NOW, in the first of hopefully only 1 evening of making lame shrines, I present to you...
The world's first shrine to Castle Of Dragon!!!
A little background info: I don't know what it is that drew me to this game. At first it was the fact that I had never rented it before. Soon it was the graphics, followed by the simplicity of the game, followed by....ah the hell with it...I always liked the music, especially that of the first 2 stages, which you can d/l for your very own collection here. So anyhow, I'd rent this game, rock out to the music, play through the first 4 stages over and over again until just minutes before the video stores would start racking up late fees. Then something shitty happened: all of the local video stores stopped renting NES games. And it doesn't really matter because 5 years later I bought the game at a flea for $3. Not like that matters as I used the rom for all of the shit for this page.
But if you really wanted to know about the game, I really can't help you that much. I've never once seen the manual and the mags and books I have only give the game limited coverage (limited is being extra generous...I can't recall seeing more than 1 screenshot and 6 sentences about it). So here's my synopsis:
Our story begins at night in and around a castle (don't they all?). Some evil dragon flies in, whisks some standard video game princess away to the evil castle Darklarza (more on this later). (Switch to dorky family friendly Nintendo publication mode) Armed with a sword, knives, and a mace, it's up to YOU to save her. (Back to normal) Are we intrigued yet?
So here's our little world. You start at the Wenlary Castle, battle through 2 stages of the Heresy Forest and finish the quest at Darklarza castle. Before I go on, you should be a bit puzzled as to why I'm even bothering devoting webspace to this game. There is 0 strategy involved in any of this. But you're still reading and I'm still bored so we'll press on.
The skeleton, Swamp Thing looking guy and White Knight are just a few of the crazy characters you'll meet here. The skeleton can be taken care of with just a few swings of your sword. Swampthing is a different story. The bastard can run when you're on the ground and walk when you're not, so it's a good idea to leave enough room between yourself and it so you can jam away on the B button and get a few good shots in before he kills (defeats for you young'ns) you. And the White Knight is something of a cheater. When you hit him,, he teleports back a few steps making you give chase, giving him time to attack you. It's funny that I'm thinking of all this stupid shit to write here. Not once have I been attacked by anybody other than the boss of this stage throughout most of the time I've played this game.
Pressing on, you'll be seeing a lot of these fairies (faeries?). Touch them and they'll fill up your life meter (Is this game not a tribute to manhood? We'll answer that question later as well). Moving again to the right (right being the only direction you ever move in this game), you'll find yourself in a similar spot to the center picture, face to face with this zombie-wizard kinda guy. Should I have decided to deviate from the "0 strategy" platform, I'd tell you to dodge his shots then hit him with your sword. But I have better things to do. Plug away and after enough hits, he dies and you get the blue armor and you can move again to the right (oooh! ahh!) and on to the Heresy Forest. (woooooow!).
Ah, the evil Heresy Forest. I'm genuinely surprised Nintendo let the word "Heresy" into a game. They used to never allow blood or "strong" language such as "kill" or "traction" or "69", yet here's a word you hear the bible thumpers throw around regularly (at least I used to) and nobody says anything. You don't even get a chance to walk before you're attacked by yet another Swampthing so do what you do best...jam on the B button some more. You eventually do get to walk to the right where you'll encounter bats, another skeleton, and another fairy. The center picture shows the boss of this stage, some unicorn-troll thing (Shut up. When I start Creative Writing next semester, I'll put more thought into things like this). Beat him with the same, dare I say it, strategy, and you get the knives...which will help you.....
..in the second stage of Heresy Forest. Your first task is to take care of what could only possibly have been a reject from the Mega Man sixology. Beat him and you get a magical lightning sword that will make even quicker work of the next few enemies.
