- Gainax's video game product line tended to target a niche crowd who generally preferred dating simulations and anime-based adventure games. Alisia Dragoon is a departure from this tradition. The animation studio handled the artistic end of the production, writing the story and creating the artwork that would be used for the design of the game's.
- Welcome to Alicia on ♥. This is a fan tutorial website for the Alicia Online game. Although the site is still evolving, you can find a lot of information and tips about the game. All the information in this website is collected by the site owners by playing the game, or collected from official sources.
- Each Alicia Quatermain game is different from the others, with its own innovations and surprises. The story lines are interesting (although not the most important element for me), the graphics are great, game play is exciting and challenging. Difficulty can be controlled by the settings you use. These are games you can play over and over again.
Alicia Online is an originally Korean MMO horse racing game. After some initial confusion as to how this game could possibly have regular players, I actually ended up finding a lot of things to like about it.
Alicia got some really nice clothes. Alicia got some really nice clothes. New Games Next in 00:00. Best games from last 2 months. Since Alicia is an online game and requires and internet connection, if you don't have an internet connection, you won't be able to play this game.
Accessibility
In casual games, it is said that you have about five to fifteen seconds to convince a user to keep playing. Within that time, everything needs to be as easily understandable and satisfying to play as possible. Ease of access and handholding tutorials are a staple of successful casual games on web and mobile platforms.
One might think that a similar rule of thumb would be employed for a game about anime-looking girls riding races on fantasy horses. One would be wrong.
Alicia Online requires you to download the game and a launcher separately, has an installer that shows seemingly random characters with the instructions telling you “Dont pay attention to the incorrect symbols, it's ok ” (likely an issue with translating from the original Korean), and the character creator is basically an HTML form.
Inside the actual game, the accessibility grows marginally better, but the whole game suffers from a lack of translation in some elements of UI and tutorial.
Alicia Game Free
Many of these issues can probably be blamed on the game’s unusual existence as a fan remake: The original Alicia was only available in Korean and has gone offline years ago. This new version is made by a different team and is completely unmonetized, staying alive as a pure passion project. The premium currency is still part of the game’s UI and mechanics, however, and can be won through daily quests and with a bit of luck, by racing.
Your Ranch
Once you’re past these initial hurdles of accessibility, you arrive on your ranch on horseback. You can move around the houses and field to learn the basic controls or you can talk to a small handful of NPCs whose text boxes seem to be limited to one or two lines each. Either you cannot dismount from your horse at all, or the option is so well hidden that I have not figured it out yet. Neither would particularly surprise me, because this game makes a lot of strange choices.
Instead of letting you actually go to the shop or the racetrack or your horse’s stall on the Ranch, the game offers “Horse Care”, “Racing” and “Shop” menus from a UI bar at the bottom.
Horse Care
In the horse care screen, the player can use consumable items like brushes, foods and toys to interact with their horse. If you want to keep caring for your horse, you also need to go participate in races so you can afford more food and care items.
The animations for feeding and playing with your horse are actually quite endearing, and none of the tasks take long enough to grow tedious – which is a problem that a lot of horse grooming mechanics in games have.
Racing
The online racing against other player is the focal point of the game, and in many ways also the aspect that works best. Unlike some stable simulation games, Alicia even doesn’t try to be realistic about how its horse racing works: your horse can double jump and glide on ghostly pegasus wings afterwards, and there’s a drifting (“sliding”) mechanic that gets you around tight curves with a dash at the end, if you time it right.
You power up your boost energy by jumping over obstacles or by collecting horseshoes and then use that boost cleverly to get ahead. A second racing mode is called “magic” and is about using and evading magical power-ups.
Like everything else in the game, the races are badly tutorialized, but once I got the hang of them, I actually started to appreciate the challenge they offer.
','resolvedBy':'manual','resolved':true}'>Alicia Game Sign Up
The maps are varied, pretty and well-made, with shortcuts and collectibles giving the player some motivation to grow familiar with the tracks in training mode before tackling PvP competitions. The control scheme is a bit unintuitive, but tight and precise once you actually read the tutorial and get how it all works. What I like most about it is how fast it feels. Many horse games I’ve tried recently have controls that feel much slower and clunkier than riding an actual horse in real life. Alicia may not be realistically accurate either, but it feels a lot better to play than many of its competitors in the genre.
