The Weirdest D&D Game's Weirder Spinoff | DragonStrike (NES)

[@WilliamSRD]

Sign up to the DragonStrike mailing list to keep up with the kickstarter: dragon-strike.com/?KZbin&Influencer&Influencer Hop into their Discord to try the beta version: discord.gg/Mb6AK5Vrbw

[@zanrak3922]

Appreciate that you actually take fitting and somewhat interesting sponsors instead of the generic VPN/mobile game trash

[@silvermknight]

This one deserves a Shovel Knight style remake. Lots of cool ideas here that could be realized now that we are no longer limited by the NES and only want to use its aesthetics and gameplay loop.

[@patersonplays]

As one of your older viewers who lived through the era when Nintendo ruled the world, unfortunately a lack of storytelling was a major feature of this time period. Many games had a single "Congratulations, you win" screen at their end and still focused on arcade style high scores, extreme twitch reflex difficulty and memorizing stages and attack patterns as the main "reasons to play". For a comparison, look at the original Ninja Gaiden. Simple in it's delivery these days, but blew our minds back when it first released and, along with a handful of other titles, paved the way for more immersive storytelling titles.

[@DarkwyndPT]

I really liked the 1st half of the video. Westwood Studios wasn't the only studio that was porting DOS games to the NES. Rare was also doing. And a curious fact was that the developer of Sea of Thieves ported Sid Meier's Pirates to the NES, which became the best 8-bit version of that game IMO.

[@jamesmason3734]

it's interesting how out there D&D video games got, You'd think 95% of them would be turn based RPGs but if anything those are the exceptions.

[@Bluecho4]

I know, right? Then again, I suppose there's something fitting about deviating from the turn-based formula. If people wanted turn-based D&D, they could just play the tabletop game, right? I have a feeling that might have been a talking point somewhere in TSR management at the time.

[@richardkenan2891]

I'm kind of surprised there's not a Spelljammer/Stellaris hybrid game. Or maybe Spelljammer/Battlestar Galactica Deadlock hybrid. But I suppose those games came after the age of truly weird D&D spinoff games had come to a close.

[@amelialonelyfart8848]

@@Bluecho4 Maybe they thought turn-based gameplay was a limitation beset of a tabletop game and not something to be enjoyed by its own merits? I can imagine some people thinking that before Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy blew up the turn-based formula (I know Ultima came first but those games gameplay oft left much to be desire) Still, doesn't account for the first Balder's Gate/Icewind games being quasi-RTS's or all the hack and slash's out there. Guess a lot of them want to emulate the feeling you get remembering your games moreso than the actual mechanics of them.

[@fandraxx]

Can confirm: watching SRD try to beat this game behind-the-scenes felt like an Olympic trials qualifier - and I wasn't even the one playing.

[@WilliamSRD]

THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT WAS GREATLY APPRECIATED

[@Empowerless]

Fandraxx + Williamsrd crossover. Mind blown!

[@CrowePerch]

2:12 God this was so fun to play. The shift in pace in a game with 8 dragons on the field made it so hectic.

[@clashofspears8131]

And don't forget all that friendly fire! :)

[@davidromeroblaya7920]

"I described Dragonstrike tone as Dragon Staligrand." Don't get me ideas for a setting where dragons are used as an air combat vehicle during WWII, William.

[@nikoladedic6623]

Well, there is already Napoleonic version.

[@planescaped]

18:47 "we were courted by many companies, but in the end we knew that EA would provide us with the best infrastructure and support that we need," lol, it's like a horror movie where you see one of the characters taking about how wonderful the serial killer is.

[@littleNorwegians]

Feeling brave tonight? Wait, wrong Dragonstrike.

[@Bluecho4]

How brave?

[@Insertcoin22]

Can I be the wizard?

[@Unregistered.HyperCam.2]

@@Insertcoin22 You're on. Good thing you wanna be him, cuz he's the only character left.

