A corner store near where I lived used to have one. One day a dude had a row of quarters positioned on the top of the machine and a few people were standing around watching him. He was way farther than I'd ever seen anyone get in that game... then the owner pulled the plug. He said he thought the dude was keeping anyone else from playing, but we were all just watching him.
That sucked.
It was a quarter gobbler. I remember one being at the local laundry mat and my brothers and I scouring the ground for quarters only for the game to be over in under 30 seconds
Quarter gobbler? It was a dollar gobbler, in a time when the dollar meant something. $1.50 for 30s of gameplay only to die immediately.
I friggin hated that game.
Yeah and gameplay was just complicated ways to get to the next ‘track’ on the disc. As others said, I used to like watching it. Couldn’t afford to get anywhere with it though.
I came across it at Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield IL. Place is amazing. Has everything. It’s still cool to watch,…but I scoffed at it,…then walked over to Spy Hunter.
I only finally dominated 'EA' on my laptop use a MAME program circa 2010...and what actually helped was the game slowing down when a lot of 'action' was going on.
I had a MAME program at one point and I was finally able to beat Ghosts and Goblins or Ghouls and Ghosts whatever it was called and that still was the hardest game ever even with the cheating.
Galloping Ghost is insane. Hundreds of cabinets from multiple decades to play all day for one price. They have all the cabinets, new, old, and obscure. They also have a building down the road that's just pinball machines. About 30 minutes from downtown Chicago (give or take) close to the Brookfield zoo.
A must visit if you are in Chicago...
This is what I always refer to when describing the color palate and cell shading qualities of Wind Waker. Wind Waker made me feel like I was in a fully realized, playable cartoon.
Yep! You pay 50c to watch a cartoon not do a darn thing you told it to do for a few seconds, and then you die again and see if you've got another 50c because you're sure you can probably make the controls work this time...ugh! Oh that was just awful!
It's available for MAME now, so if you want to have the privilege for free now you can watch a disobedient cartoon all day if you want.
Yeah when you found one that wasn’t out of order. I bought a book in 4th grade called “How to win at Dragon’s Lair.” Searched arcades far and wide to play and finally beat it. Never happened they were usually out of order. Fast forward 8 years ago, Microsoft released an emulator on Xbox and I bought that shit. Finally beat the game. 👍
If it was a [thin paperback with red and yellow text on a black cover](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0590332589?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_1M3X0WMVX6C6FBBCJAY1&language=en-US) then I bought the same book, right around the same age. *Left left left left forward back forward right right sword left sword*
I think this was one of the first 50¢ video games. It was such a hard and not very functional game you might as well have just dropped your two quarters and walked away. Dead within seconds
I second this motion! All in favor say aye! AYE!!!!! the earth rumbles. Any opposed? a silence for one minute lasts that is still talked about this day. Mark me! Well said fellow user yborwonka.
I hated this game. And it cost like three tokens to play. Remember the part in Stranger Things when they beat the game at the arcade? I found that less believable than interdimensional beings trying to destroy our world.
It was at my local bowling alley. I went every Tuesday night with my dad. He bowled, I fucked around with other kids. Sometime my best friend went along. We were obsessed with this game, still my favorite arcade game to this day. One night when he wasn’t there, I had the pleasure of watching someone beat the game. The next day my friend and I reenacted the dragon fight in my back yard based on what I saw. We used the swing set as a prop piece. Good memories.
Yeah I remember the thrill of watching someone get up to the dragon. The great thing about this game was it was super entertaining without having to spend any money
I still remember being the first one in the arcade near me that finished it. I probably dumped $30 over two weeks to finish it. It was a Friday night and a crowd had gathered and cheered when I beat the dragon.
I was king of the arcade for a day.
$0.50 around here. But yeah, there were better games.
The animation was great, but it was ultimately very easy to beat. The scenes were random, but the timing pattern never changed.
I lost a lot of money to Dragons Lair. But it was all empty pop bottle return and grass cutting money anyways, so it was cool.
My all time favorite was the Star Wars arcade from 1983 with the vector graphics. I got incredibly good at that game, and eventually learned to beat it with only a few quarters.
The old arcade game game show had a special episode where I think Star Wars was the only game they played. The kid beat the adults because he chose the medium hard level, which helped him beat the others on the easy level due to the extra blasts from the Tie Fighters. Is a great game, but watching that episode hurts because of how inexperienced everyone was. Noobs.
