Dragonsphere

I don't know how to progress and I refuse to open a walkthrough
sums up these kinds of games, if you don't have the drive to play it or to look up a guide then don't get it

Overall, it's a positive experience. Music is SPOT ON. It's really outstanding. Graphics are nice and the dialogues are excellent. Descriptions of the environment are great. Only drawbacks are some stupid puzzle designing (dialogue based puzzles) and some death scenarios. Otherwise it's easily recommendable adventure.

This is by far the best 90s point-and-click fantasy adventure game ever. The story is unique with a shocking twist. One should note though that the puzzles are sometimes extremely challenging.

Dragon Sphere is made by a legendary programmer who has worked wonders for the programming industry from the shadows. The game is interesting too. There are many aspects of this game that helped the genre grow wildly.

First RPG I ever played. I am thrilled that it was ported to Steam. If you are hard core at puzzles, keep good notes. If not, get the walk through; some parts get sticky. Well designed , though dated in graphics. Twists in plot are numerous.

MicroProse <3 NightDive

Short adventure game, similar to lucas-art classics mixed with Kings-Quest (hard to find a failstate, but still obtuse)

As far as third-person graphic adventure games go (from the early years of CD-ROM games), this one is very good. And among the three (pure) adventure games that MPS created, this was definitely the best one.

POSITIVES

Inasmuch as MPS created a relatively unique player interface that is surprisingly easy-to-use, it's a shame MPS didn't keep making adventure games. However, in all fairness, starting in 1993, CD-ROM point-and-click adventure-game offerings exploded on the market with a flood of genre-changing titles that were in a league of their own, so I can understand why a computer-game company that didn't specialize in this type of game would want to bow out.

The overall design of this game, especially the animated third-person view of the player's character, is a style that became very popular in the late 80s and early 90s, when image-data files were still limited by the storage capacity of floppy disks. The interface, which has trace elements of early text-adventure games, represents the final pre-Myst-era stage in the evolution of graphic-only adventures games from their text-only origins to the subsequent first-person total-immersion games of the late 90s. Therefore, Dragonsphere captures the best of what text-adventure games were attempting to create (but without the clumsiness of keyboard text entry) while also highlighting the magnificence of hand-drawn (rather than computationally-rendered) graphics. Artistically, it's an outstanding work that is positioned near the end of a software-development era (for personal computers).

The one thing this game does really well is that it tells a rich and complete story, rather than merely throwing out disjointed fragments of barely-navigable mazes and randomly-populated monsters in a treacherous swamp of baffling and incongruent puzzles. It's an actual adventure game, not just a game that has been loosely classified as one. Nor does it ever stray into the scriptless murkiness of the RPG genre either (like MPS's BloodNet).

NEGATIVES

Having said all of that, I have to admit that this game also isn't perfect.

The middle third of the game, right before the underwhelming battle between the primary protagonist and the primary antagonist, falls a little too far on side of being overly-complicated, and in a mostly unbelievable way. To save time, I played the entire game with a walkthrough, but I didn't really need it during the first third of the game. Most of the "puzzle" solving in this game follows fairly common-sense rules until the player reaches Hightower. After that, honestly, anyone who dares to solve the middle third without a walkthrough is going to be burning up a lot of time trying to make sense of which obscure inventory items need to be used in combination with other equally obscure action and/or dialog sequences.

And speaking of dialog, immediately after the not-so-climactic climax, the dialog becomes painfully long and tiresome. I repeatedly found myself screaming at the characters to shut the [bleep] up so I could finish the game. I love how the dialog is the mechanism by which the story is told, but there could've been a little judicious editing applied before the game was released. And if the chatty text and monotone voiceovers didn't have such a strong "ham & cheese" flavor (to the point of turning the whole game into a B-movie cult classic), I might have given the content and delivery two thumbs down too. However, despite my own eye-rolling, I have to admit that the sheer dorkiness of the dialog can be a bit charming at times. This game is so convincing, in it's unrelenting determination, that it sells it's own shortcomings as though they were laudable features.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Definitely purchase and play this game (with a walkthrough on standby). It's one of the last best examples of what post-text graphic-adventure games were trying so hard to achieve before the first-person puzzle/adventure games took over. There are other Hall-of-Fame titles (like the King's Quest series) that rate higher, on average, but within the MPS mini-universe, this one is a classic.

I first played this game when I was a child (born in the 1980's), and I was absolutely in love with it. I made my own walkthrough for it using MS Paint and NotePad, that is how much I cared! When I saw it on Steam, I just had to get it. The puzzles are fun, the worlds are interesting, the voice acting is hit and miss but I love it in some places (like the living vines), and it's one of those games where your choices matter because some can get result in your death. It was just a terrific experience back in the day and I still love it now. Give it a chance!

