Laser Disc games were touted as the future back in the 80s. Dragon’s Lair led the way down the extremely short path that even Sega followed for a release or two. What killed Laser Disc is probably as hard to pinpoint as what killed WCW in the early 2000’s. That is to say, there were several factors at play here but ultimately, it was likely the bean counters in charge. Laser Disc games were expensive to keep running, they were also expensive for fans, there was honestly not a lot of gameplay to them, etc. You get the idea. Now, thanks to fans, Dragon’s Lair is available on the Sega Dreamcast, er, will be available as the game has not been made publicly available yet.
Arcade at Home
Dragon’s Lair was not only well known as a Laser Disc game, but it was also often one of the first titles announced for any platform offering CD-ROM technology. Sega CD, Atari Jaguar CD, Philips CD-I, etc. Sure, Sega and Sony both ran the 32-Bit era without anyone bothering to port Dragon’s Lair to their consoles for some reason. Maybe we were experiencing Dragon’s Lair fatigue by the time PlayStation and Sega Saturn came around?
I figure game companies realized the rule of diminishing returns was hitting Dragon’s Lair fast and hard with each release. It was basically a tech demo at full game price. Both Saturn and PlayStation had much more graphical tech demos they were trying to shill onto fans at full price already.
The allure of the home ports is not having to shell out $1+ per play, some arcades were nice and gave you more than one run for that price. You were basically only reacting to a cartoon that was playing out in front of you. No real gameplay.
Coming Home to Sega Dreamcast
The Sega Dreamcast port is apparently a tech demo in itself as the technology making it run is allowing pretty much all of the other Laser Disc games to tag along. While not shown yet, that means Space Ace, Dragon’s Lair II and III and more could be getting released on the Sega Dreamcast sooner than later.
How they will be released is another question. Will they be released like decompile projects are where fans are expected to supply the assets – essentially the download only being the engine to make everything happen on screen.
Sadly, there is no demo, or download at all, available yet. Hopefully it happens sooner than later.
