The King of Dragons
A 1991 arcade beat 'em up with RPG-style leveling.
Capcom brought The King of Dragons to arcades in 1991, a beat 'em up where players journey through Malus to battle monsters under the dragon Gildiss. A leveling system boosts character stats during play, and Yoko Shimomura composed the soundtrack. A Super NES port arrived in 1994, and emulated versions appear in several Capcom collections.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Capcom
- Director
- Tomoshi Sadamoto
- Producer
- Yoshiki Okamoto
- Composer
- Yoko Shimomura
- Genre
- Beat 'em up, action role-playing
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Platforms
- Arcade, Super NES
- Arcade system
- CP System
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The game contains 16 levels, many of which are short. A role-playing video game-like level advancement system is used: points from killing monsters and collecting gold count toward experience, and characters gain levels at regular intervals. Each level increases the health bar, improves attributes such as range, and grants a few seconds of invulnerability. Weapon and armor upgrades for each character can also be found. The control system uses a single attack button and a jump button; pressing both unleashes a magical attack that hits all enemies on screen, varying in strength by character, at the cost of energy. The fighter, cleric, and dwarf can block certain attacks by tilting the joystick back just before impact. Three yashichi power-up items, resembling shurikens, are hidden throughout the game, each granting an extra continue. The five playable heroes have distinct traits: the Fighter excels in melee and defense but lacks magic; the Dwarf is agile with decent melee but short range and little magic; the Elf has good agility and range with archery but is physically weak; the Cleric has great defense, decent magic including healing, and melee attacks but poor agility; the Wizard has poor defense but strong magical attacks and quick melee.
Ports
A Super NES port was published in 1994, reducing simultaneous players to two and making characters smaller. The magic attack and shield defense can be assigned to different buttons. The arcade version appears in Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox (2006), Capcom Classics Collection: Reloaded for PlayStation Portable, and the compilations Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle (2018) and Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (2022) for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows.
Reception
In late 1991, Game Machine reported that The King of Dragons had been the top-earning arcade cabinet in Japan for the preceding fortnight. That November, Micom BASIC Magazine placed it twenty-fifth in its popularity rankings. Critics from Game Zone and Zero offered praise: David Wilson admired the fantasy settings across the levels, while Doris Stokes described it as a solid, pleasantly addictive beam 'em up title. Decades later, in 2023, Time Extension included it on a list of the greatest beat 'em ups ever made. At the fifth Gamest Awards, the game earned second place for Best Action, ninth for Best Production, eighth for Best Graphics, and nineteenth for Annual Hit Game. Micom BASIC Magazine's 1991 Video Game Grand Prize awarded it fifth in the Overall Grand Prize category, sixth in Player Division, third in Best Action, and ninth in Game Center Department. According to Famitsu, the Super Famicom version sold 8,979 units in its debut week and 11,544 units total in Japan. A Super Famicom Magazine readers' poll gave it a score of 21.6 out of 30. Critical reception for the Super NES port was mixed.
More in Capcom Games of the 1990s
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