Dragon Blaze
Dragon Blaze (ドラゴンブレイズ) is a vertical shooting game developed and published in 2000 by Psikyo. The game incorporates a fantasy setting, and focuses on four dragonriders and their efforts the slay the Demon King Nebiros. Gameplay is built around the unique Dragon Shot mechanic, which is a powerful short range attack that not only deals tremendous damage, but is also integral to the game's scoring system.
Gameplay Overview
Dragon Blaze is a 3 Button game
- A Button (Press): Shot
- A Button (Hold): Magic Attack (depletes Magic Gauge)
- B Button: Bomb (depletes bomb stock)
- C Button: Dragon Shot
Dragon Shot
Activating the Dragon Shot causes your dragon to dash forward a short distance, dealing heavy damage to nearby enemies. Following activation, the dragon will remain in place, and will attack separately to the player character. Tapping the C button again will retract the dragon, and reunite it with the rider. Enemies destroyed by the Dragon Shot will drop valuable gold coins, which are integral to achieving high scores.
Magic
The magic gauge is located at the bottom left of the screen, and is filled by killing enemies. Holding the A button releases a powerful magic attack which depletes the magic gauge. Magic attacks are character-specific, and will change depending on whether the player is mounted or dismounted.
Stages & Loops
The game takes place over 7 stages. As with previous Psikyo titles, the order of the first 4 stages is randomised. The difficulty of these stages varies depending on how late they appear in the stage order. After clearing all 7 stages, the player enters a second loop, which features significantly denser bullet patterns. In addition, enemies will now release small diamond-shaped revenge bullets on death.
Characters
Dragon Blaze offers 4 playable characters, each with their own playstyle and unique advantages.
Quaid & Fire Dragon
- Shot: Red bullets aimed directly forward.
- Subshot: Lances that fire straight forward. Lances are slightly delayed, and can offer some horizontal coverage when moving left and right.
- Mounted Magic Attack: Slow-moving fire lances that pierce through enemies. Best used pre-emptively to damage enemies that are about to spawn.
- Dismounted Magic Attack: Quaid's dragon breathes fire in a cone aoe. Deals impressive damage.
- Bomb: A shower of fireballs that fully clears the screen of bullets for 2 seconds.
While Quaid lacks any form of wide shot, he offers good movement speed, fast dragon shot & retraction speed, and a screen-clearing bomb. Strong all-rounder.
Sonia & Aqua Dragon
- Shot: Circular bullets aimed forward. Sonia's dragon has two options which also fire forward, giving this attack some horizontal coverage.
- Subshot: A laser that pierces enemies. Useful for killing zako hiding behind more durable enemies.
- Mounted Magic Attack: A 7-way wide shot with very good screen coverage.
- Dismounted Magic Attack: Green projectiles aimed directly forward.
- Bomb: Clears bullets and deals damage in a wide column. Does not cover the entire screen.
Sonia has a strong basic shot, and her magic attack has wide horizontal coverage, giving her an advantage in stages. However, she has the slowest dragon shot & retraction time, so speedkilling large enemies and bosses can be problematic.
Rob & Thunder Dragon
- Shot: A 7-way spread shot.
- Subshot: Bombs that slowly float forward and explode on contact with enemies.
- Mounted Magic Attack: Large balls of lighting that are fired forward in a cone aoe
- Dismounted Magic Attack: Rob's dragon fires a horizontal bolt of lightning across the length of the screen. Exceptional damage when positioned correctly
- Bomb: Creates a lightning storm directly in front of Rob that clears bullets and deals damage in a circular aoe
Rob offers great utility and damage, with a good spread shot and an extremely damaging dismounted magic attack. However, he has the slowest movement speed of any character, so he has the lowest scoring potential overall.
Ian & Skull Dragon
- Shot: Green projectiles aimed directly forward.
- Subshot: Homing daggers.
- Mounted Magic Attack: A purple laser aimed directly forward.
- Dismounted Magic Attack: Creates a circular aoe of death in a small radius around the dragon. Low screen coverage but high damage.
- Bomb: A laser-like projectile that offers miniscule horizontal coverage, but lingers on screen for several seconds, dealing extremely high damage.
Ian offers the fastest movement speed and fastest dragon shot & retraction time, giving him high scoring potential. However, like Quaid his attacks are quite linear, and his bomb, while powerful, has extremely low screen coverage, making survival much more challenging.
Scoring
Coins
Most enemies will drop silver coins on death, which give 100 points when collected. Destroying enemies with the dragon shot will spawn gold coins that are worth 200 points. When dismounted, the dragon can be used to collect coins independently of the rider.
Coinhead
Destroying specific enemies in each stage will spawn a Coinhead - a golden totem which will linger on the screen for several seconds and release a torrent of gold coins when attacked. There is one coinhead per stage, with the exception of stage 7 which has two. Coinhead locations can be found on the Dragon Blaze/Strategy page.
Technical Bonus
This mechanic was first seen in Strikers 1945 III, and makes a return in Dragon Blaze. At specific points during the second phase of each boss fight, bosses will temporarily expose a flashing red weakpoint for you to destroy. Hitting this weak point with a Dragon Shot will instantly kill the boss, and award you a Technical Bonus of 30,000 points.
Bosses will only expose their weakpoint once per fight, and will usually release a barrage of bullets at the same time, so careful positioning is needed to take advantage of this opportunity. Note that the stage 7 boss does not have a weakpoint, so a Technical Bonus is not possible on this stage.
Endgame Bonus
Clearing both loops rewards the player with an endgame bonus as follows:
- Lives Remaining x 100,000
- Bomb Stock x 50,000
- Power Level x 10,000
References
- Primary info provided by JayLab
