Magic Dragon is a pirated game based off R-Type, made for the Famicom in 1994 by Magicseries Corp.
Overview[]
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Magic Dragon's gameplay.
In general, this game is a ripoff of R-Type, a game which was never ported to the Famicom or NES. This game is considerably shorter, being only 4 stages long when compared with R-Type's 8 levels. Many of the gameplay elements are the same, with the Force powerup being present here, and the enemies and level designs are similar. The player gets 3 lives and 2 continues. The game itself is somewhat glitchy, with the HUD glitching up whenever the sprite limit is reached.
The graphics and music are based off the original R-Type's, although they're considerably downgraded for this game. As well as this, the font is almost identical to Star Force's. The ending is the ship landing in a base, followed by an "End of game" message.
Trivia[]
- Some unused tiles can be found in the ROM reading "Push Start" and "1994 Magic." As well as this, there is also some unused Chinese text reading "解放战争", which translates to "War of Liberation", the name commonly used in mainland China for the Chinese Civil War. This is probably a leftover from an earlier undiscovered Magic game, and also presumably places the developer in the mainland rather than Taiwan.
- The cartritge of the game uses the same artwork from Gradius III.
- The game was probably based on the PC-Engine version called "R-Type I" where the first half also ends similarly.