It’s inevitable for different media to draw inspiration and influence one another, and Dragon Force was released in the wake of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart Oscar win in 1996, and captured the same spirit of the movie’s epic battles with a side-scrolling battle system with armies that could go up to 100 troops on each side - each unit individually rendered.
For me, no other battle opening sequence in the 32-bit era was as epic as Dragon Force at its best - with the battles starting with the general’s dialogue before scrolling through the entire battlefield over both armies (which were epic when it was 100 vs. 100 battles), to the opposing general and ending by a loud battle roar to commence the battle - the epic-ness of that sequence gave me chills even after 8 playthroughs with all 8 playable characters, and remains one of my favorite moments in gaming!
For me, no other battle opening sequence in the 32-bit era was as epic as Dragon Force at its best - with the battles starting with the general’s dialogue before scrolling through the entire battlefield over both armies (which were epic when it was 100 vs. 100 battles), to the opposing general and ending by a loud battle roar to commence the battle - the epic-ness of that sequence gave me chills even after 8 playthroughs with all 8 playable characters, and remains one of my favorite moments in gaming!