[@deandelossantos1645]

I find it super interesting they kept the "Dragon's breath weapon damage is equal to their Hit Points" mechanic for this game. It's such a small detail that really affects so much of the gameplay

[@Plachno85]

Lmao wasn’t expecting Night Witches seconds into a dnd vid but *chef kiss*

[@ShinoSarna]

I think lack of text is less due to Westwood not caring and more due to technical limitations. Dragonstrike on DOS came on 4 floppy disks adding up to about 7 megabytes. Dragonstrike NES takes up 167 KILObytes of ROM on a cartridge. And remember - one text character is a byte, and so a thousand characters is a kilobyte. And 500 characters is length of a single tweet. You notice this also in RPGs on the NES that they tend to have much, much less text than RPGs on DOS or SNES.

[@ShinoSarna]

That's also why there are NO text adventures on NES and very few visual novels.

[@ThoughtyTheWrangler]

I remember playing Dragon Spirit when I was really young. This other kid at school heard me describe it and said he’d played it too. but he mentioned the Dragon “shrinking” and it confused me. I mentioned getting extra heads on the Dragon and that confused him. So yeah, years later, found out we were talking about different games entirely.

[@TKnightcrawler]

Makes me want to make a game like this on Virtual Boy. All red and black, so I guess you'd be a dragon rider in the Lower Planes.

[@Nathan_Talisien]

This looks like a game I played on Playstation 3 called, IIRC, "Dragon's Horde". Which I really liked for couch co-op, btw, lol.

[@houraisheperd9721]

If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s just called Hoard.

[@Nathan_Talisien]

@@houraisheperd9721 Maybe...? My memory is far from perfect, and my PS3 has been gathering dust in the closet for years now, lol. *EDIT: I Googled some screen shots and you're right, mate- that's the game I was thinking of!

[@Kenshiro3rd]

0:04 HELL YEAH! SABATON'S NIGHT WITCH!

[@z2ei]

I had this as a kid and I liked it (It's a D&D game where you fly dragons, of course I did) but yeah, it's hard as nails.

[@4fives992]

The Dragonstrike setting is so cool. I'd love to see it utilized again.

[@craigh5236]

The title dropping you made just walked me through my childhood.

[@injunjoe8967]

Thank you for covering the NES version of a 'DragonLance' game; I want to develop a board game that uses AD&D mechanics and works like the DragonStrike board game- (the TSR one with the video)it had a different theme to the kickstarter one; I stream the Dos version all the time.

[@Sashko_Dee]

@11:54 I mean pushing down to go up on the flight yoke is how you fly dragons IRL.

[@AuntieHauntieGames]

I love me some WilliamSRD in the morning.

[@jaymilligan9628]

I still have the cartridge of this game packed away somewhere. I loved this game! I never had a PC when I was young so I never compared this to the original. But I was a huge Dragonlance fan so this game was very exciting to me. And compared to most shooters, this one stands out. It wasn't a vertical scrolling arcade shooter. You can fly around in any direction and decimate the enemies. And as you mentioned, the different altitudes was also unique. I knew the story since I read the books, so I wasn't disappointed in the lack of depth. I just jumped in and played. So, if you don't compare this to the PC flight sim, this is a shooter based on a D&D campaign setting that challenged the genre and did a great job at it for a console that rarely got SSI D&D game ports.

[@nazgulsenpai]

+100 points for the Sabaton in the introduction

[@synthetic240]

I find it funny that dragons should lose breath-weapon strength as they lose hp. In classic AD&D that is how their breath weapons worked; they dealt a flat amount of damage that was 1:1 with their current hitpoints. Fine when you want to kill one and get the drop on it, kind of awkward as a design choice in a videogame where you play the dragon. I wish this game had a melee option to counter the breath weapon damage loss. I could tell from the gameplay shown here that it's hard enough to hit things with your ranged weapon, but it would've be great if you could risk damage by getting close and dealing a killing blow that way.

[@ChaseTheVerb]

babe wake up new William srd video just dropped

[@iskende]

Another banger, though short. Love your stuff!

