Who would have though.. from Dynamix! Alas, this is just the kind of thing I would like to have in the ’90’s. At least ’til the Blade Runner was published - which is ten steps higher in every category. Or a hundred. Very interesting early production still. It’s absolutely vigorating to realize there are yet much quality ground to be explored in the fields of early pc gaming. You did it again - thanks!
The arcade section isn't Contra. It's Rolling Thunder. That's why the game is asking you to jump and duck under bullets. Rolling Thunder even has the moon jumping to get between multiple stories.
So, a couple things: 1) There are unwinnable situations. A fair amount of them, actually. Exactly one is acknowledged in the game (by Blade, no less), and given that the manual boasts the lack of these, the devs probably didn't thoroughly test the game. The most obvious one is getting yourself locked out of your apartment TWICE (The first time is recoverable, and likely to be accidental - the game uses it to remind you to actually take your things with you when it gives you the second chance. The second time, though, you're screwed), but saying the wrong things to the wrong characters will also render the game unwinnable, and in one case, merely interacting with a character locks you out of plot-critical interactions with another character. 2) Supposedly, there was a CD release for the DOS version, and the Sega CD version was ported from that. I'm having a lot of difficulty confirming the existence of that CD DOS version, but some of the changes for the Sega CD version was the removal of all textual dialogue (due to voice acting existing), removing some of the mature content, removing the ammunition for Blade's sidearm (the weapon itself remains), and not being able to talk to the punk in the pleasure dome. The single biggest change, though, is to the two unavoidable Arcade scenes: the Mercy Skip is removed entirely from the Sega CD version, meaning completing them is mandatory. (There's a third Arcade scene that, if you die in, the game is over with no continues even on the DOS version. It is entirely avoidable in all versions unless you fail to obtain and keep a specific item) That said, at least on paper it seems like a good game, though I've never actually played it myself. A lot of people recommend trying the Sega CD version at the very least for the voice acting and better music, even if there is some content removed and the Arcade Scenes become mandatory to complete.
+Kitsune Zeta You can't actually lock yourself out of your apartment in the game. If you use the valve in the ceiling just outside your apartment it blasts some steam which shorts out a light and causes the door to open, no ID card required! There's a lot of circumstances like that which SEEM unrecoverable, but have a recovery procedure in place, or will still go forward to a resolution despite not being able to have a direct influence.
I remember Retsupurae riffing on a long play of it and when there was nothing left to do, the video had the protagonist sleep for several hours straight
"Superior sound" Debatable. 4 channels of 8-bit low sample rate hard-panned stereo isn't superior to a Roland MT-32 + digitized sound. I get that there is a price difference and that the MT-32 isn't capable of sampling, but the benefits you do get are miles above the Amiga.
@@Banzeken Normally I'd agree, but this game is way better on the Amiga. Just check out the music right at the start: th-cam.com/video/FKpkkQH6ZT4/w-d-xo.html Also most of us were playing on Mono TV's so never heard the hard panned stereo.
@@Banzeken Also, the number of people who had Roland setups in the late 80s/early 90s were minuscule. The vast majority of PC players were playing this on OPL2 sound cards, and those definitely sounded worse than the Amiga nearly all of the time.
If "superior sound" refers to the Amiga version sounding better than the DOS version then that's also debatable. I'm hearing differences in arrangement, which is a matter of taste and not down to the MT-32 being the lesser device.
@@jasonblalock4429 That is a valid argument. This does not necessarily mean, however, that a MS-DOS computer could not handle digitized soundtracks even with just a Sound Blaster card. What the Amiga had was DMA-assisted hardware for accelerating the playback of sampled audio, but through brute force a MS-DOS computer could play tracker-style 4-channel songs too.
Its crazy to know that people can speed run this game in 15 to 20 minutes. It took a 12 years old me an entire Summer's night to complete this game in the early 90s.
I loved this game back in the day. The first time I played it was on the Sega CD. Then a couple years ago I played through the Amiga version. There is also Heart of China which is in the same style but is an Indiana Jones riff.
Dynamix also did Space Quest V and The Adventures of Willy Beamish, so it's not a stretch that they could create adventure games... but this was their first, so it would be surprising at the time that they created it. I think.
