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Imagine 1942 with the planes replaced by dragons and other such mythical creatures, and you've got Dragon Spirit in a nutshell.\

The gorgeous and mightily bedable Princess Alicia has been kidnapped by the evil demon Zawell. Being one of the multitude of chappies wanting to get to know her a little better, you get yourself changed into a dragon, and set off after her.

Heading off along the vertically scrolling backdrops of prehistoric lands, waves of Zawell's evil creatures come in for the attack.

Starting off with simple fire power, you can accumulate loads more by bombing eggs and collecting the power icons which fly down the screen. Icons provide extra heads, (thereby increasing the number of flames shot at any one time) and bigger flames which can make you pretty invincible.

Once all his prehistoric minions are killed, the moment comes for you to take on the evil demon Zawell. A challenge Indeed! Dragon Spirit is very difficult. Like a lot of other games of this type, the monochrome screen display makes it hard to see what's being shot at you, and consequently, there's a lot of unexplained deaths. Still, if you can adjust the telly so that you can almost see what's happening, then ft's quite fun.

A more important negative though, is the problem that vertical scrolling shoot 'em ups have been around for far too long as It is, and something more than a change of sprites Is needed to revitalise the genre.

MIKE ... 65%

'Dragon Spirit's conversion to the Spectrum has worked really well. The game has kept all it's slick presentation, graphic elegance, and still has brilliant sound. The only trouble is that it's really hard to play. You may think you're the expert at shoot 'em up games, but you haven't seen this yet! The idea of playing a dragon that can collect extra heads, powers and a whole host of other interesting things is brilliant and the presentation simply puts other games to shame. Of course the concept of having a main character, be it a space ship or dragon, scrolling over a detailed landscape shooting things isn't new, but you can't seem to get enough of it! If you think you're up to a challenge then Dragon Spirit maybe for you.'