Dragonsphere reminds me of early Kings Quest games, which I loved, and played for years with (and without) my son. It is not too complex not too easy, but offers an interesting story line with some challenges. While the graphics are decent, I haven't been able to adjust the resolution, which appears pixelated on my PC, even when played in the dosbox. Although it is less like the cinematic experiences of today's adventure games, I have really enjoyed it so far.

Classic game from the 90s

This is one of the worst adventure games I have ever had the misfortune of trying to play. What puzzles I did run across were entertaining, the issue is the game gives you absolutely nothing for a majority of it. Even the instruction manual's advice is effectively "if something doesn't work, try something else." This is a game where you have to go through every screen trying to look at, take, open, close, push, pull EVERYTHING until something works. And that's just an exercise in tedium. The items don't give you clues as to where they're going to be used, the environments have a lot of things to look at but almost all of it are red herrings. And worse, the game is *SLOW*, plodding. Even though there's a button to skip some of the walking, it barely skips any of it and a lot of times doesn't do anything at all. The entire design of this game is to make you waste your time with endless trial and error. And I cannot tolerate it any longer.

If you are a fan of retro Point and Click Adventure games you will probably enjoy this game.

The story starts out pretty simple. King goes out alone to save his kingdom from an evil sorcerer but it does pick up and get a little more interesting (though fairly predictable) in the middle. The writing is okay but the voice acting is terrible. It sounds very unprofessional and stiff and the sound of the voices is both inconsistent and poorly recorded. The good news is you can just turn off the voice sound and read the text instead. I couldn't stand listening to the voices for very long before I went looking through the options. The music is okay, I don't think it's my favorite P&C Adventure game soundtrack but it fit well enough with the game and was relatively good.

The pixel graphics are pretty good for its time. The more amazing part was the animations. The movements of the characters are so smooth and realistic it looked as though they were extremely low res video captures of real people... which apparently it pretty much was since it was done using rotoscope. I hadn't paid attention to that in the game description so it was very surprising to me. The backgrounds are very nice but unfortunately there are only a few different scenes in the first place.

Some things that people may not like that are common complaints in Adventure games are 1. There's no way to adjust the walking speed (it's super slow) and there's no quick click to just go to the next screen to skip the walk to the exit animations. This unfortunately makes things feel like they are taking FOREVER. 2. You can end up in an unwinnable situation if you don't get certain items before entering certain areas. You will want to save from time to time in various places for this reason so you don't have to restart from the beginning or very far back. 3. There are cutscenes as you travel from one area to another of the Queen and your mother talking about the craks in the dragonshpere getting bigger and they are to frequent and very annoying.

The menu is in the same style as the Monkey Island series with a set of words that you click such as "look", "take", "throw", etc... the inventory items all have descriptions and their own sub menu for interactions. It's fairly easy to use though often feels a little cumbersome.

This game does have a Middle Eastern themed kingdom/race and it's very stereotypical. There's a sultan out in the middle of a desert and he has a fancy tent in which he plays a game with oppulent jewels, drinks something humans would liken to tea, and stereotypical clothing/hats and even a bellydancer if you respond in the right way during your conversations. While their way of talking, mannerisms, and everything are clearly based on Middle Eastern cultures but very orientalist and sterotypical. The dance scene however was remarkable authentic though the clothing was perhaps more styled after Romani "Gypsy" style dance, the movements were though simplistic, authentic movements used in bellydance though a very limited repertiore. I very much disliked the gem game as it was so repetitive and you have to play it soooo many times to win all the prizes.

There are some slightly different outcomes based on the dialogue options you pick throughout the game too.

I played it through in 4 hours (though I was also watching movies while playing so it was distracted playing) you probably could play through this in 2 hours or less if you were focused on the game only. So it's about $1.75-$3.50/hr of gameplay. It's a bit high in my opinion at full price but if you get it on sale it's a good price/hr ratio. If you like the genre you should give it a try, it offers a classic experience.

BottomLine at the Top: I'm not sure how this one managed to be off my radar for so long. As a connoisseur of P&C adventures I'd like to think I'm familiar with a lot of the titles from the 90's. Not only was I pleasantly surprised at finding a "new" retro P&C but also with how good a game it turned out to be. Highly recommended for the P&C aficionado!