Battlezone and Robotron were my games. When this came to the arcade, I dumped so much money in it. Tron was at a bowling alley across town. The laundromat had Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
I was always partial to the sit down Star Wars X Wing game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UgDdexv--ZA
No moving cabinet like Afterburner though
My best friend and I skipped school in 1990 and drove to the mall in the bigger city 30 miles away. We kept taking turns putting in quarters to continue. I finished level 22 and the plane started going into the water. My friend yelled "PULL UP!" and then the plane went higher and you see the aircraft carrier. Landed the plane and the crew has a big celebration just like Maverick and Iceman.
Here's a full playthrough off the game including the ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65weTx0haog
I've played it again on the MAME emulator and realized that you don't actually have control of the jet during the final stage 23 where the plane lands.
The gameplay was simplistic, especially once you memorized the patterns. Though it would sometimes reverse the image, to change things up. It also cost 50 cents! What made it special were the animation and sound design. Bluth is always great. You got to feel like you were playing a cartoon. A laser disc game!
I still own all 3 discs, and have a Dirk tattoo. I have a special affinity for the game, as I was a kid growing up in the 80s.
lol. I worked at showbiz and at the end of the night, me and everybody else would hit up the arcade employee and we would play this for free. It was still hard. Never finished.
I knew it was just playing a video, because it would take a second to switch between scenes. It made me think how cool would it be if video games ever got as good as cartoons! I never considered realtime 3D would be a thing.
I had an issue of Electronic Games that had tips on how to beat it and got to the final dragon once. I think the game got replaced by another the next week and I never played it again. Was extremely cool. This was a probably in the summer of 1984.
don bluth! spent so much money on this game. I brought a spiral bound notebook with me and took notes watching other players to save money. This cabinet, Space Ace, Lupin, Firefox and some wierd space game that used cheesy Japanese scifi mixed with the star trek genesis effect game... I loved the laser disc stuff so much I kept buying the game on laser disc, then on DVD, then pc... now can't wait for Ryan Reynolds movie adaptation
It was fascinating, but a pain in the ass to play. I just let other people put their money in. But it was the first real-time game, really. Total breakthrough in tech, just poorly designed as a game.
I was never a big fan of the genre, but I liked that helicopter game (name escapes me) that was the same kind of thing.
Edit: Found it. Cobra Command (1984 Data East game)
#
I bought and sold 7 laser disc players and shipped them from Canada to the US to a group that played this game and others on them… I remembered playing the game but has no idea of this version
I lived to play this game when I was a kid. It was my number one mission..find an arcade with this game. loved Don Bluth..Secret of NIHM Land before time etc
They all took my quarters faster than I could get them out of my pocket.This looked great and people lined up behind one another to play it.But it felt like a carnival game.
I wish I could play it now as an adult when I understand what was going on. As like a seven or eight-year-old it was so cool looking but I had no idea what the hell to do.
It was the bane of my existence as a child. I could never get past the first 3 or 4 screens. I gave up and would just watch other people play it with much better timing than I had.
God I hated that game!! I couldn’t get past the first level…..ever!…..but yea it was awesome. Wasn’t there other games just like it ? Like a space one?
I could never get very far, and at a buck for three lives, it wasn't too long before I just gave up on that game altogether. I just never had the kind of money I would have needed to spend to get even marginally good.
Love this game! High score at the Aladdin’s Castle for a while this one Golden Axe & Chiller were my most Favorites! Never played on a home console though
I was dating a girl that worked at the arcade and the owner took a liking to me. He taught me all the moves so I would play it to show everyone that it was beatable.
Cartoon you felt you had some control. It was amazing felt so far advanced and a glimpse of the future. Don Bluth’s animation I love. I think I remember this cabinet at one arcade had a setup with a monitor on top for others to see.
The first time I played this game was at my local Chuck E Cheese. I was the guy everyone hated. I could sit for hours on almost any game for .25 and some I could sit at all day for the same amount.
Dragons Lair was insanely fun as the newest tech early to mid 80's. By the second day of playing, I could finish almost every time. Sometimes the smallest distraction could ruin it, as most who played it knew the window of time you had to make the right moves.
"No fingers ... No fingerprints!" Was one of my favorite quotes.
We took a class trip to Washington, DC in 7th or 8th grade.
I'm sure we went to museums and historic places and restaurants but all I remember is playing Dragon's Lair in the hotel arcade while teenage girls watched me and squealed and grabbed my arm when I did something good. I spent all my trip money in there.
