Alisia Dragoon (Sega Genesis) Review

Action RPG Platformer games are few and far between on the Sega Genesis. Most of them are either a platformer or an RPG. Of course there’s the Monster World Series, which is more of an adventure game than anything.

You really have to dig deep to find the blend of platformer mixed with RPG elements on the Genesis, let alone a good one. Looking at the box art art of Alisia Dragoon, You’re met with a cover that screams generic fantasy game so you can see why this went under the radar by a ton of people for a very long time.

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Released in 1992 on the Sega Genesis, Alisia Dragoon is a hidden gem that never got the praise it truly deserved. Developed by the company Game Arts who later went on to produce the Lunar and Grandia series had an earlier start with Alisia Dragoon.

You get to play as Alisia who goes through the 8 stages of the game to avenge her father’s death and prevent the evil god Baldour from awakening. This sounds exactly like most of the cliché storylines but platformers are really about the gameplay anyways.

Alisia has a thunder attack that targets enemies that come your way. The meter charges automatically and unleashes a when it’s full. She can upgrade her attack power by collecting powerups scattered throughout each of the stages. There’s also ways to pick up extra lives and energy.

Many of the stages also have secret rooms that you can find these power ups so it’s worth while to explore many different paths as you make your way through the stages. This is important since you only have one life and any extras are few and far between. Alisia’s power can be boosted by up to eight levels of increasing power as well adding additional health bars searching around for items.

Alisia also has one of four monsters partners that follows her along the way. You can swap between them on the fly and it temporarily pauses the game when doing so. One is a dragon that breathes fire, One is a boomerang throwing Lizard, One is a little floating fireball that burns enemies with it’s body, and my personal favorite a flying reptile that has a thunder attack that takes out multiple enemies in a clear all attack when charged. These partners can take damage and be killed so you have to take care of them and really manage their health using the powerups that you find throughout the stage. You can also revive them but they’re fairly difficult to come by. Like Alisia, their attack power and hit points can be upgraded as well. One downside to the companions is they have a mind of their own. Once you summon them, that’s about it for managing where they fly to or which enemies they attack.

You get to choose between four different control patterns, One button Fires, One lets Alisia Jump, One for changing your Dragons.

The level design is great, there’s tons of secrets to entice you to keep searching around for hidden powerups along the way. The platforming elements remind me of the Actraiser or Valis games, Alisia Dragoon plays a lot different than these style of games and focuses on the shooter and exploration elements much more than the platforming. In the later stages of the game, you’ll be faced with traps or moving platformers that you can fall from and start over again. These moving platforms are insane, I must have taken at least 20 tries to get past this section.

Alisia Dragoon is a tough game, like exceptionally hard. At the beginning you’ll be walking along, zapping enemies away, and then boom it hits you like a deer in the headlights. One strategy you can take is to go slow, wait for the meter to build up and then proceed. This gives you the best chance to build up as much power and unleash it in one area since many of the enemies just seem to come out of nowhere. I also found that because your companions really have a mind of their own, you’ll constantly be switching them in and out to figure out which one of them works in a particular area or boss battle. This also helped with making sure I didn’t have one companion with really low life all the time by over using it.

The bosses all have different patterns and are extremely challenging at first. Once you know the each of the patterns, finishing off the bosses is often quite easy. Towards the end of the game, the bosses are a bit tougher to navigate as you’ll often switch in and out of companions. If you make a mistake it’ll often lead to a death.

The graphics are nice and colorful for the Sega Genesis. Even for one that was released way back in 1992. Each of the bosses are quite detailed and the sprites are nice and large. You really get sucked into the Fantasy element of the game, whether you’re exploring a cave, battling enemies in a forest or going toe to toe against a boss.

The audio department is another area where Alisia Dragoon really stands out. The music suits the game very well and is perhaps the game’s best feature. I was blown away with some of the tunes in the game.

The sound effects were a little bland from what you just heard but the music itself is top notch.

Another problem with Alisia Dragoon is finding a copy. It’s slowly climbed to about 100 USD for a loose copy. Luckily it’s been released on the Sega Genesis Mini along with a bunch of other great games. The only thing stopping Alisia Dragoon from becoming a masterpiece is it’s difficulty. If you can put that aside, It’s definitely worth a playthrough.

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