Alisia Dragoon - Genesis (1992)
By Robert Greene
Like most older action games, the plot is pretty thin, and most of it
unfolds only in the instruction manual.
Alisia’s father was a mage who fought against the dark
god Baldour, who has visited Earth for all kinds of nefarious purposes. Alisia’s
father was captured and murdered before her very eyes
by the dark god and his right hand man Ornah, Because
they failed to read the Top Rules 100 Rules of Being An Evil Overlord (Rule #31: Don't let the offspring of your victims live so they can exact vengeance down the road)
Alisia was left to grow up, become a magician of great power,
and eventually challenge his rule. The game starts
with Baldour’s cocoon returning to Earth, forcing
Alisia to pursue Ornah and his master across eight
stages to seek her revenge, and hopefully destroy the
cocoon before it hatches again.
Alisia has one basic attack - her thunder magic. Simply
holding down the attack button simply directs her attacks towards the nearest enemy.
However, there is a power meter for your magic, so you can't just hold down the button
and charge forward. If you run out, you're left defenseless for a second or two, although
the meter recharges rather quickly. If you let it charge up fully, you can do a "rolling blast" attack that usually clears the screen of lesser enemies. Compared to other games, controlling Alisia is a bit difficult, considering you don't really need to aim your attacks. You just run forward, turn around to attack behind you, jump over some bad guys, then continue.
This may sound easy, but the game tosses tons of bad guys for you to deal with - by the end of the game, you’ll be fighting enemies nearly non stop. Many of them will just materialize out of thin air and start attacking, forcing you to
stay on your toes. Most take several hits to kill, and dodging them can be quite difficult. Amidst all of the chaos, you need to be mindful of your magic meter, lest you end up being unable to attack.
The game also features spectacular boss battles, all of which are varied
and challenging. The only problem, one might argue, is that they are very pattern dependent and can grow tedious upon replays - once the pattern is learned, the challenge disappears.
However, the final few fights, screwing up just a little bit can be fatal. In addition to all of the enemies, there are also traps in various
stages such as moving platforms, hot lava, and
discarded munitions that explode when struck by magic.
Perhaps to help you in the difficulty the game poses, Alisia can call on four mystical
companions to come to her aid: a dragon which shoots
flames, a living fireball which acts as a shield and
rams into enemies, a lizard that shoots out
boomerangs, and finally the thunder raven, which emits
a screen wide flash that damages all enemies. Each of
those have their own life bar, and a power meter that determines how often they
can launch an attack. Alisia can only have one active at a time, though
cycling through them can be done with the press of a
button. Unfortunately, other than selecting your animal pal, you don't have any direct control over them.
Both Alisia and her companions can be powered up by
collecting special icons hidden throughout the stages.
Alisia begins with three life bars and can have a
maximum of six, and her lightning can be powered up
eight levels. Although the game is tough, Alisia can take quite a bit of damage before
giving up the ghost. Her animal companions have three levels
apiece, gaining both additional attacks and extra life bars.
There are many other power ups scattered
about as well, such potions which heal a whole health bar
for Alisia, and meat, which heals a whole bar for her
companion. There are 1-Ups scattered along the way,
along with special fairies, which grant miscellaneous
special effects like invincibility or unlimited
rolling thunder attacks for a short time. Power ups
only appear in special containers which become visible
when you get close to them, putting a key focus on
exploration. Fn the first level alone, you are strongly encouraged to poke around for
false or destructible walls to locate necessary power
ups. The levels are expansive, with various nooks
containing items or secret passages, and in some
stages, you can take multiple routes to reach the
end-level boss.
Although Alisia Dragoon has two modes of difficulty, even on normal mode, it is a challenging game to get through. Alisia has one life at the outset, and
when she dies, it’s game over. 1-Ups act as continues
in this regard, allowing you to start from the
beginning of a stage. Should one of your familiars die, they will stay dead
until a revival power is found, in which case they start again at the lowest
experience level.
As mentioned the game sports excellent graphics, but
the sound ranks among my own personal top 5 Genesis sound tracks
(the other slots are owed to Ys III, Castlevania:
Bloodlines, and the Phantasy Star games). and it is
wonderful! The graphics are colorful and fairly crisp
for a Genesis game. The backgrounds, be it ancient
ruins, underground caverns, or a flying citadel, are
well drawn and set the mood for the game, and the
animations for Alisia and her enemies are smooth as
well.
There are no passwords or saves, though the game can
be beaten in about an hour or so of casual play. There
is a debug code that can be used to skip around
levels, become invincible, or power up Alisia, though
using this denies you the opportunity of seeing a
special status screen charting your progress,
accuracy, and giving you an over all ranking based on
how far you got in the game.
Despite it's difficulty, Alisia Dragoon
is surprisingly well built and fun to play. While
it’s just another platformer/shooter for the Genesis,
it’s still fairly unique in what it does and is worth
checking out.
MP3s
Links
Jonathan Hughson's Alisia Dragoon Website Probably the definitive source for the game.
American Cover
Japanese Cover
Alisia Dragoon
Alisia Dragoon is an overlooked
platformer/shooter for the Genesis/Mega Drive,
published by Sega in early 1992. It sported a relatively small release
compared to other Mega Drive/Genesis games, and is among one of
the harder cartridge titles to find, especially in Japan. The generic fantasy
artwork on the cover of the Genesis version probably didn't garner it much attention,
so it was mostly ignored at the time. However, Alisia Dragoon has built up a cult
following in both countries. The gameplay is solid, and fairly unique for a side-scrolling
action game. It also feels like something that could have been done by
Wolf Team (incidentally Alisia bares a fair resemblance to Annet from El Viento). It was actually developed by Game Arts, who would eventually go on to create the Grandia and
Lunar series. It was also produced by the anime studio Gainax (Neon Genesis
Evangeleon ring a bell to anyone?)