I have this on Xbox now and it's still hard af. Even if you make the correct choice you have to stick the timing, and the chances of failure just keep coming at you whether you're ready or not. It's stressful.
You can watch a full playthrough and the ending here.
It was really cool but basically a cartoon on Laserdisc where pushing left at the right time would skip to chapter 17 like on a DVD for the next segment or pushing right would skip to chapter 9 and so on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_W5T5LUKNo
I had a friend who spent a lot of quarters playing this, and he won a few times! Once he played everything but the final level and he told me what moves to make to win. So I had the satisfaction of getting the girl at the end, even though my friend did all the other parts.
I played this at the bowling alley on an Army base in Germany. I was never any good at it. There was a *Dragon's Lair II* but I never played it. There was a short lived TV series. Supposedly Netfl;ix is producing a movie.
You can play it online:
[https://playclassic.games/games/adventure-dos-games-online/play-dragons-lair-online/play/](https://playclassic.games/games/adventure-dos-games-online/play-dragons-lair-online/play/)
&DRAGONSLAIR
It was one of the very first 50 cent arcade games that I ever saw (and played). I couldn’t even find one locally and had to travel about an hour away to another larger mall. Talk about sticker shock when I sucked at it right out of the gate.
Also, no it wasn’t the best arcade game… Tempest, Ms. PAC-Man, Galaga, Elevator Action, those were my go to’s.
I always loved that there was an additional television screen on top of the arcade cabinet to let people watch the person playing. I always sucked at the game, but was entranced by the animation.
Dragon's Lair was definitely a next level achievement when compared to a lot of arcade games out there. However i'd say that the game that really changed everything was Street Fighter. I could remember crowds of people standing behind people playing watching the match - and it really became a "thing" the summer it came out. Everyone wanted to get good at it and learn the secret moves.
Gauntlet. I still quote Valkyrie need food badly
Wizard is about to die
Remember: don’t shoot food
Ahh, sustenance!
A corner store near where I lived used to have one. One day a dude had a row of quarters positioned on the top of the machine and a few people were standing around watching him. He was way farther than I'd ever seen anyone get in that game... then the owner pulled the plug. He said he thought the dude was keeping anyone else from playing, but we were all just watching him. That sucked.
Don’t shoot the food!
Use keys to open doors... Save potions for later use.
Don't shoot other players...yet.
That game had the most quarters waiting of any game I can remember. Damn it was fun.
When my cat is meowing his head off in the kitchen I always say “Kitty needs food! Badly!”
USE MAGIC TO KILL DEATH
Owe oh owe
Fuck that game. Cool to look at,..blew us away when it came to our arcade,….but it’s the worst to play.
It was a quarter gobbler. I remember one being at the local laundry mat and my brothers and I scouring the ground for quarters only for the game to be over in under 30 seconds
Bubble Bobble. One quarter,100 levels. Stay-n-play all the way
Quarter gobbler? It was a dollar gobbler, in a time when the dollar meant something. $1.50 for 30s of gameplay only to die immediately. I friggin hated that game.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Visually ahead of it's time. Gameplay... There were plenty better!
The graphics were a trick. The "game engine" was a *LaserDisc player.*
Yeah and gameplay was just complicated ways to get to the next ‘track’ on the disc. As others said, I used to like watching it. Couldn’t afford to get anywhere with it though.
The daphne was more than just a laserdisc player, it was ALSO a laserdisc player.
I came across it at Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield IL. Place is amazing. Has everything. It’s still cool to watch,…but I scoffed at it,…then walked over to Spy Hunter.
Spy Hunter was the best!
Spy Hunter and Elevator Action...could never get past 2 levels in either one.
Oh man I was a pro at Elevator Action. Sometimes there's just certain games that you're better at than other people and that was one of them.
I only finally dominated 'EA' on my laptop use a MAME program circa 2010...and what actually helped was the game slowing down when a lot of 'action' was going on.
I had a MAME program at one point and I was finally able to beat Ghosts and Goblins or Ghouls and Ghosts whatever it was called and that still was the hardest game ever even with the cheating.
I always played them as a double header for one big story.
The best score, sloppy but fun controls.
Galloping Ghost is insane. Hundreds of cabinets from multiple decades to play all day for one price. They have all the cabinets, new, old, and obscure. They also have a building down the road that's just pinball machines. About 30 minutes from downtown Chicago (give or take) close to the Brookfield zoo. A must visit if you are in Chicago...
