Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, Anything but Mystical - Gamersbliss Review

GamersBliss's review of Dungeons and Dragons Chronicles of Mystara. Does this arcade remake live up to its predecessors or is it just a waste of money and time from your life?

[Link2DaFutcha]

Looks prettay craptastic

[caseh]

More appealing to those of us who were playing games like this in the arcades when they initially came about. As far as side-scrolling arcade games go, these are some of the best especially Mystara.

They are actually great games, no doubt the review was written by someone who was still suckling on his moms t!t when these games graced the arcades so the fact that Mystara probably highlights the peak of sprite based 2-D games is completely wasted on him.

[evilkillerk]

I remember playing arcade games,actually that was what I did for a long time. Just compared to other titles that were out before and after it, it seems rather sub-par. Even the other arcade games that have been remastered did a better job rendering and remastering their titles; Chronicles of Mystara seemed like they did a rather half ass job.

[caseh]

Mystara is by far, the most in-depth scrolling fighting game that was ever released in arcades. Take a glance at the FAQ for it over on GameFAQS, its HUGE. No other fighting game that came before or after came anywhere close to what it offers.

Tower of Doom not so much, it was like a warm-up for Mystara.

As for the GFX, i'm glad it looks the way it does. Especially after seeing the Turtles remake that came about this gen, what a joke that was in comparison to the arcade games.

[SaiyanFury]

I've never had the good fortune to play the arcade versions, as they weren't around me whence I was in my teens. But I have played the games thanks to MAME and I'm glad I did. These games are fantastic, and while I frequently am critical of Capcom this generation, these games along with Okami HD are the games I've enjoyed the most by them. :)

[fossilfern]

No just No.

[SheaHoff]

Yikes

[TheGrimBunny]

i guess there is a small group of people who would consider this their cup of tea. a NEW game though like that could have even just better graphics on the 3DS for one...

[Myst]

...Dammit now I'm looking at my 3DS and wondering what could have been :(

[admiralvic]

While people are allowed to have their own opinion, I have to ask how much did this reviewer actually play? At first glance these are fairly bland games, but there is a LOT more than meets the eye. One example is the choices they mention, but these choices DO offer you different places and locations to explore. Sure you end up going through the full adventure, but they're meant to be choices like you would see in the actual D&D game. Like you continue to the boss and run into an elf, do you save his village or continue on your quest? Choice A is one story and choice B is another story.

One thing I didn't see, which makes me question how much did they play, was also the esoteric elements and hidden secrets. There are a number of unique paths for playing as certain characters, hidden rooms, optional weapons and other cool things to discover. One of my favorites is the cursed sword 1, which turns into the Sword of Legend if you swing it up to 50 times. This is the kind of thought you don't see in other arcade games and is part of the charm of D&D. Certain characters also have additional skills, hidden perks and other things that you might not be aware of if you don't look at the manual. Bad on their part, but again this is an arcade game, which doesn't have to include a tutorial.

Anyway, for 15 dollars you're getting a game with tons of secrets and crazy weapons across two games. That's far better than you would find in The Simpsons or Xbox, so I really don't see why this game got such a low score, past the reviewer not really knowing the ins and outs.

[V0LT]

It's a great game and it was a coin muncher back in the 90's.... lol

[evilkillerk]

In order to review Chronicles of Mystara, I played each title more than 3 times. Running through the game they discussed these things but running through I didnt find a single one of these legendary items.

[admiralvic]

Off topic...

Wow, I've been having too many Xbox One discussions. My Xbox remark was obviously meant to be Xmen. Sorry! Wish I could edit, but this site blocks you out at the 15 mark which I am sadly exactly at.

On topic...

Then you didn't pay attention AT ALL. One of the most obvious secrets were the three "hidden" rooms when you fall down the pit to floor 90 or 100. There is a room at 30 or so, which contains the aforementioned cursed sword 1, another room at 60 with various items, plus the red dragon and finally another room at like 70 that has a special weapon depending on your character.