Pros
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-As someone who grew up with 90's P&C adventures, the overall style of this game is very nostalgic for me.
-Lord of the Rings-esque story and intro.
-I have to say, this game has FANTASTIC sprite animations. Considering the era this game was made makes it even more impressive. I think they must have used rotoscoping or at least had actors act out the movements in the game as a reference. I've seen modern era P&C's that try for this level of sprite quality and still don't come close.
-Game allows character to die but auto reloads to before death scene.
-Contains an early example of a fast travel map (also seen in King’s Quest VI around this era of P&C gaming.)
-Highly detailed "look" descriptions give a good sense of immersion to the game. There are modern P&C's that still have not learned this lesson.
-Classic retro style verb interface.
-Keeps using the word "ensorcelled" which saying out loud makes me giggle for some reason.


Meh.
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-Voice acting and quality. Accessing the in-game menu shows an option for "CD-ROM options". This game probably came in both a CD and disk-based version. 1994 is right around when games started offering both versions. The CD version usually included higher quality music and voice acting. I'm sure at the time the novelty and uniqueness of having voice and midi music in game was very impressive. Unfortunately, neither has aged well. Music is fine and I have heard worse voice acting in even modern P&C titles. However, the recording quality of voices is very poor and sounds as though they were recorded in a conference room. Not horrendous overall considering the games age and is mostly passable but certainly not fantastic.
-Also, it seems as though the CD and non-CD versions of this game shared the programmed intro and ending. There is no voice support in either. It came as a surprise as the game finally started and suddenly, the characters are talking. This was more acceptable for the intro, however after getting used to the voices and not hearing anyone talk during the ending was lame.
-Intro is also kind of long.
-Dialogue recordings will sometimes continue to play even if you've clicked past the dialogue box.
-At $7 asking price for approximately 5-6 hours of game play this game is pricier than I prefer for a game of this age. Picking up on Steam sale is recommended.
-There are a bunch of items that are just meant to be "collected" to increase the score (pre-dates Steam achievements but same mentality). Kind of strange and almost seems like they wanted to add more to the story but ran out of time.


Cons
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-Being such an old game, it does require the use of DOSBox. For the most part I was able to play without issues. However, after playing for the first time it loads to a main menu on subsequent game executions. This menu for some reason won't respond to clicking on any of the given options (resume, reload, new game, etc.). Alt-Tabbing out of the game and trying to reopen the window prevents the game from playing Fullscreen. I found hitting the enter key as its loading prevents this from happening. You can also load from DOSBox Daum however I find the graphic colors aren't graded as the original version.
-Also, DOSBox does not support the Steam overlay or screenshot support. As I've come to enjoy taking game screenshots and this title is currently lacking in uploaded screenshots (now I see why) it was disappointing.
-Being a 90's game, it unfortunately succumbs to the problems of pixel hunting and moon logic. There are several scenes where I would never have figured out where an item was without referencing a walkthrough. I imagine that in the days of dial-up internet it would have been incredibly frustrating trying to figure out how proceed in the game. (Most likely there was an actual printed hint guide for sale at a software store. For the younger P&C aficionados out there yes, this was an actual thing people spent money on.)
-References from early in the game that are easy to ignore (descriptions in the diary's for example) are required to solve puzzles much later in the game. (A very 90's P&C game problem).
-I really wish the guy would shut up during the gem gambling game. (If you buy the game, which you should, you'll see what I mean.)


Appropriate hardware for this game, including a CD-ROM drive, in the 1994 would have cost thousands and thousands of dollars. This game probably retailed for $50 back then (which is around $87.58 today!). Point and click adventure gaming in the 90's was very expensive! Getting a DOS game to work properly even with the proper hardware was often a difficult chore. For the time however, once you got it to work, I'm sure this game would have been tremendously impressive to the PC enthusiast back then. To me it still holds up well today. For the low price you can get this on Steam sale, the relative stability of the game on DOSBox, and quality of gameplay and story I'd highly recommend this one to all P&C aficionados!

Uninspiring point and click from the early 90s, give this one a pass

Beatiful graphics and nice animations for the time. Dull, cliched storyline, the most wooden voiceacting ever seen in commercial entertainment, clumsy interface with way too many verbs and huge, almost unreadable, "medieval-style" fonts for captions. And to top it off, the puzzles are poorly designed and the overall game is too short (fortunately).

Microprose' ambitious attemt at cracking the then lucrative adventuregame market was doomed from the start, but it holds a mysterious charm despite doing *everything* spectacularly wrong. I do hope steam will distribute the superior Phantom of the opera soon though.

Buy it if you love retro adventuregames.

