Activision
£9.99

Weird, mystical and a bit crappy names, ahoy! You're Kayus, King of Agamen, and ride on the back of Bahamoot the dragon to battle the minions of Zanbaquous, self styled King Of Darkness. Discontented peasants have freed Zambaquous to overthrow Kayus, and already the creatures of darkness roam Agamen.

Six horizontally-scrolling levels, filled with more vile creature than you could shake a dragons tail at, stand between Kayus and the destruction of evil Zambaquous. Kayas is armed with a cross bow, whilst Bahamoot spits dirty great energy bolts from his gob (which increase in power when the fire button is held down). Enemy creatires attack and damage is inflicted if Kayas is hit.

Watch out for the weapon power-ups: when the more vicious creatures are blasted to bits they leave coloured orbs behind. Red orbs bestow barbecue breath on Bahamoot, silver orbs give homing missiles, blue orbs give lightning bolts and gold orbs send sharp scales winging their way to the enemy. The more orbs you collect of the same colour, the more powerful the weapon.

Activision has the strange habit of releasing obscure coin-op conversions and Dragon Breed is no exception. The graphics are incredibly large and colourful and there's very little colour clash. The sprites are also well animated and the action is fast and furious. Although in the same vain as Saint Dragon, this isn't ass playable. Maybe it isn't fair to compare the two games, but I feel that Dragon Breed will suffer slightly in the light of its more playable counterpart.

MARK [84%]

From the coin-op company that brought you R-Type comes… R-Type with different graphics! Yes folks, that's all Dragon Breed really is. That doesn't mean the game is no good though, shoot 'em up fans will find it highly entertaining. Coming so soon after Saint Dragon (92% Issue 82) everyone is bound to point out the similarities between the two games. The graphics in this are not as slick as the Saint Dragon ones though, they are bigger but also clumsy. What makes Dragon Breed stand out is the way the little man riding on the dragon's back can jump off and run along the ground! Dragon Breed is a shoot 'em up maniac's heaven - lots of enormous monsters to be killed, plenty of different weapons to be collected and a continue-play option. Excellent fun initially, but whether it will still be addictive in a couple of months' time is another matter.
NICK [76%]

Activision
£9.99 cass
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

Nnnnnuurgh. Hnnnnnnnuuh. Grrrrrrrrahhh. Puff, pant, wheeze. Nope, hard as I try, I just can't help mentioning the uncanny resemblance between Activision's Dragon Breed and (dare I say) Storm's St.Dragon.

They both feature whopping great dragons flying through tons of horizontally-scrolling levels blasting things (although this one does it up and down a bit too), so you must admit there is a certain deja vu, n'est-ce pas, me petits readers? In fact, I might even say that even though Dragon Breed was without doubt the superior arcade machine (they're both coin-op conversions, you see) there's very little to actually choose between them on the Speccy. (Although maybe I won't say that 'cos Activision will probably get really cross and come over and hit me or something.)

Ahem. Anyway, viewers, let's get started and take une peek, eh? Firstly there's you, a blokie (the King Kayas of the Agamen Empire if you want the honest truth) who sits (for the most part) on the back of a dragon, bombing about blasting baddies. The actual dragon is invincible of course, so it's only you who can be killed. I say "for the most part" because while, er, for the most part you directly control the dragon around the screen, using his tail (which responds pretty convincingly to your joystick waggles) to cunningly curl around yourself as a shield or to hit and kill baddies with, there are moments when you don't. In these bits you can actually jump off and scuttle along a platform or the ground to pick up the odd add-on weapon and then, well, jump back on again.

Weapons can also be collected by flying into the relevant pod. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I could only find four different ones (a bit of a disappointment) - fire breath, yellow boomerangs which go flying from your tail, lightning bolts and, so I'm told, ones where loads of little dragons fly out of your stomach (bleugh!). You can only have one of these at a time mind (although the more you collect of each one, the more effective it becomes).

Baddy-wise, there's loads - and very R-Type-ish it all is too. (Although perhaps I should add that this isn't officially the follow-up to that well renowned game, even if the coin-op was put together by exactly the same team.) These come at you from all directions of course, and do a pretty large assortment of things (surrounding you, just sitting there and getting in the way etc etc). There's also the customary end-of-level nasty (a huge teenage mutant ninja chicken at the end of Level One for example) thrown in absolutely free of charge. The graphics are pretty decent, quite colourful, very big and well animated, though (grumble grumble) not up to R-Type standards (or arguably those of St.Drag's either for that matter).

It's not all blasting though - some bits are quite puzzley too. You often have to spend almost all your lives working out how to get past a certain bit (as in R-Type) and there's certainly loads of variety throughout the six levels, both in the baddies and the play area. Nine credits should help you to see quite a lot of the game per play but it is pretty damn hard (and can be a complete bummer 'cos it's one of those annoying 'go back miles when you die' ones).

