Dragon Spirit

Dragon Spirit (ドラゴンスピリット) is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1987, and licensed to Atari Games for US manufacture and distribution. It runs on Namco System 1 hardware, and later converted to the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Sharp X68000 and TurboGrafx-16 system. A sequel named Dragon Saber was released 1990. An arcade sequel named Dragon Saber was released in 1990, which ran on Namco System 2 hardware and allowed two players to play simultaneously.

The dragon which the player controls, named Amul, flies forward continuously, but the player can direct him to move in 8 directions. He can blast flames at aerial opponents, or drop bombs on enemies upon the ground. Amul has a larger sprite than most of the enemies and so is easy to hit, though he can take two hits before losing a life (three in some ports). The powerups that give the player extra heads may give him double or triple the firepower, but they also give him double or triple the exposure to enemy fire which, especially on the later stages, can become intensely difficult to avoid. As such, beating the game is not easy.

A semi-sequel appeared on the Famicom/NES under the title Dragon Spirit: The New Legend. It was essentially an altered port, taking place a generation after the original title. Additionally, Dragon Spirit was released for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 in 1988. This version retained most of the original arcade graphics and sound quality, but only featured eight stages as opposed to the arcade version's nine. An emulated arcade version of Dragon Spirit appears in Namco Museum 50th Anniversary and Namco Museum Vol. 5. On July 2, 2007, the PC Engine (or TurboGrafx-16) conversion of the game was added to the Nintendo Virtual Console, and on September 8, 2009, the arcade version was released as part of the Virtual Console Arcade, in Japan. On November 4, 2008, it was released on the Xbox 360, as part of Namco Museum Virtual Arcade. The game was also released on the PlayStation Network as part of a downloadable compilation for the PlayStation 3, Namco Museum Essentials. In 2010, as part of Pac-Man's thirtieth anniversary, Dragon Spirit was released as part of the Pac-Man's Arcade Party 30th Anniversary arcade machine - along with several other classic Namco games.

Story
In the kingdom of Mitgult, a serpent demon named Zawell escapes imprisonment after a thousand years, and kidnaps Princess Alicia. A soldier named Amul is chosen to rescue her and destroy Zawell. He points his sword skyward and transforms into a powerful blue dragon. He can breathe fire and drop bombs, as well as collect up to thirteen additional powers during his journey. Amul must fight nine of Zawell's mightiest beasts, one at the end of each stage, before facing Zawell himself.