I remember this game being very unique for its time. Definitely a classic in my book gaming through the 90's. This game is very in style for Microprose. Another one of theirs that I really liked was the Return of the Phantom, which is not yet on steam. The graphics with Dragonsphere were very good for the time, and a very different style to what Sierra was doing. I think that with Dragonsphere, the vision was very big with the animations, but the technology was limited. This game is also quite difficult as were many point and click adventure games of the time. They alwasy left you wondering on what was next to do, and you would spend hours traveling around and clicking things to find the next step. I have no idea how I did it when i was younger with very little access to hint systems. I replayed this and many other games so many times I could usually start new and from memory go through each of the points in the game and finish it within a few hours, or less than a days time. Its fun to go through these classics for the nostalgia, but I am also surprised at how much I have forgotten and how new feeling it can be too. Even though I probably went through Dragonsphere a several dozen times as a child, I would be totally lost without a walkthrough now.


Some negative reviews have noted about the 'meh' story line. I think the plot is very simple, but the game is filled with all types of content that I have never seen anywhere else. You do have to dig a little deeper than just the introduction and your first venture out of the castle. The story is not going to blow your mind, or get you too emotionally involved with the characters. But it has some interesting things non the less. The voice acting is also a bit 'meh' but for me the nostalgic memory of the time was in awe over the fact there were voices at all. CD-ROM and voice acting in video games were just starting to make an appearance. This was like magic and this game and several others were pioneers to the craft.

I think the price of the game is worth it for what you get. But the game is not going to be for everyone.

It's well known by most gaming enthusiasts that the cult-classic Dragonsphere, originally released by Microprose in 1994, is available for free on GOG. This fact would account for the mere 8 reviews and 20,000 purchased copies on Steam, as the mindset goes "why pay for something when you can get it for free"? Well, to be brutally honest to those naysayers, supporting Nightdive in order to get more of these classic titles updated to work on newer systems is the reason. However, is Dragonsphere worth shelling out the money for?

The game begins with a fairly long, and beautifully crafted, opening sequence that acts as sort of a prologue to the main plot. Twenty years ago, the father of the newly appointed King Callash stopped an evil sorcerer, Sanwe, from taking over the land of Gran Callahach. However, every twenty years Sanwe threatens to break free of his confinement, and his progress is told through the mystical dragonsphere; when it cracks and bursts, the evil wizard will be unleashed unto the land. With his father having passed away, King Callash sets out to stop Sanwe.

I must say that a good plot twist to any game can make a massive difference. Dragonsphere is split up in to two sections, and the latter half is the one that truly caught my attention; in fact, it made me change my rating of the game by one entire point. The first half of the game's story is rather dull, and filled with rather drab information about the surrounding lands that you're never going to intimately remember. However, the plot twist and overall second half of the game is excellent, and it really ties the entire story together into an unforgettable one. It's easy to see why this game is a cult-classic.

In typical 1990's point-and-click fashion, some of the puzzles in this title are difficult, and at times a little cryptic. In my experience, some of them even require outright trial-and-error guessing as opposed to being able to find any in-game solution. Even more difficult to find is a decent walkthrough guide when you're stuck; although I was able to find a decent one, and having used it still clocked me in at around 4 hours of game time. With that being said, if you're able to complete this game without any guides, your feeling of accomplishment and the rewards that you will sustain will feel amazing; as more often than not, when you complete a really difficult task the game rewards you with both a cutscene and long, story-driven dialogue.

Speaking of dialogue, Dragonsphere does come with some pretty cheesy voice acting, made all the more astonishing for a game of the 90's era by also being layered with some sound effects. Even non-human characters have been put through a voice changing program. Every line is accounted for, sans any narrative that does not belong to a character. While on the topic of audio, the music in this title is highly memorable, and even after you've shut the game off you will be hearing the semi-dark chiptunes still playing in your head.

Of course, the slightly darkened music fits well with the slightly darkened graphic art. Even in more colorful areas, this game still has a certain gothic appeal to it. Even back in 1994, the graphics present in this title were considered high quality, and it definitely has a certain aura to it that no modern retro-revival game could ever hope to replicate. I'm not entirely sure if Dragonsphere uses digitalized actors (ala Mortal Kombat) in some areas, as the 3D sprite movement during things like jumping into a well and climbing a mountain are extremely well animated.

While I wouldn't say that you should jump and give over a full $7.79 CAD while Dragonsphere is available on GOG for free, I will say that if you're a fan of old cult-classic point-and-click titles that you should definitely grab it when it's on sale. I personally bought this title for $1.09 CAD, and I couldn't be more impressed and awestruck by the craftsmanship of the game. Originally, I was going to merely recommend Dragonsphere for just the audible and graphical experience, but the story really does pick up about halfway through the game, and for that I've raised my score. This is definitely an underrated classic that shouldn't be missed out on.

