I have no idea as to why Capcom loved the medieval ages so much, but this is proof that they can make great games about such a wonderful time period. I introduce you to one of the most obscure games ever to be made by one of the greatest video game giants ever. This game is Quiz and Dragons and is a beautifully done trivia game that was released in the arcades in the year 1992. How do you make a trivia game that incorporates the medieval times you ask? Pretty simple actually, all you have to do is include elements from that time period, with trivia questions about general knowledge such as sports, entertainment, and science from the years leading up to 1992.
“Why don’t we take Dragons and mix them with the one thing that makes absolutely no sense…trivia!”
Now to the game. The far away land known as “Capconia” has been peaceful and happy for years thanks to what is known as a knowledge tree. One day A demon named “Gordian” takes a seed from the tree and plants one of his own and then spreads the seeds to these big dragons, and whoever cannot answer the questions right will be eaten alive by them. So “The King” decides to roam the countryside and find four warriors to fight for him and destroy “Gordian”and the other knowledge tree, if you are to succeed the peaceful land of “Capconia” will be happy once again. Right as you put your quarter in the game you get to choose from four characters which are as follows. “The Wizard”, “The Fighter”, “The Amazon”, and “The Ninja”….wait “The Ninja”? Seriously, I mean do not get me wrong ninjas are so awesome that I am not mad they are included…I am just very confused as to how he can fit with the rest of our heroes, nevertheless he is in the game and is pretty sweet. Why the hell could they not add “The Pirate” to the mix to make this game even more over the top? Sometimes Capcom, I just don’t know about you.
Back to the topic at hand just go pick your character and then you must traverse through a wide landscape. When the game map loads up, it rolls a 6-sided die and lets you move how ever many spaces have come up. Once you have stopped moving, you will then have to go up against a random dragon, beast, skeleton, werewolf, or anything else that it shows you that you have to fight and then you must defeat it by answering a certain amount of trivia questions right. If you go up against a Wyvern and it has a 6 in the corner, well you must get 6 questions right before it is dead. During the levels you can land on an “Inn” space in which you must answer a question right to get to stay the night and refill your health, or you can land on a elf space, in which if you get it right you get a secret item. The items you get could be instant health, your choice of category, or the ability to even have the correct answer flash at you so you dont get any wrong. At the end of each level there is one boss that you must beat which normally takes more health to kill than the other things you come across, and all the bosses are dragons for the most part until you get to Gordian. In the final level, you will fight each dragon you have faced before, and then you will fight Gordian who kinda looks like a more ruggedly handsome version of Satan. Each character you choose from has 6 misses until it is killed, then you must enter another quarter and keep playing from where you left off. You also must answer the question in a reasonable amount of time otherwise you will have a piece of your life taken away. You will go through different places and can actually choose different paths depending on where you want to go, you can even choose different paths in the middle of a level if it gives you the option.
How fucking sweet could one enemy be. He just told you that the only path you can choose is death, and he calls you stupid as well. Good luck with that you old ass Wizard.
Let me break the characters down, I mean obviously they would not just have you choose from four different people without giving you some sort of benefit with all of them right? “The Fighter” is the person who recovers his health back the fastest when he is low, and somehow him being a fighter does not make him the strongest of the group which to me is kinda odd, I mean he carries around a sword and looks like he could kick the shit out of Conan the Barbarian. “The Amazon” is pretty effective, because her power is the ability to only have two or three answers to choose from compared to the regular four, and when you play on higher difficulties this is very effective when you have no idea who the hell won the Oscar back in 1934. “The Ninja” is the strongest because if he gets his question right he has a high chance of doing two hits of damage which is perfect for the later bosses that actually take about nine hits to die. Finally we come to my favorite which is “The Wizard” who can actually get to choose the category that he wants to answer questions from, this is also good for certain people, for me I normally pick sports trivia and completely dominate it.
Referring back to a previous statement, “The Fighter” could kick the shit out of Conan. I also learned that ninjas actually fought will o’ wisps and mummies which I did not know existed in feudal Japan
The music for the game is completely classic Capcom. Honestly all the music seems like it flows perfectly with the game, and it is all actually pretty damn complicated, there is alot of different sounds coming out most of the time, but that’s not a bad thing at all. When it comes to the games control…well its a trivia game with 4 buttons and no joystick, unless you mod the cabinet which would not be that difficult to do. As for the game play the biggest setback is the fact that the trivia can be outdated, I mean we are dealing with a game that has questions about “Who has the all time home run lead in Major League Baseball?” or “What is the highest grossing movie ever made?” with the answers being from a time where I was roughly 5 years of age. If your younger than me and play it is even more ridiculous unless you are a badass and know a bunch of useless shit. What is good though, is that in 2006 they released this game on a compilation disk with other games that Capcom had made for the arcade, and they even have a mode where they redid it. They made it all trivia about Capcom games, and it is actually alot of fun, and a shit ton easier if you have “The Wizard” like I use. You can choose from different types of games, but all I did was choose Final Fight games and just keep pounding the questions away really easily. Unless you run a Mame program just fork out the few bucks it will cost to go and get the disk for a PS2 or even the X-box, I just wish that Capcom had the ability to make this game a download with updated trivia.
This game is by no means perfect, but it is as good as a trivia game could be given the fact that it did come out in 1992. The great thing is that you are actually likely to see this in any serious arcade because of the cult following it has achieved and apparently it is kinda easy to find them which means I am sure that asshole Billy Mitchell has played it a few times in his day.
“I am Billy Mitchell and I am a complete and total dick-face.”
