Believe it or not there was a point in time where the Sega Saturn looked like it would be the primary platform for role playing games in the 32-bit generation. Titles like Grandia, the Lunar remakes, and the Shining series were all slated for it and that line-up isn’t half bad. Behind most of these releases was North American publisher Working Designs who had big plans to translate them into English. Plans fell through when Sega prematurely killed the console, but before then Working Designs was one of the most supportive publishers on the platform. One of the role playing games they brought overseas was a strategy title called Dragon Force which released to excellent reviews and a fair amount of hype. I was a little late to the party but it quickly became one of my favorites.
Dragon Force is a strategy role playing game with an anime characters and colorful scenery. The land of Legendra is under threat by an evil god, Madruk, whose revival is imminent. This continent consists of several different countries each governed by a monarch, and you begin by selecting which of these characters you would like to play as. There are eight total, but only six are available during your first play through (the other two feature more unique approaches to the story) to unlock their scenarios. No matter who you choose the story is pretty much the same; your monarch discovers they have a glowing crest on their hand indicating them as a member of the Dragon Force – the only group capable of stopping Madruk should he be revived. You must conquer all of the other countries and bring together all of the monarchs to finally face off against the god of destruction himself. There are a few twists depending on the scenario chosen, but that’s the story in a nutshell.
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| A typical battle scene. Look at how charming those little guys are! |
The way in which Dragon Force plays out is very unique. Rather than moving from battlefield to battlefield in a linear fashion you instead can choose how you want to progress. You have a world map that’s set up somewhat like a board based strategy game complete with destinations and routes. It is from here that you perform all out-of-battle actions such as deploying troops and moving your units around. Because it’s all in real-time, and the map is several screens big, you must frequently monitor the goings on of other countries so that you’re not caught off guard when they attack. A battle ensues when two units (these are groups composed of up to five generals) collide on the map be it when storming a castle or meeting in the wide open. There’s a lot to pay attention to here, and enemy units will get the drop on you from time to time.
Battles are also real-time affairs. You get a side-view of the battlefield as you are shown the formation of troops chosen by the enemy, and then get to choose your own. The battle is over when a general either is defeated or runs away. What’s interesting is that you do not have direct control over any characters during combat. Your units move on their own based on the general command you’ve chosen, and your general is completely stationary. You can only change commands for your units, use your general’s special moves when their bar at the bottom of the screen has filled, or flee. It may sound a little boring but that’s far from the truth – these skirmishes can be pretty massive with a maximum of one hundred units per side! That’s a lot of on-screen chaos and it’s quite fun to watch unfold. Defeated generals are sometimes taken captive automatically, and can later be swayed to join your side which helps to grow the size of your army while hurting your foe.
What makes Dragon Force so special is the sheer variety it offers. The option to choose your monarch is nice, and each specializes in a particular troop type (these all have their strengths and weaknesses) which makes playing as each of them feel remarkably different. The gameplay scenarios from just the map placement makes them distinct from one another. Additionally you will never be attacked by enemies in a linear fashion. Different nations will send different arrangements of generals against you in a random order every time. Each play through is completely unique. Those who enjoy micro-managing will have a heyday here as each general has their own stats, can equip items, and special moves to attack the enemy general and/or army with. Keeping track of one hundred plus generals sounds like no easy task, but Dragon Force makes it painless by allowing you to get as detailed as you want. You will still need to delve out awards to strengthen generals and keep them loyal, but a lot of the other stuff (such as searching for items or fortifying castles) can be ignored with little penalty. This helps to keep the game from being tedious or daunting to new players.
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| The world of Legendra. It takes a lot of work to take over the whole island. |
I do have a few small complaints however. At a certain point in the story a small group of enemies spawns on the map at select intervals and target your monarch. In the beginning it’s the skull children, and later it’s two thieves named Paine and Agonne. The problem is they tend to show up in inopportune locations where you have limited generals and troops making them a real pain as you have to abandon castles to clear a path for them to travel and meet with a more powerful party. This seems to be a mechanism in place to help give valuable experience points to your generals you’ve left behind, but their appearance is downright tedious. By the end of the game their appearances are beyond annoying and this issue really should have been dealt with. Another issue, albeit a much smaller one, is with Working Design’s script for this game. The company is well known for interjecting unusual humor into it’s games, but it can be a hit or miss. The jokes mostly hit their mark here, but random mentions of constipation just feel out of place.
The Sega Saturn is at heart a two dimensional sprite pushing powerhouse machine, and with Dragon Force the developers got to push it quite a bit. The world map is a little underwhelming with a clear lack of detail on both the character sprites (they just look like small avatars of the monarch in question) and terrain (it’s a map, after all). The battles however are very impressive even today. Two hundred independently moving units is impressive to look at, and the fact that you can zoom in and out without even a hint of slowdown is quite an accomplishment. Each troop type has their own animations and while the cavalry and soldier (which just thrust their weapons) are very boring others such as the beastmen (who do a flip when they attack) and zombies are full of personality and downright fun to watch in action. The music doesn’t fare quite as well, but it still makes for a decent and memorable soundtrack. Every monarch has their own world map theme, and we have several renditions of the battle music that play depending on the terrain.
Simply put Dragon Force is the best strategy role playing game I’ve encountered. The sheer variety, micromanaging, and evolving scenarios keep this one high up on my replay list. What’s more is the fact that there’s nothing else out there that’s quite like it (unless you count the sequel, which never made its way overseas). Like most of the best games on the platform Dragon Force will cost you a pretty penny to obtain, but this one is worth its weight in gold.