You should recognize the character in the leftmost screenshot so I won't bore you with the details of beating him again. The center shot shows the first of many pain in the ass jumps you'll have to start making. The bad news is that if you miss the platform and die, you have to start from the beginning. The good news is you get to keep the weapons you've won thus you'll be able to tear through the early stages in no time. Which reminds me that I should take a second to explain the 2 meters in the upper left corner of every screenshot. The yellow on is your life meter. If you've got armor on, when the meter runs out, you lose the armor but the meter refills. The blue meter is an experience meter. Every major enemy you kill adds to the meter and when it fills, both meters expand a bit, assuming you didn't notice anything like this to begin with. Having an expanded life meter is another luxury of dying and continuing. Back to the screenshots, the one on the right should also look familiar so enough of that.
Ok. I'm getting a little better at this. The boss of this stage is a Minotaur. I made all of this up. Seta probably named every single character (including the very imaginative "Skeleton", I'm sure), but, alas, I've never seen the manual. Minotaur runs back and forth and it's best not to give chase so make sure you're using the knives at all times here. How do you switch weapons you ask? Press Start. Beat the Minotaur and you get the mace, a nearly all purpose weapon for all your ass kicking needs. The screenshot on the right is me wasting 12k demonstrating how to use the mace.
Darklarza castle. More walking and jumping and mindless button jamming. The above 6 shots are some of the things you're in for here. The bottom center shot should be the one of the most interest. If you actually have an attention span, you'll recognize this guy as the bastard who kidnapped the princess and made you actually start playing. Beat him and you get the Golden Armor (ooooh!). For all intensive purposes, this SHOULD help you, but I think Seanbaby was on to something every single time he said something about "Nintendo Logic". Anyway, with the armor equipped, move again to the right to fight the first boss...
...a giant Chicken-Lizard! (gasp! shock! oh no!)...What's worse is that he lurks in the evil Darklarza Castle, where, evidently, Darklarza is Latin for "No background". We will find out, however, that this is not the case, but I probably amused myself the first time I said that.
NOW, what most people don't know is that there is more than 1 stage to Darklarza Castle. I think the 1 book I have that covers the game says you can't win without the Golden Armor on, so just try to go through that first stage again. You'll find that there are NO enemies until you get up to Giant Chicken-Lizard again, and you can beat it with or without the armor again and again until you discover that the only way to regain the Golden Armor is to die and go through the stages again. BUT, recent studies have shown that there IS an alternative to getting frustrated and never playing this game again. Pressing Up or Down will allow you to select a stage once you make it to Darklarza. The 3 above shots show 3 of the 4 choices, but don't select the central white stage until you've beaten the other 3. You'll thank me after/if you actually try it.
In the time honored Mega Man tradition of unrelated looking stages, I present Darklarza castle. Right now I know what you're thinking: "You idiot! It looks like a castle! It's supposed to look like a castle!" Trust me on this, because it gets worse. There are one or 2 notable pics here, like the amazing Transparent Knight, and the boss, Madusa, and your prize for beating him/her/it, some shield, followed up with yet ANOTHER dragon battle. A few head shots with the mace will do the trick, and you'll be off to ANOTHER Darklarza stage.
Ok, another castle scene. Shut up, it made sense in the order I first played them. Here's more shots, including the background colored boss.
There. There's you'r unrelated stage. Nothing new here except maybe the green Minotaur. Finally we're ready to go to that central stage where Seta borrowed from....
...Zelda 2! That's right. Fight your reflection. It puts up the exact same fight as you, only it doesn't have the same amount of energy. As you've been doing so far, stand still and keep plugging away and the reflection will go away.
Final battle time. This must be the dragon of whom the "Castle" in the title belongs to. Jump and hit it in the mouth a few times. Now that I think of it, you really DO need the Golden Armor on to win, but you also need all of those things the bosses dropped, which is why you had to wait so long to go to this stage. If you lose the armor, the center pic shows how unpleasant this is as you die, end of story, and apparently it's a slow and painful death. Should you manage to beat the dragon, you're treated first to the pic on the right, then the following end sequence.
Ok, you win, you save the princess, you get a THE END screen complete with credits. And that's Castle of Dragon. Join me next week when I get ridiculously drunk and try to take N64 gaming seriously...or when I just get drunk again.
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