"Draconus" ... Alone at the sound of that name had once produced my fertile imagination a variety of images. I had to "Draconus" who just wanted to play through it unconditionally and my ideas at length by the actual graphics, the real sound, the many mysteries of sheltering level design, replaced simply by the pure game play, to say to get to the point. And at some point it was finally over. "Draconus" has been located somewhere, taken directly and no sooner had I arrived home and immediately loaded. And only then was still amazed. At least on the graphic and acoustic performance. After repeated attempts, was then sworn extensively because "Draconus" is an extremely hard piece of software that really barely tolerated error. But more on that later.

The game puts us on a distant alien planet. This is ruled ruthlessly and unchallenged by a creature called Tyrant Beast. Holed up in a labyrinthine cave complex, there is seemingly no way to put an end to their reign. One wants to try it yet and raises Tyrant Beast in the path. Frognum, a dragon-like creature walked upright (probably our Draconus), wants to reclaim his lost throne and its vast underground kingdom.

After the start, you find yourself instantly with Frognum in the cave of the beast known as a slab on record again, a kind of pedestal that acts as a checkpoint at the loss of life. As a player, you now have the choice to either turn right, left or down, because the vast game world can be explored freely without restrictions. Nevertheless, you should first contact to the right, where you can find some screens after the first artifact: morph helix. This artifact allows Frognum turn to the so-called morph into slabs Draconewt, a fire-breathing dragon of water. In this form can cross the otherwise impenetrable waters and thus seek new areas that harbor three other artifacts. During the search, I recommend you this order. Begins in the upper-left labyrinth. Here the eye of the ancient black dragon Serekos (Eye of Serekos) is hidden. So you can see through all illusions, what you pave new ground and leads to the two other artifacts. The sign of the demonic warrior hell Grom (Demon Shield of Grom) reduces energy loss and allows the falling from heights. The magic wand of the Necromancer Findol (Staff of Findol), which is located directly next to the room where the first artifact found allowed, collecting the four spells. These enable our scaly hero for firing deadly bullets, which made life much easier for him in the kingdom populated by monsters. But so far only come once.

The search for the artifacts is the core of the game and enriches it to share the resulting adventure. The rest is pure action affair, namely iron monsters or avoid these traps and skillfully overcome. The monsters are best met with the strong dragon fist, but has a very short range and not against anyone is especially fast-flying opponents. The harder cases should be roasted with the even stronger dragon flame. However, this is strictly limited in use, so you should really frugal with her. Actually, you will learn it most painfully, when an application of the flame is useful because it is done in certain areas does not, then a fast life is forfeit. Really nasty are the screens where there are waiting monster, which dissolve after a certain period of time from their rigid, and then accurately and quickly to beat them If you succeed then do not eliminate this time with a flame at once, it was mostly. Alternatively, you can also try these areas to pass through quickly and leave the still "sleeping" monster left. But this is not always easy, because the jumping is proving as tricky in many places. Estimating the distance one wrong, it can happen that you slip on the target platform and falls back again, or at a higher head encounters an obstacle, which leads to the selfsame result. Such blunders are dangerous in the screen almost instantly punished with death. The error tolerance is really close to zero, as already mentioned. It is therefore better to do in any case, the monsters, because once defeated, they appear no more. As you see, most rooms have several times anyway, this is very advantageous. Annoying is that there is also invincible monsters to decimate it always create Frognums valuable energy bar a little (at least for me). Fortunately, there are occasionally new energy as well as additional flame for a strong breath. =) But probably the fewest ever advance to Tyrant Beast. But fortunately, cheating is not prohibited, except of course in the school. =) "Draconus" is just a game of old school and hard.

Technically, the game is icing on the cake, which I am referring to now all the time nor the C-64 version. Loads of great graphics and music make a great title "Draconus" becomes a feast for the senses. Iconic is really even the sound when finding the artifacts. Only a few errors in the collision, when Frognum eg after a failed jump through the rock walk, a little dull the otherwise very positive impression.

In addition to the C-64 version is also one for the Atari 800 XL and XE. This seems more colorful and graphically drawn finer and knows me personally to like something better than the bread-box version. Otherwise, everything else is almost the same. "Draconus" is certainly one of the best games for the Atari XL / XE and should be highly praised by every lover of this venerable old computer. For the Sinclair ZX Spectrum also exists a version of which I know only a few screenshots. Therefore, I would not allow me to judge them.