Dragonstomper (Starpath)
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Entry posted by DoctorSpuds
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Well now, ain’t this a surprise, when one thinks ‘Atari 2600’ they usually think low resolution graphics, E.T., arcade ports that rarely stack up to the original, but not a top-down turn-based RPG, never that. Clearly Starpath saw what was going on over in the land of PC’s and was like ‘yeah we can do that on the 2600, easily’ and they did it, and the outcome was Dragonstomper, the only turn-based RPG ever made during the systems original run. The story is classic, there is a picturesque peaceful kingdom, but some druid dude wanted to get all powerful and stuff so he decided to forge a magical amulet to subdue the fat lazy dragon that lives nearby. Druid dude had some serious butterfingers and dropped the amulet into the dragon’s hands before running away and not being important to the story anymore. The Amulet makes the fat lazy dragon not so fat, not so lazy and extremely evil, he now rules over the picturesque kingdom. Since all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t kill the dragon, it’s up to you, the Dragonstomper to kill the dragon, am I the only one who’s getting Shrek flashbacks?
This game looks quite simplistic; it shows the bare basics of an RPG map. The map itself is approximately 3 by 3 screens; the real kicker though is that the screen scrolls quite smoothly with your character. Your little Dragonstomer is just a little dot, even smaller than the square you controlled in Adventure, this is rather disappointing, what isn’t though is all of the different enemy designs, from Maniacs that look disturbingly like Evil Otto from Berzerk to crazy rabid Monkeys what want to bite off your face. This game has a great enemy selection; all of the enemies have unique sprites too which relieves the disappointment of the Dragonstomper being a dot. There are a bunch of different terrain items on the main map, you have your basics like grass, trees, and lakes, but there are also castles, swamps, and caves, just a warning enemies love to hide in all of these locations, so be careful where you walk. This game is actually in three parts, but so far I haven’t been able to access the two final parts, and have had to rely on screenshots taken by other people. There is the town which just seems to be a single screen with shops you can enter, and a bunch of warrior looking dudes shuffling around the center, and it has palm trees so plus four from me. The Dragon’s cave looks quite spectacular, with jagged walls covered in protruding spikes, and floors covered with the bleached bones of the dead, I wonder what your dots bones would look like. The cave is piled high with traps that are of varying sprite quality, but the real reason you’ve come this far is for that sweet Supercharger dargon, and it looks… quite impressive, it’s wings, tail, and head move, and it’s quite large, but why is it pink? The Amulet also looks quite nice, flashing away behind its energy shield, I’m just wondering how big that druid was, because the Amulet is almost as big as the dragon.
Sounds aren’t anything too special, there are a few little snippets of well known tunes whenever an enemy appears, or when you die, there are beeps and boops to indicate giving and receiving damage, but there are a few standouts. The Village screen is dominated by a wind sound effect that is the same sound used by many games to mimic the sound of rocket engines, yes that sound. When you kill the Dragon and retrieve the Amulet the famous song ‘Rule Britannia’ begins to play, I don’t know why. When you enter the Dragons cave a little snippet from Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ plays and another plus four from me because I really like that song too, but overall there is very little substance to this game’s sound, which seems to be a running theme with these games.
The gameplay is usually where these games salvage lost points, and Dragonstomper is no different. I’m sure many people would dismiss a 2600 RPG as either being too simple of an RPG or too complex for the 2600 hardware, and I can thankfully say that this game manages to be a fairly complex RPG while still catering to limitations set forth by the 2600 hardware. Let’s start with the most important part of the game, the menu system, which is perfectly designed and implemented to compliment the single button controller. To bring up the menu you press the controller button, and can navigate through four different functions by moving the joystick up, down, left, and right. You move the stick up to select the ‘move’ option, right for the ‘fight’ function, left for the ‘use’ function, and down to view the ‘status’ screen that displays your gold, strength, and dexterity. The ‘use’ function is fairly self explanatory, you use the ‘use’ function to use items that you pick up on your journey, from magic spells, to healing items, to actual people in the final battle; it’s a fairly useful function. Fighting in this game is fairly simple, when being attacked by an enemy you select the fight function, which is the equivalent of the basic attack in say Final Fantasy, you can use different items to attack enemies with, like axes and longbows, or use items to heal yourself with like medicine and vitamins while battling. Battling is turn based, so take as long as you like when deciding your next move, you can also try to run from a battle by selecting the movement option while in a fight, though there is a chance you’ll take damage as you try to flee. You spend the first third of the game running around this large map, killing enemies, collecting items, and accruing gold, you will likely notice a large bridge on the map, this leads to the town where you recruit volunteers and buy items for the final showdown with the Dragon, but to get there you must first get past the guard who demands an I.D.. The I.D. the guard is referring to is the Paper, you simply select it in the ‘use’ menu and you’re on your merry way to certain death, you can also bribe the guard, but that’s very expensive, and you NEED that gold. The town is very self explanatory; you go to shops to buy weapons, potions and healing items, and meat shields to throw at the Dragon, once you’ve gather all the supplies you need/ can afford it’s off to the Dragons Cave. You’ll face two major obstacles in the cave, the Poison Darts, which you simply need to avoid and the stupid wall flames that will hit you every time you walk past them, they take small amounts of health but there are a lot of them, and they will scare you the first time they appear because they suddenly make a loud noise. The fight with the Dragon is simple but challenging, you can throw the warriors you recruited at the village to distract the Dragon and also do small amounts of damage while you hang back and take potshots, or you can get right up in there in a one-on-one slugging match, be sure to bring lots of healing items in either case. Supposedly there is a way to beat the game without killing the Dragon, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how.
This a very fun and challenging game, and would wholeheartedly tell you to pick up a copy, except… well… it’s rather expensive, as are most of these games (some moreso than others), it’s about 30 bucks for the cassette with the plastic case, and 60-110 bucks for one in the box opened or otherwise. Out of all the Supercharger games I’d put my money on this one being the most advanced, it’s absolutely incredible what they managed to do with such limiting hardware even with the Supercharger. So, if you find a copy for fairly cheap I’d say go for it, otherwise just stick to emulation for now.
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