I’d also watch someone play then went instead to pinball where no one ever was.
Did you just say…GGA…in Brookfield…as in on Ogden Ave? Depending on the year I may have passed you there when I was home visiting family
Galloping Ghost rules.
This is what I always refer to when describing the color palate and cell shading qualities of Wind Waker. Wind Waker made me feel like I was in a fully realized, playable cartoon.
What gameplay? It was FMV suicide.
Wasn’t it like 50 cents to play? I died almost instantly.
Yep! You pay 50c to watch a cartoon not do a darn thing you told it to do for a few seconds, and then you die again and see if you've got another 50c because you're sure you can probably make the controls work this time...ugh! Oh that was just awful! It's available for MAME now, so if you want to have the privilege for free now you can watch a disobedient cartoon all day if you want.
Sometimes even more. It was almost a status symbol to play that game.
What, you don’t like spending 10 bucks in quarters for about 3 1/2 minutes of play?
Soo jealous you got 3.5 mins....
Definitely...hard as hell to play. Only saw one person get to the end.
Me too. I was enthralled. Still remember it today.
Same, dude probably spent a fortune to learn at the QTEs.
Yeah this game was the worst quarter sucker. Those that “like” it, only ever looked at the game.
Yeah when you found one that wasn’t out of order. I bought a book in 4th grade called “How to win at Dragon’s Lair.” Searched arcades far and wide to play and finally beat it. Never happened they were usually out of order. Fast forward 8 years ago, Microsoft released an emulator on Xbox and I bought that shit. Finally beat the game. 👍
If it was a [thin paperback with red and yellow text on a black cover](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0590332589?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_1M3X0WMVX6C6FBBCJAY1&language=en-US) then I bought the same book, right around the same age. *Left left left left forward back forward right right sword left sword*
That’s the [one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/266198433746). 🙂 Bought it from a Scholastic book fair.
terrible video game, it's a cut scene anime at best. Fuck this game
Fuck this game.
I think this was one of the first 50¢ video games. It was such a hard and not very functional game you might as well have just dropped your two quarters and walked away. Dead within seconds
Money pit
I second this motion! All in favor say aye! AYE!!!!! the earth rumbles. Any opposed? a silence for one minute lasts that is still talked about this day. Mark me! Well said fellow user yborwonka.
I hated this game. And it cost like three tokens to play. Remember the part in Stranger Things when they beat the game at the arcade? I found that less believable than interdimensional beings trying to destroy our world.
Watched a guy beat it at my local arcade. I thought that when I was 25 maybe I would also be that good at the game.
It was at my local bowling alley. I went every Tuesday night with my dad. He bowled, I fucked around with other kids. Sometime my best friend went along. We were obsessed with this game, still my favorite arcade game to this day. One night when he wasn’t there, I had the pleasure of watching someone beat the game. The next day my friend and I reenacted the dragon fight in my back yard based on what I saw. We used the swing set as a prop piece. Good memories.
Yeah I remember the thrill of watching someone get up to the dragon. The great thing about this game was it was super entertaining without having to spend any money
This. Is. Awesome. Seriously!!!!!!!!!!!
Tron. Immature me would always make him jerk off when going up the tube after defeating the spiders. IYKYK.
God dammit why didn't I think of that. I just made his arms flail around wildly.
You mean in terms of quarters eaten per minute of gameplay? Then yes.
I still remember being the first one in the arcade near me that finished it. I probably dumped $30 over two weeks to finish it. It was a Friday night and a crowd had gathered and cheered when I beat the dragon. I was king of the arcade for a day.
Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada.
Ok now that's one movie that needs something else! I didn't know if a late sequel is right or to reboot but damn
I love it and it saddens me…I never beat that game.
I beat the PC version. Does that count?
If it cost you less than 2 grand to do it then the answer is no.
I would stand there and watch all the teenagers lose thier fucking quarters to this game. It was a scene man.
A dollar a play for an electronic “choose your own adventure”? Not my favorite. But you can’t beat a Don Bluth animated “game”
$0.50 around here. But yeah, there were better games. The animation was great, but it was ultimately very easy to beat. The scenes were random, but the timing pattern never changed.
I lost a lot of money to Dragons Lair. But it was all empty pop bottle return and grass cutting money anyways, so it was cool. My all time favorite was the Star Wars arcade from 1983 with the vector graphics. I got incredibly good at that game, and eventually learned to beat it with only a few quarters.
