Review - A Tribute to a lost gem that could have conquered Amiga fans all over the globe...Dragon's Kingdom is the 'Shadow of the Beast' killer that never was. This side scrolling action adventure game had all the potential to become the 'Beast' slayer, but a series of unfortunate events doomed the project before its completion. The game even made it in the form of a playable demo, with all of the graphics, the music, the sound effects, the collision detection, the enemies and the weapons in place. There is little more to say about this forgotten gem; only that a lack lustre C-64 version came out on tape, but ended up being nothing like what the Amiga version could have become. I remember reading about this game back in 1990, in some italian magazine like 'K', that was actually the Italian version of UK vgs magazine 'Ace' and 'The Games Machines' (sister magazine of 'TGM' Britain). At the time, there were adds all over the specialised press, and some memorable screenshots of the Amiga version promised great things to come...

 

By Golden team (Genias) Nicola Tomljanovich (music & sfx) Francesco Martire (coder) Fabio Rossi (grafx & animations) Raffaele Valensise (grafx & animations) Emanuele Tajariol Massimiliano Agostinelli (coder)

 

 

A few weeks ago, I came across an interview of Nicola Tomljanovich, the music composer that was in charge of the audio part of Dragon's Kingdom. I avidly read his interview and then, I just decided to drop him an email and ask him about Dragon's Kingdom. He was indeed very suprised that there were still some people remembering the game. I told him that of course I remembered it since it looked so promising at the time! Anyway, he eventually agreed to post online some of the material he still had. After a few days, this is exactly what happened. He gave me a URL where I could download the Rom of the demo, some very interesting sketches of the level lay out and more! I immediatly set up my Win UAE (Amiga Emulator), and I fired up the game that I had been waiting for so long...I took as many screenshots as I could but unfortunately, only the 1st level is available, but it is enough to showcase the huge potential that this game had! Of course, one can ask what if this game came out? Could it really have threatened Shadow of the Beast, Unreal or Wrath of the Demon off their throne? Could it have topped their technical achievements? These questions will remain unanswered since the sad truth is that Dragon's Kingdom will never be released, but it will rise from its ashes through the internet and through emulation!!

Bottom line: Too bad it never came out, and there should also be a vertical shooting section which unfortunately I never saw....n.a.

 

Here are some screenshots directly from the back cover of the box

 

The death sequence is pretty good!

Dragon's Kingdom is now officially Abandonware for public domain

 

The intro sets a gloomy mood for things to come...

 

Ok so now you are left on your underwear, but luckily you still have a decent arsenal at your disposal since you can choose to use a boomerang, an axe or some kind of mystic energy orb (very powerful!)

 

 

 

Initial level lay out planning (click on thumbnail for bigger-size pic.)

 

Time for the High scores

 

 

Upon finishing the level, you will be left to face...nothing! probably, the player was meant to fight the end of level boss, but we will never know for sure...

 

Thanks Nicola, for sharing it with the web people

 

That's it folks!