Winning races gets you experience and carrots, which you can use to buy more care items, fancy saddles or even new horses. The rate at which you gain experience is slow, and the activities you can do outside of the racing itself are few, so you really have to enjoy and want to spend time with the racing for this game to be enjoyable.
Alicia’s Players
Because I was curious about who even plays this game and why, I reached out to a handful of Alicia Regulars for them to tell me what it is that they enjoy about the game, and got enthusiastic replies from everyone I contacted.
Melfaron, a player who says she spends 1-3 hours with Alicia every day, tells me she likes how fast-paced the game is, and that players can develop their own racing style, going for strength or agility in the levelling of their horse. Another daily active player, french lifestyle blogger Cécile Challet, tells me she loves the beautiful horses and the competition of racing. Someone else says the main thing they’d want to be added to the game is Pegasus Armor.
Melfaron, who uploads Alicia tutorials on her YouTube channel, says that the one thing she dislikes about the game is its sometimes toxic player base. When I was playing it, I did not interact with any players directly, but I did at some point notice a discussion in the public chat window about whether or not homosexuality was wrong, so I think I have an idea where the notion is coming from.
In all of the replies I got, there was a sense of vigorous enthusiasm, as well as deep appreciation for the volunteer developers that keep the MMO alive.
In Conclusion
I can hardly say that I’ve seen all that Alicia has to offer, but I also don’t really feel like I want to spend more time grinding to unlock the Breeding and Ranch Management features.
It’s worth mentioning that I’m a single player through and through and that I’ve never found any online game that actually held my attention for any prolonged period of time, so my lack of interest might be caused by a mismatch in genre and preference just as much as by the flaws of the game itself.
I can definitely see how the racing itself is fun enough to hold the attention of someone with more of a competitive streak than myself. If you are someone like that, I definitely recommend giving the completely free game a try.
Alicia Online is available for PC and can be downloaded for free here. For a better intro and more guidance than the game itself provides, have a look at the guides provided by Alicia On Heart.
| Alisia Dragoon | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Game Arts |
| Publisher(s) | Sega
|
| Programmer(s) | Naozumi Honma Osamu Harada |
| Artist(s) | Masatoshi Azumi |
| Writer(s) | Yoshimi Kanda |
| Composer(s) | Fumihito Kasatani[1] Nobuyuki Aoshima Mamoru Ishimoda Yoko Sonoda Mariko Sato |
| Platform(s) | Sega Genesis |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Alisia Dragoon[a] is a 1992 platform game developed by Game Arts for the Sega Genesis. The player controls Alisia, a young woman who is on a quest to avenge her father and save the world. She can fire lightning from her hands and summon four faithful beasts to aid her. The game was published outside of Japan by Sega. Despite the acclaim the game received, it was not a commercial success. The game was also included on the Sega Genesis Mini, released in September 2019.
Gameplay[edit]
In Alisia Dragoon, the player controls the protagonist, Alisia, in her quest to save the world by defeating the evil forces that killed her father. The game consists of eight levels of side-scrolling environments; Alisia has to jump across gaps and kill the enemies that stand in her way.[3] Each stage is completed by defeating the boss at the end.[4]
Alisia attacks by shooting streaks of lightning from her hands. The attack automatically targets enemies in range but gets weaker with each volley as Alisia's power is depleted. Her power recharges when she stops attacking; when fully charged, it allows her to unleash a multi-target attack,[4] hitting every enemy on the screen.[5] The energy system introduces an element of strategy, encouraging the player to manage Alisia's power to have her able to defend herself at critical moments.[3]
Helping Alisia in her quest are her pet monsters. These creatures fly around the heroine on their own, attacking her foes, and blocking enemy attacks from hitting her.[6] There are four pets, each with its own type of attack. The Dragon Frye spits fireballs, and the Boomerang Lizard hurls boomerangs. The Thunder Raven emits a thunder blast that affects enemies across the screen, and the Ball O' Fire burns enemies on contact. Only one pet can fight alongside Alisia in her quest, but the player can select any of the four (or none) as the active companion at any time.[3]
Over the course of the game, Alisia and her monsters can improve their abilities by collecting power-ups. These enhancement items are placed throughout the first seven stages, mostly in hidden locations. The various power-ups can heal Alisia and her monsters, increase their maximum life bars, improve their attacks, or grant invulnerability for a certain time.[6] Life bars are lost by taking damage from enemy attacks and traps. When Alisia's pets lose all their life bars, they are removed from play and cannot be brought back until a 'Revive' power-up is collected.[6] If Alisia loses all her life bars, she can restart the level by expending a continue.[4] The game ends if all the continues have been used. Alisia Dragoon has no features for saving the player's progress. After the game is completed, a screen is shown, charting the overall performance of the player based on the number of kills, the power level of Alisia's attack, and the frequency the pet monsters are used.[3]
Plot[edit]
Similar to most action games on the Sega Genesis, the plot in Alisia Dragoon is simple and short. The game goes straight into the action, tasking Alisia to demolish everything in sight. After defeating the final boss, the player is treated to a cinematic cutscene of Alisia's triumphant return to her home.