Rating: 4.0/5.0 - Excellent, highly worth playing.

I wouldn't know about you, but I've always been a fan of the old school adventure games with rich stories and ridiculously hard puzzles back in the day. Dragonsphere is an old school point & click adventure, originally developed and published by Microprose in 1994, and carries all qualities of its genre from obscure puzzles to incredibly rich narrative.

We take a quick glimpse on the land of Callahach, a medieval realm with high fantasy elements. 20 years ago, the evil sorcerer Sanwe was defeated and sealed into his own tower by the King, young prince Callash and court wizard, Ner-Tom with the usage of the Dragonsphere. 20 years later, the seal begins to wear off and once again, the realm is threatened by Sanwe's probable release. Prophecies of old call - now King Callash, to finish the battle started 20 years ago. After his coronation, our King decides to take the quest of facing the evil sorcerer and see to his demise once and for all.

Here in the land of Callahach, our fair hero is to embark on a journey to collect aid from neighboring nations in hopes of defeating Sanwe. Callach is to solve faerie riddles, deal with cunning shapeshifters, drink and gamble with the Caliph of Soptus, tread the Spirit Realm, wrestle with beasts of deep realms, avoid deadly traps and even prejudice of his own people. In the end though, the deceit comes from our one blind side, of course, with the addition of one major plot twist.

Without revealing further details of this beautiful, yet short story; let's take a look on what Dragonsphere has to offer. The game hails from the day when we used MS-DOS to play games, and it still uses a DOS BOX, which is both nostalgic and cute in my opinion. If you are in favor of realistic and magnificent graphics, this surely is not it. Yet, with the technology of the given era, Dragonsphere doesn't fail to deliver an elegant and beautiful display, accompanied with surprisingly catchy midi music. The movements of characters, background art and interactive animations do seem like art: pretty and elegant. I'm sure that some people made this game with much time and love spared. Voice acting is a bit hoarse and unimaginative, but script itself makes up for its own.

Gameplay menu presents you a list of actions and an inventory, in which you can combine actions with either items or the environment. Combinations are not always logical, but always imaginative. For everything you look at, you are rewarded with detailed narrative descriptions which enrich the setting greatly. Puzzles are really hard, I won't lie. For the first puzzle of the game - the Faerie Maze - you have to go through a logic puzzle, which did take 3 hours for me to figure out! When I finally figured the correct combination out, I was about to shed tears of joy! Aside this one, you will be encountering movement puzzles, language puzzles and lore puzzles, all obscure, yet imaginative and well thought. There is no replay value at all, but one playthrough is challenging enough.

Dragonsphere is certainly not for everyone. I'll recommend this game for the nostalgic and the one who'd like a real challenge in brain gymnastics only. Also, I have to inform you that the game is free for you to grab in GOG, so you may prefer not to pay for it here on Steam. I, for myself, was happy to lend some financial provision for Microprose, for the old times’ sake.

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PROS:
+ nice story
+ atmosphere of an adventure
+ old-school game feel
+ decent voice acting

CONS:
- DOSBox interface
- 10-action menu to go through with each command
- poor level/puzzle design with emphasis on guessing
- rather short game time

Comment:
Trying to be fair to old games is hard while balancing both nostalgia value and comparison to current games. The game is not bad but it is not great either. The story is nice with a plot twist in the middle. And the feeling that you are on a quest is there. But the puzzles are not well done at all. Many are just guessing and often you miss an item on the ground because it is just a shade different than the ground itself. Also combining some stuff is hard to figure out. Difficulty and challenge are okay but here it borders on ridiculous sometimes when clicking through combinations of items and the 10-action menu. And even though I failed a lot of the times and I spend hours combining stuff it still only took about 5 hours to finish the game. This is clearly a game for people with a liking to the old-school feel of adventure games and to those I recommend getting it on a sale. To everyone else I advise to pick-up something else.
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H!, here is a great quest with well made animation ,artistic voice acting and magic story wich you have to uncover holds a lot of suprizes, it starts a lilttle slow but just to fool you a bit.Dont want to tell you a lot just jump in this world folks, fully recommended. And DoS config now looks cool, but as usual i add - scaler=advmame2x (it set normal2x as default) - for smoother picture, it can be set in dosbox_dragonsphere.conf wich can be found in Dragonsphere \dosbox_windows folder, and in same file i set - output=ddraw (it set overlay as default)- to avoid artifacts.,other settings should be changed only if you have problems, btw post em maybe we can solve em togather.