Flying Dragon

We can chalk up this game to another one that I didn’t really have any idea what was going on. Flying Dragon has two kinds of playmodes: a sidescrolling platform thing, and a tournament martial arts fighter.

See, your guy has to make his way to a series of martial arts tournaments, but the way is crammed full of wave after wave of very weak enemies. Occasionally a slightly stronger enemy, like a schoolgirl, will make an appearance. You have to beat all of these enemies, grab the trinkets they drop, and proceed to the locked door to continue.

Once you actually get to the tournament, the game changes completely. A series of targets will appear on you and your enemies. You have to either hit or defend these targets depending on if they appear on you or your opponent. Adding a wrinkle to this whole mishmash of a game is that some of the competitors in the tournaments are ‘tusk soldiers’ in disguise. If you can undisguise them by hitting them in their weak spot, they turn into these weird guys with tusks for a face. To completely finish this game you have to find the tusk-guys, defeat them all, and get the scrolls they hold to make you stronger. And finish the game proper.

Typically I like a good inexplicable game, and this one tries real hard to be inexplicable. Being attacked en route to a martial arts tournament by a schoolgirl? Fighting soldiers with tusks for faces? Pummeling statues to get powerups? Yeah, that works. I don’t know how, but it works.

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