239:, the player controls the cyborg Saint Dragon, who has rebelled against the tyrannical Monster Cyborg army. Saint Dragon is initially armed with plasma bolts and a fiery breath. By collecting tokens, the dragon's firepower can be upgraded with pulse torpedoes, a laser, bouncing bombs, ring lasers or a turret. Other tokens can upgrade the dragon's speed, weapon power, or initiate a "hyper" mode which endows maximum firepower and invulnerability. In addition, the dragon has an armoured tail which follows the player's movement, allowing it to be used as a defensive shield.
278:, without sacrificing speed. A method called "pre-shifts" was eventually used, in which several versions of a sprite are held in memory, each in a slightly different position, then cycled through to give the appearance of smooth movement. This used up more memory, so he restricted the game to the 128K models of Spectrum. The larger sprites, such as the leaping Puma, were handled by dividing them into strips of separate but co-ordinated entities.
274:. The conversion project was managed by Dan Marchant, with programming by Andrew Taylor, music by Tony Williams, and graphics by Sean McClurg. Before working on the ZX Spectrum conversion, Taylor spent two weeks reading reviews of other scrolling games and studied videos of the arcade board gameplay. During development, Taylor wanted to achieve smooth scrolling, rather than the by-character-block movement in
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On its budget re-release in 1992, Your
Sinclair adjusted their rating to just 29%, criticizing it as "hideously slow, graphically abysmal, impossibly tedious load of old junk".
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awarded it 92%, finding the dragon theme to be a refreshing change in the genre. The graphics were highlighted as well-animated, smooth and colourful.
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took issue with the cassette multi-load, the invisible border on the reduced playing area, and frame-rate drop when multiple sprites are on-screen.
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awarded 80%, criticizing the uneven difficulty and low number of levels but praising it as "pretty, tough and a blast-a-minute".
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on their April 1, 1989 issue as being the sixth-most-successful table arcade unit at the time.
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in 1989. Ports to several home computer systems were published by Storm
Entertainment in 1990.
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The ZX Spectrum conversion was well-received on its initial release.
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413:"Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)".
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There are five levels, each culminating in a battle with a large
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502:Interview with Amiga programmer John Croudy
254:Storm were a software development team for
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389:(105). EMAP images: 74–75. November 1990.
370:(58). Future Publishing. Archived from
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441:(82). Newsfield: 46. November 1990.
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562:Horizontally scrolling shooters
552:Hamster Corporation franchises
471:Campbell, Stuart (June 1992).
187:horizontally scrolling shooter
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452:Hamza, Kati (December 1990).
419:(in Japanese). No. 353.
399:Game review, Crash magazine,
362:Bielby, Matt (October 1990).
385:"Blue Print: Saint Dragon".
270:), who were affiliated with
592:Science fiction video games
63:Storm Entertainment (ports)
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612:Video games about dragons
607:Video games about cyborgs
597:Single-player video games
557:Hamster Corporation games
423:1 April 1989. p. 25.
403:, issue 82, November 1990
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479:(78). Future Publishing.
460:(60). Future Publishing.
201:was released as part of
173:Tensei Ryū: Saint Dragon
25:Tenseiryuu: Saint Dragon
401:Newsfield Publications
232:
577:Nintendo Switch games
532:Arcade Archives games
421:Amusement Press, Inc.
244:end-of-level guardian
230:
602:TurboGrafx-16 games
587:PlayStation 4 games
582:NMK (company) games
364:"St Dragon Preview"
292:
547:Commodore 64 games
537:Arcade video games
473:"St Dragon Review"
454:"St Dragon Review"
435:"St Dragon Review"
290:
267:The Ninja Warriors
233:
219:in February 2020.
617:ZX Spectrum games
527:Amstrad CPC games
374:on 14 April 2016.
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231:Arcade screenshot
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154:Scrolling shooter
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517:1989 video games
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180:天聖龍 SAINT DRAGON
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256:The Sales Curve
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213:Nintendo Switch
211:lineup for the
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567:Jaleco games
495:Saint Dragon
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199:Saint Dragon
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120:Commodore 64
55:Publisher(s)
43:Developer(s)
36:Arcade flyer
522:Amiga games
309:Crash Smash
296:Publication
128:ZX Spectrum
112:Amstrad CPC
99:Platform(s)
89:Composer(s)
73:Ned Langman
69:Designer(s)
511:Categories
346:References
316:In Japan,
572:MSX games
287:Reception
282:Reception
124:PC-Engine
272:Accolade
261:Silkworm
223:Gameplay
149:Genre(s)
116:Atari ST
320:listed
203:Hamster
191:coin-op
160:Mode(s)
138:Release
276:R-Type
195:Jaleco
104:Arcade
60:Jaleco
439:CRASH
329:CRASH
305:Crash
299:Award
291:Award
250:Ports
185:is a
108:Amiga
215:and
142:1989
235:In
205:'s
193:by
132:MSX
48:NMK
513::
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354:^
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