing them to rethink the design choices with the game, mostly with the difficulty, which is where most of my sore points with the OG lie. First off, there's a health bar! While some might dislike the inclusion of it, I appreciate it, especially with a lot of the one-hit kills the arcade game could throw at you at times. And while still retaining the snappiness and quickness of the arcade game, it's much more methodical with the difficulty this time around, with fewer enemies and death traps on-screen at once, leading to less cheap deaths overall. And considering the arcade game was full of those, this is a very welcome change. While the game wasn't totally defanged (stage 5 in particular really pissed me off), it's overall a much more fair and reasonable challenge than before.

It also apparently adds some new sections in the stages that pad the game length slightly, and some might take it or leave it, I appreciate the new content, like the beginning stage that ultimately selects your difficulty, even if that gets annoying on later playthroughs.

So, what issues do I have with this? Mostly technical limitation stuff. While the graphics and sound are fine for the NES (and I actually like the OST in this version, I like how simplistic it sounds), it's still a far cry from the arcade version, which really pushed the hardware it ran on to it's limits. Some sections on the levels are still pretty bullshit at times too, so they need muscle memory for you to really get past them without a scratch.

While Dragon Spirit diehards might dismiss it for being a supposedly watered down version of a classic shoot-em-up, I still think it holds on its own as a game, and is definitely worth checking out if you found the OG too frustrating and/or wanted more out of it.

One of the few console ports of an arcade game that actually improves on the original. Not only is this NES conversion much easier than the arcade game, it also adds a few extra features not present in the original game. For starters, you actually get to choose your difficulty, in the form of an introductory stage. This takes place at the end of the Dragon Spirit arcade, and the difficulty is chosen based on if you finish the stage or not. At the end of each stage, you will be greeted by a fairy who will help you out if you fulfill certain requirements. Fairies mainly just give you health refills and extra lifes, but it's still a nice addition that adds a little more depth to the game. Despite being much less powerful than the original arcade hardware, the graphics and music are faithfully represented on the humble NES. The stage layouts are also pretty faithful, with some even containing new sections. Level six has a section where your dragon moves much faster than normal, and you have to zip around the oncoming hazards. Details like this really show the amount of care that was put into making this game as good as it could be on the NES. There are some minor flaws, such as the occasionly garish colors and enemies that are nearly impossible to avoid first time playing. However, this is still an excellent game and one of the best shooters the NES has to offer.