Dragon Valor [Playstation, PS1]

by Sony

Product Details

• ASIN: B00004RFBW
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: 1999
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,797 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Product Description

Dragon Valor provides the narrative structure of role-playing games and combines it with the fighting action of adventure games. You'll take on the role of Clovis, the patriarch in a succession of Dragonslayer warriors. In the first chapter of the game, you'll battle in real-time combat through a fantastic world of powerful dragons and evil bosses. Power-ups along the way will make you an even more formidable hero, and you'll also benefit from spells you'll receive from defeated foes.

Dragon Valor also presents a number of possible love interests for Clovis. The hero of the game's second chapter will be the offspring of Clovis and whomever you choose as Clovis's mate. That hero must continue Clovis's fight against evil and, like Clovis, must choose a mate. The Dragonslayer mantle is handed down through four generations, with many possible heirs throughout.

GameSpot Review

Blending different genres into a single title often results in a refreshing game experience. In an industry where it sometimes seems like everything has been done, drawing from multiple established formulas is an easy way to provide something new. This is unfortunately not the case with Dragon Valor, the new role-playing-game-cum-street-brawler-cum-Zelda clone from Namco. Although it takes ideas from all of these genres and is indeed a solid game, Dragon Valor lacks the imaginative spark that sets games like Zelda apart from the teeming masses of unoriginality. Ostensibly, Dragon Valor is an adventure game, but playing it is like playing several games at once. Imagine putting Final Fight, Lunar, Crash Bandicoot and Zelda in a blender and hitting the puree button. The game presents a static overworld map that is navigated by selecting the move command and picking from a few preset locations (rarely more than two, often only one); this might give the impression of freedom, but the lack of choices really makes the game's progression very linear. When you arrive at each location, you begin a side-scrolling action sequence. Although the strikingly average graphics in these levels are 3D, the game allows only the slightest movement into the back- and foregrounds. Your character will encounter a number of enemies in these action scenes, and the combat is accomplished like a typical street-fighting game such as Final Fight or, more recently, Fighting Force. Always armed with the same mystical sword (we'll get to that later), your character bashes enemy after enemy using several different special attacks. Attacking an enemy with several button presses results in a combination of slashes and thrusts, just as in the typical street brawler. Dragon Valor extends the concept by giving you a variety of other moves to perform, such as aerial attacks and acrobatic evasions. Using these moves in the combat scenes is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game, but the moves can't manage to relieve the tedium of most of the battle sequences. Dragon Valor provides you not only with a big sword and plenty of attacks but also with an RPG-style inventory and status screen in which you can manage the magic and items that you have acquired. The game's RPG elements are incredibly basic, however. The only stats represented numerically are strength and defense, and these are increased not by gaining experience (indeed, enemies provide no experience points when killed), but by picking up power-ups. The status screen also lets you select from a list of magic spells, which are gained by defeating certain boss-like enemies. These spells run the typical RPG gamut, from the elemental triumvirate fire/ice/lightning to the mainstay heal spell. Although the in-battle magic is a nice addition, it certainly doesn't add anything groundbreaking to the combat. The action in Dragon Valor is complemented by a variety of puzzles. The game could have really shined in this area, but the puzzles are generally uninspired rehashes of those seen in past Zelda games, from pushing boxes over switches to lighting torches for the purpose of illuminating an area. The game deserves small credit for including the magic spells in the puzzles' solutions, but the difficulty in finding the solutions doesn't match the brain-twisting complexity of Zelda 64, the game from which Dragon Valor seems to have drawn the majority of its inspiration. Dragon Valor's banal gameplay could be forgiven if its story were fresh and interesting, but alas, it suffers from the same unoriginality. You begin the game as the average boy (in this case Clovis), whose town is attacked by a rampaging dragon. After Clovis watches his sister die, the fallen hero bequeaths the sword to Clovis, who then embarks on a quest for revenge. Perhaps the only interesting part of Dragon Valor's story is that Clovis can meet more than one girl during this first chapter of his adventure (maybe dating simulation should be added to the list of genres the game draws from), and the offspring from this apparently random coupling will be the hero for Chapter 2. That child then begets the hero of Chapter 3, and so on. This makes little more than graphical and narrative difference, however, as each hero wields the same sword and uses the same moves as Clovis. Even stats and items are carried over from one chapter to the next, despite the supposedly lengthy progression of time. Different heroes experience different levels, however. Although Dragon Valor stands on its own as a fairly solid game, and there's nothing necessarily bad about it, the game just isn't particularly noteworthy. The average graphics, sound, and play mechanics contribute to the feeling that all this has been done before, and the uninspired storyline and lack of real plot twists really doesn't give you much motivation to keep playing. The branching family tree adds a measure of replay value, but the game is average enough that few will want to play it through more than once. --Brad Shoemaker
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dragons... What more is needed to sell an RPG?, July 8, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dragon Valor [Playstation, PS1] (Video Game)

Well I can't hide my disappointment in this title... I read with great interest how this tale would involve you slaying dragons, however there was a very original twist. You had to produce offspring after marriage! I thought "Cool. Choose your wife and different consequences occur at different times..." However reality begs to differ, you see unlike expected the game doesn't allow you to choose your wife. You simply complete roughly five or six levels (this makes a chapter by the way) and then a woman appears... Not what I expected...

If taking away the joy from a twist wasn't enough they label a game as an rpg when it really isn't... You see the game plays a lot like the streets of rage series on the old sega magedrive, but it isn't anywhere near as good! The graphics are flawed, the game can get sluggish, but also it just seems to teeter on the easy side too much...

However challenge does appear in the dragons themselves... Some of them are so hard! You are struggling along and they can brush aside at any moment... Nice to see them making an effort to keep you going...

However I feel this game was far too overhyped. What we expected was an old style rpg with a striking twist on things, but what we got was a recycled 2D side scrolling beat 'em up disguised as an RPG... This game is only worth acquiring if you love either dragons or are a diehard fan of beat 'em ups...

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Namco needs an education in what an RPG is, February 26, 2001

By 

lRanma (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dragon Valor [Playstation, PS1] (Video Game)

I was looking forward to a long rpg. But it turns out Dragon Valor is a straight forward adventure game. There is no brain twisting or puzzles. Just straight forward hack and slash. It's true you have certain rpg element as in magic and medieval stuff, but besides that you're limited to choices. Once you past an area you can't go back there. I repeat once you beat an area there is no return. So already you're looking at a level based game. There are no villages to walk through or a bars where you can go in to dally with average people. All you get is a one time trip to a shop. Worse part are the shops are restricted too. Each time you encounter a shop what you get to do is already chosen. It alternates between selling, buying and trading. Where is the freedom to roam towns, mingle with people, and go back to old places for deja vu?

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!, September 15, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Dragon Valor [Playstation, PS1] (Video Game)

It seems like I'm the only person who likes this game! I mean that its amazing none of you like this game. EVERYTHING is great about it! No, I'm not kidding!!! The music is cool. Especialy when you face off aganst the dragons. Control is simple! Why, its as simple as I am! Its so easy, only four of the dragons gave me a hard time! They would probaly give you a hard time too. These dragons are: Hellfire, Inferno, Thunder and Hades. Also, the final boss isin't THAT hard! All you have to do is dodge his magic, block his physical attacks, and when you have an opening, beat the crap out of him!