Format: HuCard
Genre: Action platformer
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: NEC

Dragon's Curse is not quite the leap from the Master System original that Super Mario All-Stars was from its original NES classics, but it's close; the redrawn sprites and stage tiles introduce a significant amount of shading and detail, while remaining pleasingly true to the source material.

The original game's soundtrack had a mix of moody and tense dungeon and boss songs, alongside the toe-tapping bar room ditty and the excellently layered desert tune-- but on American consoles, it was all set to that onerous plinky Master System PSG. Reprogrammed for the PC Engine however, the songs gain a kind of bassy, lush richness, which makes the compositions soar! Very subtle key changes, such as that featured in the beach song, are tastefully done and give this port a bit of a Phantasy Star-like mood edge that isn't present in the original.

Dragon's Curse is what is known today as a "Metroidvania". It features a hub town zone, with numerous areas-- made available via the player's expanding set of powers-- branching off of it. At a certain point, the player gains the ability to switch into different forms via transformation rooms, which are cleverly woven into the fabric of the game's world. Shops also litter this title's stages, with various types of equipment on offer. As is the case in so many 8-bit era games, shop placement and stage layouts in this title are bizarre by real-world standards, but magnificently imagination capturing in a video game!

There are two primary things which make Dragon's Curse stand out: first, the "Metroidvania" was a fledgling non-genre in 1988 when the Master System original hit the streets-- and it was this game that set many of the genre's emerging conventions. Second, and unlike most games of this type, Dragon's Curse is a bona fide platformer first and foremost, with challenging levels and bosses that require patience and practice to defeat. Many people rate the Master System original as perhaps the best-designed game of the entire 8-bit console era-- and this PC Engine rendition is a faithful and positively luscious enhancement!