[@Liiineeepiiieeeceee]

Wait werent you supposed to release a Wraith videogame video before even the previous one?

[@miroslavzima8856]

I wonder if this was inspiration for book "His majesty´s dragon". Also awesome review as always!

[@jesuschrist9677]

on the topic of the music, this is the first game that frank klepacki composed for.

[@swordmonkey6635]

Not influence by Bullet Hell, but by the iconic 1980s arcade game, Galaga.

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

Touhou's DOS era would have been finishing up during this era as well, so depending on which side of the ponds you are, technically still coulda been accurate.

[@swordmonkey6635]

@@gratuitouslurking8610 Galaga came out in 1981. This game is clearly inspired by Galaga's mechanics (that inspired many, many, many clones).

[@mefpazur]

It would improve your emulator footage by a lot if you added some of the modern "CRT-feel" filters/shaders. What looks like a grainy mess of perfectly square pixels when displayed on an LCD was designed to be viewed on a monitor which had buit-in anti-aliasing and color-blending of neighboring dots, and this is one of the games that where it would make a huge difference.

[@lordofuzkulak8308]

0:12 - it’s an NES game. There is no easy mode.

[@AmicusVirtutis]

Dragon Spirit on NES is a total gem

[@Bear-co2hb]

16:55 You missed a chance in calling it Stalin-drag

[@WilliamSRD]

DAMMIT

[@sovietdominion]

Is this before or after warriors of the eternal sun? some sprites look directly taken from that game

[@jonothanthrace1530]

Those pixel beholders are adorable.

[@Triple_R_93]

This game was literally my intoduction to D&D as a child lol

[@JCLegendary]

I can see writing in general just not being a priority on the NES. I had an NES before I could even read. Most devs probably thought that was the kind of audience they were creating for back then.

[@ninjacat230]

At least they did one thing right. I don't want to RIDE a dragon, I want to BE a dragon!

[@killerbee1974]

If they made this a $10-$20 game on steam with modern graphics it would work as a AA game

[@Billy.Bacsko]

RIP Dragonlance

[@popsiclesshubert9609]

A cursory look at WS's wikipedia seems to suggest that DragonStrike was their only game on the NES? (Might be wrong on that) It came out in '92, the SNES came out in NA in '91, one almost wonders why they didn't decide to bring it to the newer system instead. Though, if they were losing interest in making ports I suppose it makes sense why they went for the console that wasn't pretty much brand new

[@WilliamSRD]

By the looks of it they had to specifically work with a Japanese publisher to produce an NES. Might have been part of the Chronicles of Mystara deal between TSR and Capcom, but that's just speculation, really. If it was, that deal was apparently a huge pain license-wise, so It's not surprising that Westwood didn't get another crack at it (in association with D&D, anyway.)

[@DrPluton]

If I want a D&D video game from AD&D 1st edition, I'm going for Pool of Radiance for NES. Dragonstrike doesn't look like a game I would enjoy.

[@jakubmakalowski6428]

You forgot to specify this is not related to the 93 board game dragon strike

[@melgranger6450]

Hey the face boss before Takhisis do you know what that is supposed to be? For some reason I kept thinking the evil moon god but pretty sure i am wrong

[@Frank-Voight-Kampff]

I miss my C64. Maniac Mansion. The Last Ninja. Zaxxon. Spy vs. Spy. Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. Sex Games! Could even write small programs with it. Good times.

[@joejonsen3706]

What was the song you used while explaining the game at the beginning?

[@WilliamSRD]

At what time code?

[@matija191gmaj]

​@@WilliamSRD 01:55 -03:30 🙂

[@Thief4412]

​@@WilliamSRD0:04 which has the power metal song

[@WilliamSRD]

@@matija191gmaj That'd be this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKW0qoRnpt2Ub5Y

[@WilliamSRD]

@@Thief4412 That one was kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zqmoq2BrZ6d3kKM

[@zenqqa]

Im 26 and I am still playing eye of the beholder 1 & 2 a dungeon master.

