Dragon's Lair

Port

Nintendo Entertainment System

MotiveTime Ltd. · Published by CSG Imagesoft

Released December 29, 1990

Dragon's Lair is a side-scrolling platform game based on the laserdisc game of the same name released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and developed by the MotiveTime group. Plotwise, the game is identical to the original. The game is a side-scroller with the character walking slowly. Dirk can walk, crawl, or jump forward, and he has an array of weapons that he can discover and use to dispose of enemies. The controller layout is reversed from other mainstream NES titles, with Select functioning as the Pause-button while Start is used for the Candle object (which helps reveal hidden weapons). Also, B is used for jumping, and A for attacking (the input of the A & B buttons is almost always the opposite in similar NES games). Two different versions were released later, first for the Famicom, with major improvements on playability and speed, and a second one for PAL regions, expanding upon the Famicom version with new enemies and cutscenes.