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Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll review

Game: Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll
Platform: NES
Genre: Action
Developer: Culture Brain
AKA: Hiryu no Ken: Ougi no Sho (JP)

Reader review by aganar

Date unavailable

Synoposis: Innovative but Lacking Game; 7/10

In the life-span of the NES, the most innovative games ever came out. Along with those came innovative, but not as memorable games. This was one of them. Don't get it confused with the N64 game of the same name, they aren't the same game or even genre.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics are ok. The portraits look nice and the character sprites look ok, but they're nothing special. The backrounds looks alot like the rest of the NES games. Good, but nothing special. Some of te villans character designs look interesting, although the main character and his master look rather plain. The real artwork seems to be in the villians.

Story: 5/10
Your basic fantasy/martial arts story. Magical item stolen (in this case the scroll) by evil villian, and the main hero under his master is told to get it back. The layout goes level, training or fight, level, fight, etc. It seems like they tried to include some interesting story, but it didn't quite get that far. Basically, you must get it back and learn the ultimate Kung-Fu technique. Oh well....

Gameplay: 8/10
The gameplay is pretty interesting. Half the time you are playing a side scrolling platformer, the other half you are playing a sort of hit the target fighting game. When you're in the side-scroller you are usually looking for a dojo to practice at. Throughout your quest at each level you encounter weaklings along with actual fighters with their own moves and lives. When you beat them you collect japanese symbols which make you more powerful. Now, on to the up close game. Here you're enemies and yourself will have targets randomly appear. When that happens you may either lung to attack them in a certain way based on the position of the target or you may half to block or dodge in a certain way. It is pretty interesting, and I really enjoyed it for the most part. As you progress through levels you learn new techniques and train to become better. You also face in a number of tournaments where you fight random enemies up close and personel.

Control: 7/10
Well, for a martial arts game you need the control to be good or it just won't be much fighting. The control here is ok. A punch button and a kick button on the side-scroller, and the same but with jumpkicks on the target mode. It gets a bit hard to catch on to the target mode, though. For instance, if you wanted to punch somone in the head during that you would have to press up and punch. Sound difficult? It's harder than it sounds because you can only hit where the target appears on their body, and vice versa on your own.

Sound/Music: 8/10
The music is very nice for an NES game. It's mainly all dojo and combat themes, but, none the less, they are very nice. The first track (where you side-scroll) I find especially well-arranged.

Overall: 7/10
This game was very innovative, but because of its flaws it is not remembered as an NES classic. It was a good game, however, had it not been so hard and its story and control improved a bit it could've been a great game. So for now it remains one of the many many many NES innovative games that no one remembers.

Pros:
innovative gameplay
good music

Cons:
slightly jerky control
too hard

Rating: 7/10

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