Dragon Lore: The Legend Begins

aka: Dragon Lore, Dragon Lore: A Lenda se inicia, Dragon Lore: Die Legende beginnt, Dragon Lore: La légende commence, Dragon Lore: Se inicia la Leyenda
Moby ID: 3776
DOS Specs
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Description official description

You are Werner Von Wallenrod, an orphan living in a realm lost in time. You leave to travel across these lands and meet fantastically surreal characters who help you in your quest for truth. Your father was assassinated by the Devil's Horseman, Haagen Von Kiakonov, who has vowed to destroy everything you know and love. Just before your father died, he was able to entrust you with a farmer in the kingdom, but now the hour has arrived for you to take up arms and defend your country.

Inexperienced in the art of combat, you must prove yourself all throughout the voyage that awaits you.

Spellings

  • Сказание о драконе - Russian spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

56 People (37 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Directed By
Game Design
Programming
Story Board and Model Sheets
Characters Animation
Cinematic Scene Animation
Background and Set Design
Box and Map Design
Music
Sound Effects
Produced By
Documentation (U.S. Team)
Packaging (U.S. Team)
Lead Testing Analyst (U.S. Team)
Additional Testing (U.S. Team)
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 26 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 32 ratings with 2 reviews)

Underrated and forgotten gem.

The Good
Dragon Lore creates precise feeling that characters you meet have life of its own, despite perhaps dated and poor AI that some would laugh at now. Graphics are simply brilliant and do not look bad even at this point.

The Bad
Some voices occasionly may sound cheesy, but then again a lot of modern games suffer from the same syndrome. Music is pretty good but gets repetitive with time. Puzzles somewhat simple, though it might make it appeal to the beginners of adventure genre.

The Bottom Line
One of the few adventure games I loved (outside of big titles), somewhat underrated and mislabeled by others who tried to put label on it. This game is hardly RPG and much more of adventure, since character management is not that difficult but adventures elements shine strong through the game. At few points it might actually become scary experience, though I would not want to spoil much. Highly recommended to any adventure die-hard fan.

DOS · by Marina Shoykhet (6) · 2002

One of the earliest Cryo adventure games ...

The Good
For its time, it had excellent graphics, that everyone can agree on. The music is of high quality too, considering it was released in 1994. This became a trademark by Cryo since all their graphic adventures would employ quality graphics and music.

The Bad
There's so much about this game that feels wrong. Animation is very poor at best. Navigating the world is a slow and painful process. Puzzles are pretty simplistic yet you often get stuck because of the poor way of navigating and it's easy to pass by important places and objects or to even get lost!

The Bottom Line
This game really was like a blueprint for all future Cryo games. Weak puzzles, poor stories, graphics that look good but are badly animated, poor speech, etc. etc. I really can't recommend it because it is an example of everything a game shouldn't do. You can't sell games with great graphics alone! When Cryo moved away from great games like Dune and Megarace towards these bland adventure games, they really started to dig their own grave and in the end, they went bankrupt because they didn't evolve and stuck with their old formula that was never any good in the first place!

DOS · by Icarus Lytton (19) · 2008

Trivia

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) –#6 Worst Back Story of All Time

Analytics

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Related Games

Dragon Lore II: The Heart of the Dragon Man
Released 1996 on DOS, Windows
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
Released 1993 on DOS, 1994 on PC-98, 1995 on FM Towns
Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny
Released 1997 on DOS, Windows
Blazing Heroes
Released 1995 on SEGA Saturn
Legend of the Dragon
Released 2007 on PlayStation 2, Wii, PSP
Lands of Lore III
Released 1999 on Windows
3D Dragon Duel
Released 1999 on Windows, Macintosh
Snap Dragon
Released 1986 on Electron

Related Sites +

  • Hints for Dragon Lore
    These hints can help you solve the game yourself without spoiling it for you.
  • Software Help - Dragon Lore
    This page contains the answers to commonly asked questions. At the bottom of the page is a link to "Download five saved games from the original Dragon Lore to play in the Enhanced version."
  • Walkthrough
    Brian Montgomery's walkthrough

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 3776
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Philippe Nouhra.

PC-98 added by Kabushi. 3DO added by Jeanne. Windows, Macintosh added by me3D31337.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, JRK, Kontxouso, Duduzets, Patrick Bregger, garkham, WONDERなパン, Zhuzha.

Game added April 13, 2001. Last modified August 2, 2024.