Retro Review: Alisia Dragoon SEGA MegaDrive / Genesis

I'll start by saying, This is a post I've been meaning to do since I got the game, and it's been a while since I picked it up, I didn't want to comment on the game without giving it some game time, and I just have not got round to doing that, until now... While I've not been able to throw a whole heap of time into it, I have played it enough to know, I like this game, simply put, it's SEGA Mega Drive at it's 16bit blast processing best.

I'll keep this post short and sweet, I'm just going to gush over this one as it just brings back a whole load of great nostalgia for me, and I sat on the floor this morning, in the dark (4-5am-ish) with some headphones on infront of a CRT TV and put in some solid gametime, it felt great like i was back in my early 90s youth.. Anyway, This is a 1992 release developed by GameArts and Gainax, published of course by SEGA(in North America and Europe, GameArts in Japan), a side scrolling fantasy platforming "shooter"(more erm zapper?).

My thoughts on the Game:

Story/Plot: Classic fantasy save the world from the evil powerful magic bad guys who have awoken their all powerful master, you play Alisia(oh look "feminists" what's this we have here? one of them strong female heroines that are apparently non existent and under represented in the video game world?? And from the early 90s too!!!) so you're a sorceress / warrior with dragons and stuff and yeah you shoot lightening at enemies, all good stuff!

Graphics: This game looks great, the sprites, backgrounds, animations, effects all very nice and colourful, looks outstanding on a CRT via RGB scart in all it's 16bit glory.

Sound: I felt the sound and music were excellent, that is all. now as i said in the video my model 1 mega drive is modified so it gets stereo sound direct from the sound chip and it does sound great.

Gameplay: Controls are nice and responsive and everything works well, although when zapping enemies due to it being auto targeting sometimes it does not target the enemy you want when you want, but all in all it works really well, but don't be fooled even though it is auto targeting the game still packs a decent challenge and is by no means easy, enemies come at you from everywhere and the game can be brutal / unforgiving and even "cheap" at times but that's all part of the fun in these games, beating them! There's plenty of secrets, power ups and also you have a slection of "dragons" to chose from during game play, which have their own attack / power, but also are just as vulnerable as you and can be killed, but do help especially when there's multiple enemies on screen.

Here's a short-ish game play video so you can see for yourself what it's like.

Conclusion:

I really like this game, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has a SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis or anyone who likes these old school games, it's not expensive and easily available on the likes of ebay or maybe out in the wild if you're lucky, if not, check it out on an emulator, you won't be disappointed it's well worth the time. Top notch 5/5 11/10.

Small update:

Has taken me far too long to get this post out there but I've been busy and distracted by many things. Including my new youtube channel TheSynrgy1987 which now has channel art! Also now have a Domain name: http://www.thesynrgy.com which currently only links to this blog.