Legend of the Red Dragon
                          Disk 717

                  Reviewed by Graham Raven

Well, well! I have to admit to being very pleasantly surprised.
For many years I have thought that text only adventures were all
pretty awful and here I am being proved wrong. My problem with
many text adventures (RPGs etc) is my almost complete inability to
get my head round the puzzles which confront you. eg. You need a
sword and the guard has got one. How do you get it?  Attack guard?
Nope, that makes you very quickly dead. I know, talk to the guard.
That's better, I'm still alive. Now what precisely do I say to
him? Give me your sword! No, wrong. Give sword?  Still wrong. Try
saying "Please"? Nope! Buy sword? No chance!  Twenty minutes later
I think I've exhausted every possible question, demand, comment
(both fair and foul) and I decide never to play the game again!

Years pass and by sheer chance I come across a walk through for
this game. What was the solution to getting the guard's sword?
Simply say "Drop sword" The guard drops his sword immediately, you
pick it up and all's well with the world!

Thankfully for me, Red Dragon is nothing like this game which
caused me so much trouble. In the space of twenty minutes I've
killed a dozen monsters, acquired several thousand gold pieces and
successfully flirted with Violet the barmaid. Having killed my
quota of nasties for the day I get a room at the Inn for the night
and the game obligingly closes down until next time. There are no
graphics at all in this game and amazingly I want to have another
go already!

Red Dragon isn't a game which is going to keep you amused for
years but it never promises to. It will however keep me going for
months. It's quick to get into and a lot of fun without having to
learn huge amounts of game info., commands, background etc. I
really liked the way you can have a quick enjoyable game which
needn't take hours to get somewhere. Got five minutes to spare?
You've time to have a day's adventuring in the Land of the Red
Dragon, add to your bank balance and progressively flirt with
either Violet, if you're male, or the bard, if you're female. I'm
seriously impressed with this game, it's restored my faith in text
only games and considering I've never had any, that's saying at
lot!

Rating - Definitely Hey wooo!

PS Several weeks later I'm still playing Red Dragon, this is
unheard of for me, someone who hates text only games!










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