It seems that one of the more difficult things any creative developer/producer/etc can attempt to do is to make a modern game that somehow recaptures the spirit and positive qualities of a classic game/movie/whatever. Many have tried this sort of reinvention, few have met with success, and most have met with failure. Back in the glory days of the arcades Dragon’s Lair was truly a creation that could turn heads and collect quarters with a vengeance. Granted, the gameplay was stilted, success involved little more than trial-and-error memorization of timing and moves to progress through a wide variety of challenges, and most people who did manage to win the game did so after spending more than a few dollars per attempt. What Dragon’s Lair had in spades though that no other game could begin to muster at the time was character. From the voices and sound effects to the detailed and often hilarious animations, Dirk the Daring and the cast of creatures of all types and sizes were a pure joy to behold. Now, many years later, the hope was that somehow modern technology would allow the series to make a glorious return, but as a game rendered in real-time instead of a laserdisc game relying on cutting between pre-animated sequences. While the attempt is a valiant one and great care is apparent in some aspects of the game, unfortunately the new incarnation of Dragon’s Lair manages to preserve a great deal of what was wrong with the original while failing to retain almost any of its charm.

Beginning with the most vital area, the graphics, there is a bittersweet mix of some successes with some terrible failures. What works, and works well, is that the developer has done an admirable job of getting the look of the game right. Elements in the environment look much as they did in the fully-animated game, many of the characters in the game were well modeled and look strikingly like in the original… with this in mind all would seem to be well, right? Sadly while the models look good and there is an animation-like quality to the trappings, the key to it all is completely lacking. No matter how great the game looks it is impossible to ignore the fact that everything in it is utterly sterile. The original game inspired laughs, often at the expense of the hero as he died in any number of ways from grisly to goofy and somehow managed to etch itself into the memories of many of those who played it. What you have in the new version of the game is very different. Enemies, seemingly stuck with their single or very minimally animated expressions, make their way to you and you slash at them. As you hit them they mostly just flash to indicate a damaging hit or just disappear entirely if you’ve managed to kill them. From beginning to end, in almost every case the developers seem to have lost sight of the fact that the game’s distinct look wasn’t merely about aesthetics, it was also very much about the detailed and elaborate action that no other game could hope to recreate at the time. Perhaps if the game had shown up a few years ago the novelty of cel shading could have carried more weight but after glimpses of brilliance in other games in this style, particularly Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, there is no way to ignore how bland the animations in this game are.

Moving to another of the original game’s strengths, the sound in the new incarnation of Dragon’s Lair just doesn’t have quite enough of a good thing. Granted, you can tell some of the samples from the original game have been incorporated into the title but again, not everything works and it is hard not to walk away from the game without thinking the sound effects and voices could have been livelier. So while the novelty factor of some shrieks and grunts mixed with a few classic musical flourishes from the original are nice it doesn’t seem that much effort was put into taking those elements and giving them new depth with a wider variety of sounds to fit all of the new things that happen in the title.

With the look and sound of the game doing respectably but hardly lighting the world on fire the only remaining hope to turn things around for Dragon’s Lair 3D unfortunately becomes the weakest element from the original title: the gameplay. While the gameplay in 3D is certainly a vast improvement over rote pattern memorization it is hard to say it compares favorably to other modern games. For the most part, the title is a straight-up action/adventure title, though somewhat linear in nature for the most part. Kill some beasties, jump around on some platforms, solve some simple puzzles, and repeat. Fans of the arcade classic will have flashbacks in many situations as events from the original game are represented often, though they’ve obviously been changed to reflect the differences in style of play. One frustrating hold over though is the fact that even though the game is more free form, the element of trial-and-error is still quite prevalent, creating a style of play that is more reminiscent of the old days than many people will likely enjoy.

Without a doubt anyone who played Dragon’s Lair back in the day will get a hoot out of taking the new version for a spin. For nostalgic value alone the experience of seeing something on the screen and getting a flood of memories is something special. For anyone who doesn’t know who Dirk the Daring or Singe are though, partaking of this experience may just skew perceptions of the original in an unfair manner, making it difficult to recommend. While it is hard not to see signs of the impassioned efforts that were put into this project, it is impossible not to conclude that in most crucial areas the game doesn’t cut it. If the gameplay were less plain or if they had managed to infuse 3D with the energy and abundance of character seen in the classic Dragon’s Lair titles, things may have been different. In the end though, Dragon’s Lair 3D is a game that can only hope to succeed by banking on name recognition… if it weren’t for the title’s roots it would never have even registered on anyone’s radar.