Much of the backstory is described in the manual. Alisia is the daughter of a sorcerer who attempted to stop the prince of all things evil, Baldour. As a child, her father was tortured to death in front of her eyes by Baldour. Although the world has not fully recovered from the devastating effects of Baldour's last visit, Baldour's aide Ornah manages to transport his dormant cocoon back to Earth. Now a woman with magical ability rivaling that of her father, Alisia sets out to destroy Baldour's cocoon before he can awaken.
Alicia Game
Development[edit]
In 1992, Japanese animation studio Gainax was in a collaboration with Game Arts, the makers of the Lunar role-playing games, to produce an action video game.[7][8][9] Gainax's video game product line tended to target a niche crowd who generally preferred dating simulations and anime-based adventure games. Alisia Dragoon is a departure from this tradition. The animation studio handled the artistic end of the production, writing the story and creating the artwork that would be used for the design of the game's environments and characters. Several of its founders had worked on Hayao Miyazaki's animated films, and the influences of Miyazaki's 1984 science fiction animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind were evident in certain levels of the game. Similarly, due to the predominance of mixing science fiction with fantasy themes in the Japanese animation circles at that time, Alisia Dragoon featured high-tech spaceships and robots alongside mythical zombies and dragons. The composition of the soundtrack was delegated to Mecano Associates, who had produced the music for other works from Game Arts, such as the action games Fire Hawk: Thexder 2 and Silpheed.[10] Game Arts, however, did most of the work in producing Alisia Dragoon, adapting the artwork into environments and creatures that can be rendered by the console hardware, and writing them as lines of software code.[3]
Reception[edit]
Alicia Gamez
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Mean Machines | 87%[4] |
| Mega | 81%[11] |
| Sega Pro | 85%[12] |
Due to a small customer base in Japan, Alisia Dragoon sold few copies on its release (April 24, 1992); the console it was made for, the Sega Mega Drive, was not a popular device in Japan, selling 3–3.5 million units (10% of all Mega Drives/Genesis sold around the world).[13] The game was published earlier by Sega for North America. However, it was a subdued release; Sega did not place major advertisements for the game in the media. To localize the contents for the Western market, the video game publisher made several cosmetic changes to Alisia Dragoon. Instead of a big-eyed heroine drawn in typical anime styling, Alisia was portrayed as a golden bikini-wearing barbarianess on the box covers outside Japan. The Western depiction of Alisia was likened to the scantily clad females in artist Boris Vallejo's work.[3]
Westerners were more enthusiastic toward the game than were the Japanese, although there were a few negative appraisals.[14]GamePro magazine opined Alisia Dragoon's responsive controls, coupled with the hectic action and handsome graphics, made the game highly desirable for owners of the Genesis console.[6] The Lessers of Dragon magazine were equally impressed with the gameplay, praising Alisia Dragoon for its 'solid arcade action' that satisfied their 'need for fast reflexes'.[5]Mean Machines's Julian Rignall praised the game for its pet monsters design, calling the management of the pets in the game an encouragement toward tactics. His fellow reviewer, Richard Leadbetter, wrote the game was visually attractive with 'beautiful sprites' and 'amazing backdrops'.[4] He found the gameplay challenging, being forced to conserve energy as the game '[threw] everything but the kitchen sink at [him]'.[4] Rignall agreed with Leadbetter on the game's difficulty, which along with the secret rooms and power-ups to be discovered made Alisia Dragoon an excellent action platform game that had long-lasting appeal.[4] Of the hundreds of Genesis games, Mega magazine rated Alisia Dragoon among the top 100 games, calling it '[probably] the best dragon-based platform game around.'[15][16] Despite the positive sentiments, sales of the game outside Japan were weak.[3]