[@alexrunzel6532]

may as well review the Dragon Strike board game from 1993

[@Fenrisson]

Something I never understood: why would dragons even need riders?

[@clashofspears8131]

Ill give you our interpretation. The main value of riders is giving the Dragon a copilot that can see what is happening behind him/her, as well as keep tabs on what is happening in the combat overall. That is before whether they actually help with lance or spell. In our boardgame when the rider is dazed or critically wounded the Dragon can no longer dodge breath attacks from the back for example...

[@Fenrisson]

@@clashofspears8131 That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thanks for replying, I'll sure think about this perspective!

[@Wilkidw]

I miss old school westwood.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Speaking of "this hurts me" I'm pretty much raging by proxy at how the gameplay revolves around dodging attacks from offscreen, from enemies with a longer range. This just looks torturous to play. Although I guess the password feature does mitigate that a bit.

[@nangld]

I'm surprised the concept never resurfaced during the ps1 era or later, given the lack of fantasy flying and space sims. Think flying a dragon through Realmspace frying Mind Flayer ships, like BG3 intro. There was like Magic Carpet, but it was completely underwhelming compared to say Ace Combat. PS3 had Lair, which included botched controls and supper bland setting.

[@trueKENTUCKY]

amazing sponsor holy smokes i wish i had friends

[@robbvanderberry]

Alright fair is fair, ya played the Sabaton ya get the like

[@emmanuelmercado1162]

Any plans for a video on Spacehulk Tactics?

[@WilliamSRD]

Currently a fairly low priority, but I have such a love of the Space Hulk franchise that I'll get to it eventually!

[@craigh5236]

Commodore could have been the world's leader with the Amiga. BUT Commodore thanks to internal corruption and mishandling promoting it screwed that up.

[@jam227]

really dumb and minor point but if you ever have to deal with flight controls that are inverted think of the d-pad as a stick on top of your plane (or dragon i guess) you're taking the top of the vehicle and pulling back not down

[@littlecarnage1143]

2:46 - I signed up for the mailing list weeks ago but got no TTS module. So this is not correct William, sorry.

[@WilliamSRD]

Hi there! I spoke with the developer, and apparently you get access through this Discord: discord.gg/BFkeGrgQ They are even run tutorial missions if you want the devs to teach you!

[@foxhollowgames]

Wiiillliiiaaaammmmmmm!

[@Sm00k]

Trigger?

[@alexwatts1064]

SABATON! 🤘

[@zanmaru139]

Honestly that's kinda just how NES games be.

[@viettrungtran4500]

Dragon Stalingrad strike again!

[@Erojagan]

Here's the thing, I send that E-mail and got nothing from Dragonstrike.

[@WilliamSRD]

I'll send a message to the sponsor and ask tonight!

[@WilliamSRD]

Hi there! I spoke with the developer, and apparently you get access through this Discord: discord.gg/BFkeGrgQ They are even run tutorial missions if you want the devs to teach you!

[@attackofthecopyrightbots]

not the genre i would think d&d would ever go so guess that is pretty weird

[@trueKENTUCKY]

please review new jrpgs your taste is good

[@WilliamSRD]

Haha, best I can do is the Lodoss War games due to their connection to tabletop

[@Empowerless]

Great as always. I am wondering if you have a ko-fi or paypal page? I prefer making one-time donations to monthly donations.

[@nakenmil]

Commenting for the algorithm

[@TheFreakDownStreet]

🎉

[@darksaber2k]

#UnexpectedSabaton

[@Simmons8519]

I wanna upvote... but it's at 666!!!😢

[@StarshadowMelody]

one of the shorter videos you've ever made and it's. 20 minutes.

[@therealdoomsage]

I believe the game was intended to appeal to the lower, reptilian brain. Hence all the mediocrity. Also because sky-lizards. huehuehuehue

[@williamshort9128]

What's the song at the beginning of the video??

[@WilliamSRD]

Night Witches by Sabaton