@@Pixelmusement Yeah, I always thought Willy Beamish had a massive problem with its tone. Why make a game where the player is a mischievous young boy, but punish them harshly for even minor mistakes or experimentation?
Honestly, I've always thought Willy Beamish was fairly easy to play as far as point and click games go. I don't remember it being that hard to avoid unwinnable situations. Also, funny thing is that both it and Rise of the Dragon have Sega CD ports. Rise of the Dragon on Sega CD has a very good port developed by Game Arts, but Willy Beamish's port was handled by a different developer and had some very bad glitches and horrific loading times.
The EGA version also supports CGA, using 640x200 black&white mode. Did you get Sound Blaster support working? It's finicky, but rewards you with digitized audio in the intro sequence.
+Jim Leonard I did! I recorded it both ways, with and without the digitized audio, but decided to use the clip without the audio so I could speak over it more clearly. :B
Wasn't this freeware at some point? I have a distant memory that this, Heart of China and maybe some other Dynamix titles were released as freeware somewhere late 90s or early 2000s.
+merkonomi That would've been right around the time when companies were occasionally releasing old software as freeware in a limited run, usually on magazine pack-in CDs or such. Those releases are free to own and play, but do not include distribution rights, meaning you were not allowed to redistribute those copies elsewhere.
You can see some screenshots on MobyGames (e.g. www.mobygames.com/game/dos/rise-of-the-dragon/screenshots/gameShotId,259/). All things considered, the EGA version looks pretty good. They didn't just reduce the colors of the VGA images but also cleaned them up by hand and added some dithering.
I have this on Sega CD and I personally quite like it. The DOS PC version isn't bad either, but I do prefer the Sega CD one overall because of the voice acting and (imo) better music.
According to the note that you ask Chang Li to translate from chinese to english for you, the climax of the game is set to happen at 3.8.5678. So that seems to be a date to place the game in, so to speak. 8th of march, year 5678.
That was likely some fanciful liberties the writers/devs were taking with the game, perhaps it's a calendar based on the Bahumat mythology it introduces. The hintbook that you get with the game lists different characters dates of birth, Blade for instance was born in 2013, Karyn was 2028, the mayor was born 2003, and Chang Li 1992. According to someone else in the comment the SegaCD version lists the year as 2053 which would line up with these birthdays making Blade in his 40s and Karyn in her late 20s.
Look at that, a Bell helicopter. Sort of dates the game's story, though a bit of an anachronism considering other technologies present, including DNA analyzing.
+Dungeon Master There's a lot of games in the series. If you want to send in a request for a specific game you should fire off an eMail to me! My eMail address can be found on my website or at the end of all of my videos. :B
Huh! This game's interface and gameplay are identical to The Adventures of Willy Beamish! Considering both were made by Dynamix, this is a given, but I always thought Willy was the only graphical adventure game they had made.
+White Heart Nope! This game predates Beamish! Heart of China came out the same year as Willy Beamish so I'm not sure which of those two came next. Dynamix also worked on Space Quest V and Rama. :B
really a shame these cyberpunk games are so short many times, ANGEL DEVOID i saw was the same case, stunning cyberpunk world artwork but too short .... if youre into scifi they really pull u in
I love these old inventory based adventure games. Mean Streets is one of my favorite games ever so I'm definitely going to track this down on GOG.
Who would have though.. from Dynamix!
Alas, this is just the kind of thing I would like to have in the ’90’s. At least ’til the Blade Runner was published - which is ten steps higher in every category. Or a hundred.
Very interesting early production still. It’s absolutely vigorating to realize there are yet much quality ground to be explored in the fields of early pc gaming. You did it again - thanks!
The arcade section isn't Contra.
It's Rolling Thunder. That's why the game is asking you to jump and duck under bullets. Rolling Thunder even has the moon jumping to get between multiple stories.
Also, I suspect Dynamix was inspired by Mean Streets, which came out the year before and had similar shooting sections.
So, a couple things:
1) There are unwinnable situations. A fair amount of them, actually. Exactly one is acknowledged in the game (by Blade, no less), and given that the manual boasts the lack of these, the devs probably didn't thoroughly test the game. The most obvious one is getting yourself locked out of your apartment TWICE (The first time is recoverable, and likely to be accidental - the game uses it to remind you to actually take your things with you when it gives you the second chance. The second time, though, you're screwed), but saying the wrong things to the wrong characters will also render the game unwinnable, and in one case, merely interacting with a character locks you out of plot-critical interactions with another character.
