Dragon Blaze

I'll be straight with you: this is a 2000 arcade game, and Zerodiv ported it to PC under KMBOX publishing. So when you ask 'is it worth buying right now,' the question is really whether a quarter-century-old vertical shooter with a fresh PC wrapper earns shelf space next to your other shooters. For me, it does - but not for everyone. The hook is the Dragon Shoot mechanic. You ride one of four elemental dragon knights - Quaid, Sonia, Ian, and Rob - each with their own normal shot, charged magic attack, and bomb type. The twist is that you can physically launch your dragon off your character mid-stage, turning it into a high-damage autonomous unit that hammers whatever is in front of it while you maneuver solo. While separated, both you and the dragon shoot independently, the dragon can absorb bullets without dying, and you're free to reposition it by holding the recall button. Killing enemies with Dragon Shots drops gold coins worth double the points of normal kills, so the scoring system and the survival system are tightly intertwined - play aggressive or leave score on the table. The Magic Gauge fills with hits and unlocks a Super Magic Attack with two variants depending on whether you're mounted or separated. That's a lot of buttons to juggle when neon-purple bullet patterns are filling your vertical field. And the bullet patterns absolutely will fill your field. This thing leans hard into near-bullet-hell territory - boss desperation phases rival the density of something out of the CAVE catalogue, and the second loop cranks pressure further with patterns that specifically target your separated dragon, forcing reads well ahead of time. A single clear run is under 30 minutes, but a clean 1cc is a serious skill test. Controller is the obvious input here; I can't imagine steering both rider and dragon on a keyboard. The Steam release does support TATE mode with customizable video filters, and Zerodiv moves the score display outside the play field in non-TATE layouts so you get a cleaner view than the original arcade cabinet ever offered. Those are small but smart quality-of-life additions. For co-op: local two-player runs through shared/split screen, and Remote Play Together is listed, which opens it up online with a friend if you want. Two dragons in the same run massively changes the pacing - double the Dragon Shoot coverage and double the scoring opportunity. It's not a netcode showcase because the game simply wasn't built for competitive online play, so don't come here expecting ranked ladders or matchmaking. This is a couch game or a solo score-attack grind. Where it falls short for modern players is obvious. It's a short game with no progression system, no unlocks, and no build variety to speak of beyond picking your preferred knight. The character differences matter mostly to veterans who already know the stage layouts. Newcomers should start on Quaid or Sonia for more forgiving spread-type attacks and get a feel for dragon management before touching Ian or Rob. Steam leaderboards are live if global score competition is your motivation, but at launch this title has almost no Steam review base, so the community around the PC version is embryonic. Fred, Scout Team