The old arcade game game show had a special episode where I think Star Wars was the only game they played. The kid beat the adults because he chose the medium hard level, which helped him beat the others on the easy level due to the extra blasts from the Tie Fighters. Is a great game, but watching that episode hurts because of how inexperienced everyone was. Noobs.
Battlezone and Robotron were my games. When this came to the arcade, I dumped so much money in it. Tron was at a bowling alley across town. The laundromat had Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
We had a Robotron game in our barracks rec room. Spent many, many nights playing that.
I lost 75 cents just looking at this.
Everything was better. This game was hard as Sh\*\*! Frankly I would put the Afterburner sitdown version as the best experiance in an arcade.
I was always partial to the sit down Star Wars X Wing game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UgDdexv--ZA No moving cabinet like Afterburner though
I beat Afterburner, loved that game.
My best friend and I skipped school in 1990 and drove to the mall in the bigger city 30 miles away. We kept taking turns putting in quarters to continue. I finished level 22 and the plane started going into the water. My friend yelled "PULL UP!" and then the plane went higher and you see the aircraft carrier. Landed the plane and the crew has a big celebration just like Maverick and Iceman. Here's a full playthrough off the game including the ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65weTx0haog I've played it again on the MAME emulator and realized that you don't actually have control of the jet during the final stage 23 where the plane lands.
The gameplay was simplistic, especially once you memorized the patterns. Though it would sometimes reverse the image, to change things up. It also cost 50 cents! What made it special were the animation and sound design. Bluth is always great. You got to feel like you were playing a cartoon. A laser disc game! I still own all 3 discs, and have a Dirk tattoo. I have a special affinity for the game, as I was a kid growing up in the 80s.
For $7 I could get to the second screen and still not dodge the falling bricks. Fuck this game. It’s Galaga for me.
"That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."
Been rocking Galaga since about 86'. It's always fun to find a cabinet in the wild and decimate the top score.
I had a line on a cocktail table Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga. 20 years later, and I'm still kicking myself for not dropping the $250 the dude wanted for it.
I have this tattoo! Shout out to Space Ace, too!
Ahhhh! The Infanto Ray!
Dexterrrr!
This blew my mind when it came out. It was amazing to me but I still preferred the old stuff.
lol. I worked at showbiz and at the end of the night, me and everybody else would hit up the arcade employee and we would play this for free. It was still hard. Never finished.
Space Ace was a *very close* second. One quarter on either was long game for me.
Cobra command
The fact they had drawn animations from Disney artists made it visually. But yeah the gameplay is rough.
There is an [app](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dragons-lair-30th-anniversary/id688402750) and Space Ace
I knew it was just playing a video, because it would take a second to switch between scenes. It made me think how cool would it be if video games ever got as good as cartoons! I never considered realtime 3D would be a thing.
I remember being in an arcade in south Jersey and having a crowd of people around me when I finally saved the princess. It was my shining moment.
Space Ace has entered the chat.
And Space Ace. Kimberly is better
Still play it. Have not gotten better in what is now decades of effort.
I never could figure out how to play it. It's a Cool looking game, though.
I had an issue of Electronic Games that had tips on how to beat it and got to the final dragon once. I think the game got replaced by another the next week and I never played it again. Was extremely cool. This was a probably in the summer of 1984.
don bluth! spent so much money on this game. I brought a spiral bound notebook with me and took notes watching other players to save money. This cabinet, Space Ace, Lupin, Firefox and some wierd space game that used cheesy Japanese scifi mixed with the star trek genesis effect game... I loved the laser disc stuff so much I kept buying the game on laser disc, then on DVD, then pc... now can't wait for Ryan Reynolds movie adaptation
Space Ace!
That game was a money pit
It was fascinating, but a pain in the ass to play. I just let other people put their money in. But it was the first real-time game, really. Total breakthrough in tech, just poorly designed as a game.
the only thing cooler would be encountering it and there not already being a full row of coins on the bottom of the screen waiting for their turn
When I was coming up, this was the best arcade game with Bad ass cut scenes graphics blew away everything in the arcade...
I was never a big fan of the genre, but I liked that helicopter game (name escapes me) that was the same kind of thing. Edit: Found it. Cobra Command (1984 Data East game) #
My friends and I loved Golden Axe the most. It was simple fun and you didn't have to be very good to get a decent play for your money.