2) Supposedly, there was a CD release for the DOS version, and the Sega CD version was ported from that. I'm having a lot of difficulty confirming the existence of that CD DOS version, but some of the changes for the Sega CD version was the removal of all textual dialogue (due to voice acting existing), removing some of the mature content, removing the ammunition for Blade's sidearm (the weapon itself remains), and not being able to talk to the punk in the pleasure dome. The single biggest change, though, is to the two unavoidable Arcade scenes: the Mercy Skip is removed entirely from the Sega CD version, meaning completing them is mandatory. (There's a third Arcade scene that, if you die in, the game is over with no continues even on the DOS version. It is entirely avoidable in all versions unless you fail to obtain and keep a specific item)
That said, at least on paper it seems like a good game, though I've never actually played it myself. A lot of people recommend trying the Sega CD version at the very least for the voice acting and better music, even if there is some content removed and the Arcade Scenes become mandatory to complete.
+Kitsune Zeta You can't actually lock yourself out of your apartment in the game. If you use the valve in the ceiling just outside your apartment it blasts some steam which shorts out a light and causes the door to open, no ID card required! There's a lot of circumstances like that which SEEM unrecoverable, but have a recovery procedure in place, or will still go forward to a resolution despite not being able to have a direct influence.
I remember Retsupurae riffing on a long play of it and when there was nothing left to do, the video had the protagonist sleep for several hours straight
Heart of China was my favorite adventure game by Dynamix. But this one also looks cool, I will probably check it out
Had this on Amiga. TEN floppies. Superior sound as well.
"Superior sound" Debatable. 4 channels of 8-bit low sample rate hard-panned stereo isn't superior to a Roland MT-32 + digitized sound. I get that there is a price difference and that the MT-32 isn't capable of sampling, but the benefits you do get are miles above the Amiga.
@@Banzeken Normally I'd agree, but this game is way better on the Amiga. Just check out the music right at the start: th-cam.com/video/FKpkkQH6ZT4/w-d-xo.html Also most of us were playing on Mono TV's so never heard the hard panned stereo.
@@Banzeken Also, the number of people who had Roland setups in the late 80s/early 90s were minuscule. The vast majority of PC players were playing this on OPL2 sound cards, and those definitely sounded worse than the Amiga nearly all of the time.
If "superior sound" refers to the Amiga version sounding better than the DOS version then that's also debatable. I'm hearing differences in arrangement, which is a matter of taste and not down to the MT-32 being the lesser device.
@@jasonblalock4429 That is a valid argument. This does not necessarily mean, however, that a MS-DOS computer could not handle digitized soundtracks even with just a Sound Blaster card. What the Amiga had was DMA-assisted hardware for accelerating the playback of sampled audio, but through brute force a MS-DOS computer could play tracker-style 4-channel songs too.
Its crazy to know that people can speed run this game in 15 to 20 minutes. It took a 12 years old me an entire Summer's night to complete this game in the early 90s.
I remember seeing this long ago. I never played it but it seemed interesting.
I loved this game back in the day. The first time I played it was on the Sega CD. Then a couple years ago I played through the Amiga version. There is also Heart of China which is in the same style but is an Indiana Jones riff.
7:30 Sounds very similar to how the Quantic Dream games work.
Dynamix also did Space Quest V and The Adventures of Willy Beamish, so it's not a stretch that they could create adventure games... but this was their first, so it would be surprising at the time that they created it. I think.
I remember The Adventure Of Willy Beamish had the very setup same to this game, though that game came out later.
+TheMoogleMaster Willy Beamish is also much larger and significantly easier to screw yourself over in. :P
@@Pixelmusement Yeah, I always thought Willy Beamish had a massive problem with its tone. Why make a game where the player is a mischievous young boy, but punish them harshly for even minor mistakes or experimentation?