To give you a better idea, here is a quick video of me doing it (sorry it's poor, since I was trying to rush it).
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Some of the others are a bit harder to find / are on certain paths, like cursed sword 2 is in the forest of despair a little past the moveable rock and others are just things you randomly find in obvious rooms. It's possible you didn't know that pretty much any black room like opening WAS a door you can enter, but that's no excuse to not look into it. There were also some really well done secrets, like in the castle (first game) if you went straight, you would find a suit of armor. If you pushed this armor to the left, it would open a secret door with some additional things to do.

There are probably around 50 alternate paths and secrets for you to uncover, which is why this game was remembered fondly. I can understand you make errors doing a review (I use to be a reviewer before I quit my site 2 weeks ago), but you should have known something was wrong when you were hearing about something that you just "couldn't find". Perhaps you should have played online, since plenty of people are more experienced that you there. =\

[evilkillerk]

If you'd like you can show me some of these things that you think make it so great and I would be willing to added it to the review.

[mydyingparadiselost]

So completely off topic, and if you don't want to answer feel free to tell me to F@?' off, but why did you quit reviewing? You seem pretty knowledgeable about gaming and clearly your passionate or you wouldn't be here elaborating about what you feel is a misrepresentation of this game and its review. Anyway, just curious, I've seen you on the site for awhile and didn't know you wrote reviews until now so I figured I'd ask.

[admiralvic]

I'll send you a private message, since it's a touchy subject. I'll also send the same or at least a similar message to anyone else that is interested.

[evilkillerk]

I did play online as well, most of the people ran through it, the only time I go to explore was when I was by myself or with my friend. WE found treasure similar to dnd but it wasnt very significant.

[admiralvic]

I see, so you found some treasure, yet wrote it off and still thought it was sub-par to similar games, because?

No matter how you look at it, part of this games charm is all the secrets / hidden things. The Simpsons and TMNT might look and play better than D&D, but they're the same game every time you play it. At least with D&D you have alternate paths, various weapons, secrets to find and much more. In order to get my 100% I had to play through the second game like 10 times and even then I didn't find every possible secret path (my friend showed me one when I was helping him find stuff). That is something you just DID NOT see in games back then and something you don't even really get into in your review. ****, you say there is only "1 attack", but I believe every character had at least 3 (4 if you count jumping and there were moves beyond dash attacks too. Every character had a desperation attack to get out of jams and a down up attack skill that did something extra.). Some characters also had special abilities, like the cleric, who could instantly kill any undead enemy with a simple move.

Honestly, it feels like you played it ONCE, didn't like it and maybe played some more before finally doing your review. The fact that 21 is not the cap (characters cap at a different level), you didn't get into skills (the thief can steal, the dwarf can double open chests, elf has some buffs / magic, magic user has some other magic, cleric can instantly kill undead / buff / heal, warrior can dual wield), you can obtain various gear that can help you in different situations (one prevents you from taking damage from flames, additional defense, shields that are better against certain elements, elemental weapons), hidden rooms, alternate bosses, weird elements and team work attacks, brings into question how you could think it's sub part to games that are largely linear with little to no depth.

I don't want to get on your case, but I want you to clearly understand just how much of this game you apparently never witnessed.

[evilkillerk]

I saw all of this, from when I either played the character or watched as others played it while I was playing a different character, yes the dwarf does cap faster. AS for the abilities, I said each character follows their actual DND role,as for the gear it breaks so easily and is rather insignificant unless playing on House rules that prohibits that. The game does have a similar aspect to DND but fails towards it in multiple ways/

[Xof]

Remember when D&D games represented the height of RPG quality?

*sigh*

Thank god for Kickstarter.

[b_one]

boy, this game is so crap, they ported it and its gone, thanks God for Dragons Crown, Dragons Dogma ;)

[MNGamer-N]

This reminds me of Golden Axe for genesis