Draconus

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You control Frognum, whose task is to reclaim his kingdom from the Tyrant beast. Find the four special abilities to metamorphose into your waterborne Draconewt and face the evil! You'll encounter bats, deadly balls or giant rats that generally follow fixed paths but may also swarm and chase you! There are two primary weapons at your disposal to eliminate these enemies; you may punch and claw them or you may incinerate them with your fire breath. Fire breathing is limited but can be replenished once in a while by collecting items. The atmosphere is at times truly adrenalin-pumping with the repeated shock factor of reaching a new screen that's teeming with large monsters and swirling, squidgy pulsating blobs. Note that an enemy contact reduces your life energy which can also be refilled by collectible symbols. Upon losing all your life energy Frognum loses a life and restarts from the last Record slab. The action is great I believe and this happens to be one of the best action platform games released for the 8 bit computers, followed but its sequel Dragonus 2!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are great on the 8bit Atari with details in different color palettes on each screen (though the background color remains black). The graphics are almost identical to the Commodore 64 version. The sprites' animation is a bit "bulky", but can be easily adapted. As far as the sound, this games features one of the most memorable tunes! Note that its music has been remixed a lot by many artist. But although I liked it a lot on my 8bit Atari (65XE), I was amazed by the C64 version (well, I'm a great fan of the SID chip anyway). The games does not have any sound effects but only this awesome game tune.