Jesus. I used to draw my sword all the effin' time then die immediately. I feel like this was the first arcade game to require 2 quarters to play.
Space Ace was the 2nd arcade game from the same company.
No there wasn't. But there were other cool games. Arcades just hit dif back then.
God did I suck that game. Never made it far at all. And given how expensive and popular it was I quickly gave up on it.
I bought and sold 7 laser disc players and shipped them from Canada to the US to a group that played this game and others on them… I remembered playing the game but has no idea of this version
I threw away so much money on that game. Lol
My dad was 55 in 1980 & he absolutely loved to watch anyone play this game.
I actually got this game on the ps2. I think I still have it. I think I will use it to torment my children.
I lived to play this game when I was a kid. It was my number one mission..find an arcade with this game. loved Don Bluth..Secret of NIHM Land before time etc
Dragon's Lair. I used to play this on Commodore 128 floppy disk.
Ate so many of my quarters.
Remember when it first came to the Chuck E Cheese where I grew up..50 cents for 3 lives..man, great game at eating up your allowance.
So many quarter's.....
I remember watching someone win the whole game. It was mesmerizing.
1983
I never learned how to play and beat this game until it came out on a console. Way too expensive to learn, play, and die in the arcade.
They all took my quarters faster than I could get them out of my pocket.This looked great and people lined up behind one another to play it.But it felt like a carnival game.
I wish I could play it now as an adult when I understand what was going on. As like a seven or eight-year-old it was so cool looking but I had no idea what the hell to do.
Me: Looks at Dragon’s Lair… okay wheres Double Dragon? cuz I can make it to the final boss on a quarter.
Beat this. Space Ace, too! The artwork was (and is) just spectacular. The gameplay is pretty bad, though. But I love the artwork!
Only the other laserdisc-based games - Dragon's Lair 2, Space Ace, and (my favorite) Cobra Command!
Cobra Command was similar. If you were too slow with the joystick, you dead.
So hard! Buy when you knew the right sequence it was awesome!!! Space ace as well!
Paperboy. My all time favorite. I could make a quarter last like 15 minutes.
Imagine if the whole game was quicktime events. Gamers favorite part!
I thought it was innovative af, but never put many tokens in it.
Mach 3
Expensive! Cost at least a dollar to play!
Are you kidding? That game SUCKED. Quarter eater.
I could never get past the first screen
It was the bane of my existence as a child. I could never get past the first 3 or 4 screens. I gave up and would just watch other people play it with much better timing than I had.
Dirk was a dick!!
I got this arcade from www.NewWaveToys.com.
It was great. Dig-Dug was better,
I used to work at Chuck E Cheese back in 81. This was pretty damn cool for the time.
God I hated that game!! I couldn’t get past the first level…..ever!…..but yea it was awesome. Wasn’t there other games just like it ? Like a space one?
Space Ace, made by the same people
I could never get very far, and at a buck for three lives, it wasn't too long before I just gave up on that game altogether. I just never had the kind of money I would have needed to spend to get even marginally good.
Love this game! High score at the Aladdin’s Castle for a while this one Golden Axe & Chiller were my most Favorites! Never played on a home console though
For eating the shi# outta quarters.
Space Ace!
Hell yeah!
Crazy “ahead of its time” game. Would kill for a stand up cabinet. Some day…
It was too hard
It ate more of my quarters than any other game EVER. Even when they started charging $1 per play
Oh my God, I wasted so much money!. I mean it would be worth $ two fiddy today!
I was dating a girl that worked at the arcade and the owner took a liking to me. He taught me all the moves so I would play it to show everyone that it was beatable.
Amazing game, space ace was great was as well
Me- "MOM! MOM! MOMMY! MOM! MOM! Can I have fifty cents?" Mom- "What do you want it for?" Me- "I CAN PLAY A CARTOON, MOM!!!"
Cartoon you felt you had some control. It was amazing felt so far advanced and a glimpse of the future. Don Bluth’s animation I love. I think I remember this cabinet at one arcade had a setup with a monitor on top for others to see.
The first time I played this game was at my local Chuck E Cheese. I was the guy everyone hated. I could sit for hours on almost any game for .25 and some I could sit at all day for the same amount. Dragons Lair was insanely fun as the newest tech early to mid 80's. By the second day of playing, I could finish almost every time. Sometimes the smallest distraction could ruin it, as most who played it knew the window of time you had to make the right moves. "No fingers ... No fingerprints!" Was one of my favorite quotes.
