PLAYERS: 1-2 alternating
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Sega
GENRE: Beat-em-up
RELEASE DATE: 1985 (JP)
Yes, I know: Dragon Wang. I’m having a laugh right now! It’s ok, you can have a laugh too. We’re all adults here.
Ah, but if only the game was as brilliant and juvenile as its title. You play The Man With No Shirt otherwise known as a Mr. D. Wang (that would make his surname Wang then, I suppose – there’s nothing funny about that), and your mission is to rescue some chick you met while practicing Tai Chi on a mountain. Legions of shirtless bad guys run up to you, longing for your fist or foot to meet their face or ankles. Sometimes the “Sans Shirts” (my name, not the game’s) will get a hit in, especially if they’re chucking knives at you. Rude and dangerous? That’s the name of the Wang.
The amount of shirtlessness on screen varies per playthrough, though. Sometimes D. Wang will walk through an entire level and only see a couple dudes. Other times, you’ll be swamped by bulging chests, flabby stomachs (‘cept yours, natch), and pit sweat. Reach the end of the level and you’ll fight a boss who has a weapon, an obvious advantage over your weapon-less state. Keep Wang’s life up and you might beat the boss, but more likely, you’ll be bludgeoned to death by cheapness. And so it goes, for four mindless floors.
Dragon Wang plays very much like a poor man’s Kung Fu. In the latter, you could time your attacks perfectly to dole out damage to the underlings. Sure, the controls were a bit clunky, but success was achievable with time. Dragon Wang‘s crappy scrolling abilities ensure that your hit timing has to be perfect; otherwise, you’ll be absorbing all the pec sweat you can handle, which just happens to be your entire life bar. Also, according to Hardcore Gaming 101’s generous writeup of Dragon Wang, there’s trap doors in higher floors that take you back in your progress. Congratulations, Sega, nothing could make me hate your game more.
Beloved title aside, what a terrible way for Sega to begin their exclusive Sega MyCard line. All other MyCards released prior to this one had been ports of previously released SG-1000 games. Dragon Wang was the first of many originals to come and was, in fact, packaged in with certain waves of the Card Catcher. No, Sega, you should not have had such confidence in Dragon Wang. No game should make me long for the shirt-filled vistas of Kung Fu.
D
13 replies on “Dragon Wang (SG-1000, 1985)”
Oh man I recognize this now. I’ve been seeing this on the list and had no idea what it was. But it looks like the first game in the series to one of the SMS games I really like. Kung Fu Kid. I never knew there was a first game. I really love the sequel as it has very colorful graphics and is pretty fun to play. This looks almost nothing like it except maybe for the main character. Now I must fire up my emulator and try this, even if it is bad. Maybe the SG-1000 just couldn’t replicate what they were going for.
One can only assume that the D. in D. Wang’s name stands for Dick.
As in short for Richard, naturally.
Funnily enough. There is an a Engineer where I work named Richard Wang. And I get all kinds of amusement referring to him as Dick Wang. Alas it’s strictly Richard in person. I don’t even want to get into what we joke about when we try to guess his middle name.
That poor poor Dick 😀
This game pretty much sums up the SG-1000 doesn’t it? Repetitive, short, clunky, rendered in eye searing color, and accompanied by ear splitting music. There was no reason to buy this when it came out and not much of a reason to buy the console either. Unless you really liked virtual Mahjong….
I know you guys have said that the My Cards have less memory but this looks a bit more colourful and textured than some of the cartridge games you’ve already reviewed at least from that screen shot.
Yes, I’m noticing that the MyCards are more colorful and the music is more… developed, I guess you could say. But the Cards really are limited to 32K. Maybe Sega was just pulling out all the stops for them.
Given that this was in the wake of the 1983 video games crash then no doubt Sega was determined not to have their SG-1000 console go the same way as the Atari 5200 among many others. If we do have one thing to thank the crash for its that it encouraged developers to pull their fingers out. Maybe the introduction of the cheaper My Card was a way of encouraging the market a bit. I am just speculating here.
Hi-larious!
Funny that the Japanese title says “Dragon Wan.” So that means that the english translator CHOSE to call him Wang! They had to have known what they were doing there!
Woah, you’re right, Gino! I didn’t even notice that.
What’s weird is I’m pretty sure Dragon Wang wasn’t released outside Japan. Somebody from inside Sega of Japan befouled the game.
Maybe it was a disgruntled Sega employee on his last day lol. “Dragon Wang. He he he. That’ll show them!”
I think Wang is a common English iteration of the Chinese Wan. As it’s closer to the sound when saying it.