Honestly, I've always thought Willy Beamish was fairly easy to play as far as point and click games go. I don't remember it being that hard to avoid unwinnable situations. Also, funny thing is that both it and Rise of the Dragon have Sega CD ports. Rise of the Dragon on Sega CD has a very good port developed by Game Arts, but Willy Beamish's port was handled by a different developer and had some very bad glitches and horrific loading times.
@@jasonblalock4429 Thank you! This always bothered my about Willy Beamish. It needed better 'cartoon logic' than what we got.
The EGA version also supports CGA, using 640x200 black&white mode.
Did you get Sound Blaster support working? It's finicky, but rewards you with digitized audio in the intro sequence.
+Jim Leonard I did! I recorded it both ways, with and without the digitized audio, but decided to use the clip without the audio so I could speak over it more clearly. :B
How can I get the Sega Mega Mouse to work with Rise of the Dragon using an actual Sega Genesis and CD?
Seeing that not many DOS games had a level editor, my bet is on either Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Warcraft 2, or Dungeon Keeper.
Oh man, the intro music..
Wasn't this freeware at some point? I have a distant memory that this, Heart of China and maybe some other Dynamix titles were released as freeware somewhere late 90s or early 2000s.
+merkonomi That would've been right around the time when companies were occasionally releasing old software as freeware in a limited run, usually on magazine pack-in CDs or such. Those releases are free to own and play, but do not include distribution rights, meaning you were not allowed to redistribute those copies elsewhere.
@@Pixelmusement You make it sound like that's ever stopped anyone. :P
+Torcularis It may not stop 'em, but the publishers going around sending out C&Ds to any websites trying definitely would. :P
"The year is.. 2053, the city, Lost Angeles"
based on SEGA CD box art cover
In it's CURRENT state, we could build a mile high and a mile below us and significantly expand the capacity to several hundred billion.
I'm curious how the EGA version looks.
You can see some screenshots on MobyGames (e.g. www.mobygames.com/game/dos/rise-of-the-dragon/screenshots/gameShotId,259/). All things considered, the EGA version looks pretty good. They didn't just reduce the colors of the VGA images but also cleaned them up by hand and added some dithering.
Lost, in this pleasure dome. Lost, in my own pleasure dome.
I have this on Sega CD and I personally quite like it. The DOS PC version isn't bad either, but I do prefer the Sega CD one overall because of the voice acting and (imo) better music.
According to the note that you ask Chang Li to translate from chinese to english for you, the climax of the game is set to happen at 3.8.5678. So that seems to be a date to place the game in, so to speak. 8th of march, year 5678.
That was likely some fanciful liberties the writers/devs were taking with the game, perhaps it's a calendar based on the Bahumat mythology it introduces.
The hintbook that you get with the game lists different characters dates of birth, Blade for instance was born in 2013, Karyn was 2028, the mayor was born 2003, and Chang Li 1992. According to someone else in the comment the SegaCD version lists the year as 2053 which would line up with these birthdays making Blade in his 40s and Karyn in her late 20s.
Look at that, a Bell helicopter. Sort of dates the game's story, though a bit of an anachronism considering other technologies present, including DNA analyzing.
Jake looks like a guy who might not have all there. Cyberpunk junkie. Would make his reactions make sense.
+Jari Heiska That's a fair point, actually. :B
Can you review might and magic series
+Dungeon Master There's a lot of games in the series. If you want to send in a request for a specific game you should fire off an eMail to me! My eMail address can be found on my website or at the end of all of my videos. :B
@@Pixelmusement oh ok
And if you like this game, you could check out Heart of China too.
Huh! This game's interface and gameplay are identical to The Adventures of Willy Beamish! Considering both were made by Dynamix, this is a given, but I always thought Willy was the only graphical adventure game they had made.
+White Heart Nope! This game predates Beamish! Heart of China came out the same year as Willy Beamish so I'm not sure which of those two came next. Dynamix also worked on Space Quest V and Rama. :B
@@Pixelmusement Interesting! One way or another, I'm gonna have to give this game a check. Even if the arcade sections looks terrible.
Originally an Amiga game if I remember right.
+PlasticCog Liquid They might've been in development at the same time but my research shows the DOS version was released first. :B
really a shame these cyberpunk games are so short many times, ANGEL DEVOID i saw was the same case, stunning cyberpunk world artwork but too short .... if youre into scifi they really pull u in
LateBlt get on this LOL