Dragon Blaze

Dragon Blaze is a shoot 'em up arcade game developed and published in 2000 by Psikyo. It was ported to the PlayStation 2 as part of Taito's Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol. 3: Sol Divide & Dragon Blaze compilation in 2005.^[1] The game was later also released on its own as a budget range title for the PlayStation 2 in Europe by 505 Games on 2006.^[2] In 2018 the game was ported to the Nintendo Switch by Zerodiv as part of their series of re-releases of classic Psikyo games.^[3] The game was later ported to Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Dragon Blaze
Developer(s)	Psikyo
Publisher(s)	Psikyo
Artist(s)	Kouji Ogata
Composer(s)	Masaki Izutani
Platform(s)	Arcade, PlayStation 2, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Release	Arcade: 2000 PlayStation 2: June 23, 2006 Nintendo Switch: April 5, 2018 Windows: August 3, 2020 PlayStation 4: June 29, 2022 Xbox One: January 11, 2023
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer
Arcade system	Psikyo SH2

Gameplay

Arcade version screenshot

Dragon Blaze plays like many typical 2D vertically scrolling shooters by Psikyo, although this game is closer to the bullet hell genre than most of the company's other output and the color of the enemies' bullets has been changed from Psikyo's trademark orange to a neon purple. The game gives each character (Quaid, Sonia, Ian, Rob) the standard normal shot, charged shot, and magic bomb, but each character also rides a dragon, which can be dismounted and be used as a weapon itself. The dismounted dragon initially acts as a piercing weapon, and then remains stationary shooting until the player calls it back using the same button. It can also be used to collect items.^[4]

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Dragon Blaze on their November 1, 2000 issue as being the fourth best-performing arcade game at the time.^[5]