Game 159: Dragonsphere - Introduction (1994)

Written by Vetinari

Welcome to the first game of 1994 which will be reviewed for The Adventurers Guild!

What do you mean “there are other games from 1993 that haven't been played yet”? Hey buddy, I don't make the rules, I just follow them! They told me I could start with the first game from 1994 in the Master List, and since this game came out in January 1994, it is as good a candidate for this as any other. So, do me a favour, random internet stranger which I just made up for the purposes of starting this introduction post, and slink back into the shadows from whence you came. Really, the nerves of some people...

Where was I? Oh yes, Dragonsphere.

Why have I chosen to play and review Dragonsphere? Because of two factors: 1) it is commonly regarded as the best of the three adventure games which came out from Microprose, and 2) dragons. Everything is better with dragons.

Unfortunately, having finished the game, I can say that dragons have a very minimal influence on the plot, at best. Will this negatively impact my perception of the game and be reflected in the Final Rating? We will just have to see.

Anyway, as already discussed, this game is the third effort at an adventure game from one of the major game publishers in the late 1980s – early 1990s, i.e. MicroProse. The firm was hot stuff at the time, taking into account that it was already considered one of the top five computer game companies by 1987, alongside the likes of Activision and Electronic Arts.

Obviously however, when talking about Microprose the first game that springs into mind is very different from an adventure game like Dragonsphere, and also a completely different genre.

That game is obviously Darklands.

But apparently in the early 1990s they wanted to branch out into various different genres, so they tried their hand at games that were possibly out of their normal comfort zone (which mostly consisted in strategy games and similar). Since adventures were still going strong, they obviously had to take a stab at them. Dragonsphere is their third and last endeavour in this sense, after two sub-par games coming out in the previous years. We will see if the third time will be the charm.

The game was designed and written by Douglas Kaufman, who, most interestingly, was NOT in the team responsible for the two previous adventures but instead (what do you know!) was a writer in the team that produced the aforementioned “Darklands”. This seems to bode well for this title.

And here he is in all of his glory.

The graphics, which received high praise from reviewers at the time, are from a team lead by Michael Gibson who was a graphic artist in the two prior adventure games from MPS Labs; the game also uses the MADS (Microprose Adventure Development System) game engine which is the same that was used in the two previous MPS Labs adventures.

The story at first glance seems to be a classic mish-mash of fantasy cliches, which had worked very well for the King's Quest series, at least for its previous installments. From the publisher description:

The young Callash has been just crowned the king of Gran Callahach. Twenty years ago the land was in grave peril, as the evil sorcerer Sanwe planned to conquer and ruin it. But the old king's court wizard Ner-Tom magically imprisoned Sanwe using the powers of the Dragonsphere spell. The sorcerer swore to avenge his humiliation once the spell's energy runs out. Now, this time has come, and the young hero must defeat Sanwe before he breaks free.

The interface is the same as the previous two MPS Labs adventure games: there is a command menu of ten different verbs to be used on objects and/or people, but each object in the inventory can also have several unique and specific verb commands that are used for particular interactions.

Here for example the signet ring can be “invoked” or “polished”.

I will play the GOG version of the game, which comes with a manual which is perfectly adequate, if bog-standard.

It also has however some interesting design notes.

Apart from the manual, the game comes also with some Prince Callash Examination Papers which is copy protection, but done in a funny and interesting way. Presented in-game as an exam paper submitted by the young Callash to his tutor, this is a good way to diegetically dump info on the background story of the game on the player, by pretending that the information is needed for some sort of history class.

If only real life exam papers were so on-the-nose...

The game starts up with a main menu which shows the titular dragonsphere to the sound of ominous music, and then presents the classic choices of starting a new game, loading a saved game, watching the credits and/or intro and quitting.

Couldn't they have called it, I don't know, Wyvernball?

The intro cinematics shows young Prince Callash, his father the King and the court wizard Ner-Tom riding some dino-like animals (they are actually called “dramels” in the game) towards a sinister mountain.

Left to right: Callash, the King and Ner-Tom.

The dread wizard Sanwe, “a dimension-hopping sorcerer of vast powers”, is bound to appear with his castle at the top of the mountain, and Ner-Tom will try to imprison him to prevent the destruction that he will cause to all the land of Gran Callahach.

Sanwe's tower, appearing at the top of the mountain.

Ner-Tom prepares to cast his spell.

After a showy spell battle, where the magical force of Ner-Tom is represented by a white knight and the one of Sanwe by a fire-breathing red dragon (and which I didn't manage to capture so you will have to take my word, but it was really cool), Sanwe is finally trapped inside his castle by a magical force field.

Surely this will not cause any problems later.

But alas! while the group is riding back to the castle, Sanwe appears in the sky and vows that he will break free in 20 years, and will take his vengeance on poor Callash, who is just a boy at this time. Talk about childhood trauma.

 Sanwe is a bit of a d**k, really.

Anyway, time skip to 20 years later, when Callash's father kicks the bucket, leaving his son to face Sanwe's return by himself.

Obviously we cannot be exempt from...

...the most classic of the coronation cliches statements.

Apparently, Ner-Tom's spell not only trapped Sanwe inside the forcefield, but also gave him the possibility to keep watch on the strength of the wards taking Sanwe prisoner.

He has in fact created a (guess what?) Dragonsphere, an artifact with a small dragon imprisoned inside a crystal ball. The little dragon inside represents the sorcerer; the crystal globe surrounding it represents the spell that keeps Sanwe trapped. As long as the globe remains whole and the dragon quiescent, all is well. But now the Dragonsphere is beginning to crack, and the dragon within beginning to stir. This means that someone (i.e. Callash himself, because this is a King's Quest inspired game after all) has to go and take care of Sanwe once and for all before he manages to break free of his imprisonment.

So, after the coronation, Callash enters his bedroom for a well-deserved rest before he undertakes the mission to get rid of Sanwe. He throws his cape and crown at the foot of his bed, and goes to sleep. But what's this? A mysterious shadow opens the door to the bedroom... and then the intro ends.

Literal foreshadowing.

As it was also for the previous MPS Labs adventures, when starting the game proper you have the choice between two difficulty levels: “Novice” and “Challenging”. Since we are not some cowardly chicken (and also because some content for the game is cut at the lower difficulty level), we obviously choose Challenging.

Since this is an introduction post, please comment with your guesses on what the Final Rating for this game will be. To help you out, I remind you that the previous Microprose adventure games got some not-particularly-good ratings, i.e. a 45 from TBD (Rex Nebular – 1992) and a 41 from Morpheus Kitami (Return of the Phantom – 1993). Will this game be good enough to at least enter the upper half of the ratings echelon? Only time will tell.

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