Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara

Retro history teaches us that it must not be easy to create a fun and hugely replayable side-scrolling beat-'em-up. The genre is riddled with pitfalls, including repetitive gameplay, tedium and dull button-bashing controls. For every gem like Streets of Rage 2 there has been an abundance of mediocre games, such as Rival Turf!, Ninja Combat and Riot Zone. Few companies mastered the art of this troublesome genre in the 1990s — SEGA springs to mind, as well as Konami — but Capcom in particular became a prolific 2D brawler connoisseur, through dogged determination and impressive talent. Dungeons &...

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Still, Chronicles of Mystara is worth the purchase for any fans of beautiful sprite-based artwork or classic beat ’em ups. Its only flaws come from the technical limitations of its time and the design decisions that defined the arcade era. Gauntlet, Golden Axe, and Cadash all suffer from similar issues. Thankfully, Shadow Over Mystara trounces them all. It’s the king of D&D-themed arcade action games, and should be respected as such.

Chronicles of Mystara’s long-awaited English-language home debut has been handled with great care, bringing us an experience that’s virtually identical to the arcades and successfully tugging at nostalgic heartstrings. It’s great to see these two former arcade-exclusive mainstays finally get the restoration they deserve.

Capcom brought a duo of very action-oriented Dungeons and Dragons titles out from arcade obscurity last year, and put the pair onto many different platforms. For those who haven't yet investigated this big dose of brawler action, here's a handy rundown. Muffled speech for you!