OK, if you're not a Dragon's Lair fan, just stop reading. Some people hate it. Fine..
But some of use love Dragon's Lair, simplistic or not...
Anyway, I loved it in the Arcades, had fun with the C64 version, I LOVED the Amiga version, I even didn't mind the junky PC CDROM (early) versions.
When the Digital Leisure stuff started coming out, it looked much nicer.
But I was torn. They had DVD-ROM (for the PC) and DVD-Video (for a DVD player). I wanted a PC version, but I really liked the concept of a DVD Player version too.. And there was this emulator out there, Daphne. And supposedly the best version was the DVD-ROM version.. (Missing bits or something on the original DVD-Video version..)
Well, my brother answered my quandry. He got me the 20th Anniversary DVD-Video set for XMas.
So I start playing it on the DVD player. Awkward to use, but fun and great looking...
I go back to check the Daphne page, and the 20th Anniversary editions (ROM or Video apparently) are now the preferred versions, have all the video AND proto video..
So I get Daphne and DVD2DAPH (conversion program) and run it..
I end up with 1.6 gig (don't even ask for em) of MPEGs after conversion. After DLing a few ROMs, I can now play Dragon's Lair on the PC and it feels EXACTLY as the original did!!! The 2.0 enhanced ROMs allows play of the drawbridge scene (Which I remember from the Amiga version) and the Proto version, which is kual!! The other (more original) ROMs have the order I remember!! It's still random, but the 2.0 starts with certain choices.. Older ROMs, I can jump into the rapids or whatever much quicker.
Awesome emulator!!!
On my machine (AMD 2100), the conversion from DVD (including proto video) to MPEG useable by Daphne was only a couple of hours.
Daphne also supports Space Ace (which came in the set) and a bunch of other games I don't have. (I didn't know there were that many Laser games).
I haven't converted Space Ace yet. Have to archive some Max Headroom and Dr Who episodes off to CD to clear up some HD space first :-) ).
Also, Daphne doesn't yet support Dragon's Lair II, which is also in the set, so I'll have to use the DVD player for that one for a bit.. I haven't tried the DVD player on the PC to play it, to see if it's more responsive.
All I can say is, without Daphne, the DVD set is still fun and worth it. With Daphne, it's SOOOO much better!!
desiv
p.s. I haven't bought Dragon's Lair 3D yet.. Waiting for the price to drop and not expecting too much. There's also talk of a Dragon's Lair movie in the works. (Animated..)