Still, all things considered, this is all pretty good stuff. It's got bigger graphics and a larger playing than St.Dragon, and is perhaps a touch easier, though probably not quite as polished looking and certainly not as colourful. As to which you buy, well, you pays yer money and you takes yer choice I guess, and I'm still wobbling a bit between the two. I guess I might slightly lean towards Dragon Breed, if only because there's more room to manouvre than in the occasionally cramped St.D - and it's not as off-puttingly hard - but there's very little in it.

Imagine R-Type with flying reptiles and you have the main thrust of Dragon Breed - it's a fair comparison, 'cos this is also an Irem coin-op conversion, hurrah! Nonsensical sword-and-sorcery plots merge with non-stop trigger-finger action in this aerial blast-'em-up, which compares interestingly with the ancient Durrell title Thanatos, another dragon flight simulator.

In Dragon Breed, young King Kayus of the Agamen Empire faces the sorcerer Zambaquous, who has released the forces of darkness, which are eating away the world, as forces of darkness tend to do if you don't immediately wipe them away with Domestos. Kayus flies into battle on the war dragon Bahamoot, who looks a bit Chinese to me; it's not because he has slanted eyes, but because he's long and snake-like and mulyi-jointed, not the standard EEC dinosaur-like dragon with wings. Because Bahamoot flexes as he flies, you can manoeuvre him so that his tail protects you, warding off enemy missiles from your position mounted on his neck. You are armed with a crossbow which shoots an endless supply of magic bolts to kill the nasties. If you hold down the fire button, Bahamoot's dragon breath builds up, and when you release it, a roar of flame scorches the baddies. Does this all remind you of something? I thought so. As with R-Type, you can also pick up extra weapons by collecting tokens dropped by enemies. The dragon changes colour to indicate the weapon currently in use; red for flames, sliver for Homing Dragons (teeny silver dragon-shaped missiles), blue for lightning bolts, gold for protective scales. There are power levels for each type, and if you have the gold scales you can call the dragon protectively around Kayus. It's also possible to dismount to collect tokens platforms. When you jump off, the dragon continues to circle over you and can be controlled in up/down directions, and brought down to earth for you to leap back onboard. There's a time limit for each level, so you shouldn't waste time walking around - fly, boy, fly! The nasties are excellent - loathsome insectoids, demons, giant spikey fleas bearing weapons pods; let's face it, apart from the lack of any background features this could be R-Type 2. There are six multi-load levels to complete. The screen scrolls slightly up and down as well as left and right, so there's a large playing area and plenty of room to manoeuvre even around the biggest and nastiest baddies. Programmers Bob Pope and Nick Cook have made a damn fine job of this conversion; quite rightly, speed and joystick response have been giver higher priority than complex backgrounds or flashy graphical effects. Music and FX are good too. Though looked at critically Dragon Breed is nothing more than a variation on the scrolling weapon-collecting shoot-'em-up. It's a fine work and if you don't get you'll turn into a nasty warty toad.

Activision
Spectrum/C64 £9.99, ST £24.95, Amiga £24.95

Irem, the creators of that classic shoot em up, R-Type, took a quick butcher's at their fabbo creation and thought, "Wait up! What if we took out the R9 and put a huge dragon in its place?" Dragon Breed was the result (although I'm not too sure where the "Breed" comes into it).

The scenario concerns the young king and all-out hero, Kayus. He's pretty miffed at having his kingdom stomped on by the forces of darkness and so decides to do something about it. Thus, in a fit of terrifying rage he takes to the skies astride the mighty Dragon of Light - Bahamoot(!?)

The problem is, the forces of darkness suspected something large and destructive was about to be launched their way, and so decided to send a photon-laden welcoming committee. What they didn't know was that the dragon itself is invulnerable to any kind of attack Having said that, one hit to the rider means instant disaster and life-losing doom. It's a good thing that Kayus has total control of his dragon, as he can control the tail as a kind of shield. Also, any aliens that career into the dragon's tail meet with instant annihilation.

Kayus sometimes likes to do his blasting solo, so if any land is found, he can jump down to terra firma, perhaps picking up some useful power-up while wreaking some ground-based havoc.

Various power ups can be collected and bolted on to the dragon's armour, enabling Kayus and old death-breath to get their hands (and claws) on the latest tools of destruction, including the likes of homing missiles and extra alien-frying laser bolts. The dragon also has an R-Type-style beam weapon at his disposal, enabling one long press of the joystick fire button to be turned into a blazing laser trail, destroying everything alien-looking in its path.

The forces of darkness at this point may sound totally outgunned, but they have a rather nasty trick up their alien sleeves. At the end of each level, Kayus and his dragon mate have to face a very large (sometimes over a couple of screens) end-of-level guardian, and only by destroying these bastions of terror will Kayos be able to continue his trail of destruction.