Dragon's Lair

"This special adaptation brings home all the excitement of the trend-setting arcade game and gives you even more control over the action! Lead Dirk the Daring on his quest to rescue beautiful Princess Daphne, who's been imprisoned in a crystal ball by the evil dragon. To complete this noble mission you'll need cunning, courage and quick reflexes! As you guide Dirk through nine action-packed screens, new perils lurk every step of the way! Fend off supernatural forces with your sword or use your wits to escape. Swing on a rope over fiery chasms. Fight fierce battles with the dreaded Phantom Knight and cunning guards. Find a way to survive and you'll take on the most deadly foe of all, the diabolical dragon himself!"

The 8 bit home computers were never going to be capable of reproducing the arcade video real time gameplay so why bother trying. Well try they did and the result is this adaptation very loosely based on the source material.

The game recreates rooms and actions from the original game giving us nine levels of action to play through. Watching this video you would think its a very short and easy game but that couldn't be further from the truth. The odd level is self explanatory but those where you have to avoid objects and enemies requires very specific button presses with very specific timing with absolutely no clues to help you. No flashing yellow areas in this game. You get a few lives and can earn more but you can quickly burn through them as you try to figure out the button combination for each level.

Overall, for 1986, this is a good effort to get something that resembles the arcade game into 64k. The game is very frustrating and even with infinite lives is a challenge to finish.