Game: Blazing Dragons
Platform: PS1
Year Released: 1996



It’s time to steer away from RPGs and platformers for a little bit and explore one of my favorite video game genres of the 1990s, point-and-click. The late 80s and early 90s saw a good deal of these games for the PC, but far less made their way to consoles. Blazing Dragons was one such P & C adventure that made its way to PlayStations and Sega Saturns in 1996. Though it doesn’t quite hold up when compared to some of the more classic point-and-clickers of the era, it’s still a fun game full of puzzles and humor.

Blazing Dragons originated as a British TV show, and the video game uses some notable voice talent, including Cheech Marin and Harry Shearer. A large amount of voice-acted dialogue was not too common back in the PS1 era, so this was something of a surprise. The story is a take on the legend of King Arthur, with most of the characters being dragons living in the kingdom of Camelhot.



The player takes the role of Flicker, a young dragon who longs to be a knight so that he can be with his true love, Princess Flame. On his quest, he also discovers that the evil humans are plotting to take over the kingdom, and they must be stopped. Unlike PCs, which use mouse controls for point-and-click games, Blazing Dragons uses the controller and makes the best of it. Though using the D-pad to move the pointer isn’t as easy as simply sliding a mouse, using the trigger buttons to scroll through commands makes the control scheme a lot easier to deal with.

Blazing Dragons is a very pretty game, with animated graphics that make it look like a cartoon. Unfortunately, some crucial items can sometimes get lost on screen, as they appear to be part of the background and don’t stand out. This can lead to some frustration once you’ve visited every location multiple times and still can’t figure out what to do because the one thing you need to make the story move forward is barely noticeable. Long load times further add to annoyance, as a loading screen will appear anytime the player changes locations.



Generally, the puzzles are fun and clever, although occasionally they are either too easy or don’t quite make sense. Blazing Dragons also breaks up the pointing and clicking with some kooky minigames, like the catapult (and yes, I mean the “cat” part literally) or a DDR-style button-mashing dance challenge. The gameplay is accompanied by a humorous storyline and great voice-acting, which makes the overall gameplay experience a good one.

Of course, as with many point-and-click titles, the story is completely linear and the replay value is almost zero. Unless you’ve been away for a few years and have forgotten everything, there’s no real reason to play through Blazing Dragons again after beating it the first time. This is a game that would have benefited from alternate endings and diverging storylines, like in Maniac Mansion. (What, you thought I would get through a whole article about point-and-click games without a Maniac Mansion shout-out?)



Blazing Dragons may not be one of the most memorable games from the PlayStation era, but it’s definitely worth a play for any fan of the point-and-click era. Hopefully in the future, we’ll see more point-and-click titles being released. Until then, I guess I’ll have to stick with the classics.

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