Looking back now, the arcades around my hometown never had some of, what appear to be, the best arcade games to come out during their heyday. Up until very recently (within the last year) i didn’t even know there was an arcade game based on the Dungeons & Dragons universe, much less two. When I found out about it, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. “How can D&D work as an arcade game?” I thought.
Pretty well, it turns out.
The game is essentially a sidescrolling beat ‘em up with D&D elements tacked on. You walk around, mostly to the right, and beat up pretty much anything that moves. Doing so will get you precious Experience Points. Get enough of those and your character becomes a little stronger, and able to end the lives of the Evil Hordes more quickly. You also have an inventory to manage, but it’s pretty basic. You’re supposed to be worrying about slaughtering monsters, after all.
There are other role-playing elements in here too. The story branches at a few key points and you have to decide which path to take, which will affect the story a bit. It’s nothing that couldn’t have been done without the D&D license, but having it there kind of lets you know what you’re in for. Kind of. I mean, this game isn’t really that much like playing actual Dungeons & Dragons, kind of like Guitar Hero isn’t really like playing an actual guitar, but I don’t think that gets in the way of it being a really fun game for a while.
[...] Dungeons & Dragons was too much game for you, I guess you could always go for Knights of the Round. It’s kind of [...]