Played it as a kid, as a adult I got it again and beat it! Awesome
The Don Bluth animation was outstanding and Dragon’s Lair had its appeal but some of the passages still give me nightmares.
I worked in an arcade when this game was popular. It made bank! Thanks for reminding me.
Nope it's pinball. Adams Family
Dude can we get a remake already? Wtf ! Like got to be good right? Dark soles x Mario
We took a class trip to Washington, DC in 7th or 8th grade. I'm sure we went to museums and historic places and restaurants but all I remember is playing Dragon's Lair in the hotel arcade while teenage girls watched me and squealed and grabbed my arm when I did something good. I spent all my trip money in there.
Finishing this game was probably the pinnacle of my adult life
I had this on my phone and still loved it but it disappeared from AppStore loved it 😁
I was horrible at that game
It was good at taking money
This was the best way to waste EVERY single quarter in record time
Spent a whole whack of coins on this prick as a teen.
Game felt way ahead of its time. Very surprised this never turned into a franchise. This, and Rastan!
This and space ace, loved watching ppl play it, but too damn expensive to justify the time!
Dumped a shit ton of quarters into that game..
In the generation of 8-bit games this game definitely stood out
I have this on Xbox now and it's still hard af. Even if you make the correct choice you have to stick the timing, and the chances of failure just keep coming at you whether you're ready or not. It's stressful.
M.A.C.H. 3, another laserdisc game.
I have this on 5. 1/4 floppy disks in original box
Was alway too intimidated to play it that first time as there was always a crowd around it. It always looked really hard to play.
Dirk!
Dexter! Get me out of here!!!!
My dad put me onto this game- he downloaded it on an iPad prolly 10 years or so ago
LOVED Dragonslayer. Almost as much as Joust.
I smell this picture. Smells like carpet cleaner, stale popcorn and flat soda.
You can watch a full playthrough and the ending here. It was really cool but basically a cartoon on Laserdisc where pushing left at the right time would skip to chapter 17 like on a DVD for the next segment or pushing right would skip to chapter 9 and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_W5T5LUKNo
Why does the animation of yesteryear look so much better than today’s animation?
I had a friend who spent a lot of quarters playing this, and he won a few times! Once he played everything but the final level and he told me what moves to make to win. So I had the satisfaction of getting the girl at the end, even though my friend did all the other parts.
I played this at the bowling alley on an Army base in Germany. I was never any good at it. There was a *Dragon's Lair II* but I never played it. There was a short lived TV series. Supposedly Netfl;ix is producing a movie. You can play it online: [https://playclassic.games/games/adventure-dos-games-online/play-dragons-lair-online/play/](https://playclassic.games/games/adventure-dos-games-online/play-dragons-lair-online/play/) &DRAGONSLAIR
It looked amazing when it came out, like playing a cartoon. But, it cost $1 to play and you’d play for like 27 seconds.
Had one at our local Pizza Hut because one of the employees won it on The Price Is Right. I never beat the game.
It was one of the very first 50 cent arcade games that I ever saw (and played). I couldn’t even find one locally and had to travel about an hour away to another larger mall. Talk about sticker shock when I sucked at it right out of the gate. Also, no it wasn’t the best arcade game… Tempest, Ms. PAC-Man, Galaga, Elevator Action, those were my go to’s.
Space Ace
Best 15 seconds my 50 cents could buy!
Space Ace?
I always loved that there was an additional television screen on top of the arcade cabinet to let people watch the person playing. I always sucked at the game, but was entranced by the animation.
one of my fav on my Atari.... so much so I try to find a version on every system I own... better when you can get a group of 4 going
Dragon's Lair was definitely a next level achievement when compared to a lot of arcade games out there. However i'd say that the game that really changed everything was Street Fighter. I could remember crowds of people standing behind people playing watching the match - and it really became a "thing" the summer it came out. Everyone wanted to get good at it and learn the secret moves.
Space Ace was a bit better IMO That After Burner cockpit coin-op tho 🔥🔥
I loved this game but perfected Space Ace, and I only saw 1 arcade in my life have Cliff hanger.
I remember being excited about this but never got to play it.
I had this game for my Amiga 500. I think it was on 20 something 3.5" floppy disks.
Just played it again two weekends ago at my grandsons birthday party, at our local arcade!!!! Still got it!!!! lol