Sixteen years after the game's release, Todd Ciolek of Anime News Network reviewed Alisia Dragoon and repeated much of the same sentiments as the Mean Machines reviewers. Noting Gainax's catalog of games, he noted that Alisia Dragoon was very different from the rest; instead of targeting hardcore fans of anime and focusing on exploitive themes, the game's appeal was for everyone. In light of this, Ciolek called Alisia Dragoon 'the best video game Gainax ever touched' and 'a spectacular ride in its own right'.[3]
Alisia Dragoon has been recognized retrospectively as a relatively early video game to challenge a gender bias prevalent in the industry at the time, despite a great number of Mega Drive/Genesis titles featuring lead female protagonists prior to Alisia Dragoon's release.[dubious] In the early 1990s, the video game market was skewed toward the young male demographic, with games often portraying women as 'damsels in distress', requiring rescue by male protagonists.[17]
References[edit]
- ^'Interview: Fumihito Kasatani of Mecano Associates'. Pixelated Audio. 10 January 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- ^'GamePro #31 pg. 38'. Sega Retro. February 1994. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
- ^ abcdefghCiolek, Todd (2008-08-27). 'The X Button—Finite Discoveries'. Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 27 August 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
- ^ abcdefgRignall, Julian; Leadbetter, Richard (March 1992). 'Megadrive Review—Alisia Dragoon'. Mean Machines. No. 18. London, United Kingdom: EMAP. pp. 68–70. ISSN0960-4952. Archived from the original on 30 August 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
- ^ abLesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (February 1993). 'The Role of Computers'. Dragon. Vol. 12 no. 190. Wisconsin, United States: TSR. pp. 58–59. ISSN0279-6848.
- ^ abcdJinky the Monkey (May 1992). 'Genesis Pro Review: Alisia Dragoon'. GamePro. No. 34. New Hampshire, United States: IDG Entertainment. p. 38. ISSN1042-8658.
- ^'当世ゲーム業界 働く女性事情 - ワーキング・ガール: 和田めい子 (ゲームアーツ) Character Designer'. Beep! MegaDrive (in Japanese). No. 14. SoftBank Creative. November 1990. p. 88. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2019-11-21 at the Wayback Machine).
- ^'Be~Mega Hot Menu - アリシア ドラグーン'. Beep! MegaDrive (in Japanese). No. 18. SoftBank Creative. March 1991. pp. 114–115.
- ^'Be~Mega Hot Menu - アリシア ドラグーン'. Beep! MegaDrive (in Japanese). No. 19. SoftBank Creative. April 1991. pp. 74–76. (Translation by Shmuplations. Archived 2018-08-03 at the Wayback Machine).
- ^MobyGames staff. 'Game Browser: Music by Mecano Associates'. MobyGames. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
- ^Mega issue 9, page 23. Future Publishing, June 1993.
- ^'Out-of-Print Archive • Mega Drive/Genesis reviews • Alisia Dragoon'. Outofprintarchive.com. Retrieved 2015-11-12.
- ^Szczepaniak, John (2006-07-20). 'Retro Inspection: Mega Drive'. Retro Gamer. No. 27. Bournemouth, United Kingdom: Imagine Publishing. pp. 42–51. ISSN1742-3155.
- ^Williamson, Matt (December 21, 1992). 'And the 1992 Winners, Among Home Video Games, are ...'. The Plain Dealer. Ohio, United States: Advance Publications. Scipps Howard. p. 5D.
- ^Mega staff (October 1992). 'Top 100'. Mega. No. 1. Bath, United Kingdom: Future Publishing. p. 83. ISSN0966-6206.
- ^Mega staff (January 1993). 'Top 100'. Mega. Bath, United Kingdom: Future Publishing (4): 86. ISSN0966-6206.
- ^Malitz, Nancy (August 7, 1992). 'Girls are Game, but Nintendo Won't Play'. Chicago Sun-Times. p. 57.
External links[edit]
- Alisia Dragoon at MobyGames