.: November 3, 2003. WW: March 7, 2018 (Steam)Mode(s)Drake of the 99 Dragons is a developed by Swedish studio Idol FX and published.
The game stars Drake, an who is on a quest to avenge his murdered clan, the 99 Dragons, by recovering their ancient 'Soul Portal Artifact' from Tang. Tang intends on using the artifact to harvest the souls of dead beings and power his undead army.Idol FX intended for Drake of the 99 Dragons to be the launchpad for a franchise, which would include and a potential animated television series. However, these plans were scrapped due to the game's. Contents.Gameplay Drake has a number of special moves, such as the abilities to double jump and to run up walls. He also has the ability to for better accuracy, though this feature could be triggered by accident fairly easily during normal gameplay, which can quickly throw off a player's focus. Drake's health depends primarily on absorbing the souls of his fallen opponents, although there are also red 'lost souls' which deplete Drake's health.As a means of defense, Drake uses a wide arrangement of guns and firearms. The player is able to control two guns by using the left and right triggers.
In the Xbox version, an aiming reticle (a common staple of third-person shooters) is excluded; instead, an auto targeting feature is implemented to help Drake aim and fire at the player's enemies. In the PC version, however, an aiming reticle is used.Plot Drake is the premier assassin of a -based clan known as the 99 Dragons. While training in the Kwoon, he hears a break in. He enters the chamber containing the Soul Portal Artifact, given to the clan over 3000 years ago, battling enemies before a mysterious Ghost Assassin swoops out of the room with the artifact. The assassin is in cahoots with Tang, a businessman and the clan's mortal enemy. Drake then pursues the assassin, but is unable to stop the villain when he phases out of a window of the penthouse.
Drake of the 99 Dragons – Angry Video Game Nerd (Ep 158). James / September 26th, 2018. AVGN Episode. AVGN Bad Game Cover Art #7 - Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys (PS2).ogv download. Drake of the 99 Dragons - Angry Video Game Nerd Episode 158.ogv download. Tomb Raider Games - Angry Video Game Nerd (Episode 159).ogv.
He returns to the Master's chamber, only to find the corpses of himself, the Master, and the other members of his clan.Shocked, Drake collapses, and the tattoo on his chest glows. In a flashback, Drake is given the tattoo of the Undying Dragon by The Master, which provides him with supernatural powers as well as immortality. The tattoo glows, and Drake unleashes the abilities to run up walls, slow down time, and freeze time. He explores the penthouse and collects thirty souls of his fallen comrades and enemies.
When the powers go to Drake's head, he leaps out a window and falls to his death. He then awakens in the Spirit Realm, and is scolded by the four Spirit Gods. They inform him that he must collect more souls for the Undying Dragon and recover the Soul Portal Artifact in order to avenge his Master's death.
They give him a new body and return him to the mortal realm. He pursues a courier and follows his blood trail to a fireworks factory. Drake shoots at him, but is killed in a sudden explosion.The gods, annoyed once more at Drake's lack of competence, bring him back to life and send him to the House of the Dreaming Cloud casino. There, Drake attempts to find the courier, but is attacked by the casino's owner Pok and his demon dogs. After defeating Pok, Drake tails the courier to the Hung Fook Casino Palace, where it turns out he lost the Soul Portal Artifact in a gambling match. A thug beats Chun to near-death for his mishap, but Drake saves his life in time and learns the location of the Soul Portal Artifact.
Drake quickly sets off through the city, fending off biker gangs along the way, and returns to the House of the Dreaming Cloud.While fighting Pok, now in his 'true' demonic form, Drake once again gets caught up in an explosion. Serpent-Eye Sung, a business partner and accomplice of Tang, steals the Soul Portal Artifact from a dying Drake and heads off to his canned seafood factory, which they are harvesting the soul from an albino orca. Drake goes to stop Serpent-Eye and take the Artifact back, but is attacked by Tang's henchwoman Banshee and killed once more. The Spirit Gods decide to cut their losses and send Drake back to the penthouse, where the Tang Undertakers are stealing the corpses of the 99 Dragons. Drake chases after a truck holding his master's body, and finds himself taken to a cyborg creation facility. There, he finds that Master has been turned into a cyborg, but manages to defeat the robot and retrieve his Master's body from the remains.Outraged, Drake decides to go after Tang. Upon infiltrating Tang Towers, he discovers Tang's true scheme: to use the artifact to reap the souls from the Spirit Realm and use those souls to power his cyborg army.
Drake then breaks into Tang's secret morgue facility and recaptures his clan members' souls. He then travels to the basements of the facility, where Tang is using the artifact to open the portal to the spirit realm. Drake fights and defeats a demon-like creature, but the Ghost Assassin steals the Soul Portal Artifact and escapes into the spirit realm. Drake enters the realm and pursues the assassin, ultimately defeating him. He then retrieves the Soul Portal Artifact and collects the Master's soul.Drake then falls down to a nest of a three-headed beast called the Spirit Lord Supreme, and confronts and defeats it.
Drake then goes back to the Serene Garden, and revives the Master with the artifact. Master thanks Drake for his efforts, stating that he achieved a level of proficiency even he was unable to reach, and he has proven himself to the Gods.Reception ReceptionReview scoresPublicationScoreN/AFN/A1.67/10N/A1.25/10N/A1.6/102.9/102.9/10N/A3/10N/A2/10N/AAggregate score35/10022/100Drake of the 99 Dragons received 'generally unfavorable reviews' on both platforms according to the website. It was ranked as the second-worst game for the original Xbox. In July 2006, called Drake the single worst game ever released for the Xbox, even going so far as to state that it had eclipsed the game as 'the standard by which they rate all bad games'. of named it the second worst 'frightfully bad' game of 2003 in Halloween 2004, right behind.The game was criticized for its controls, along with frustrating gameplay. The game's dual-wielding system, in which players could control two guns independently by using the trigger buttons to shoot and an analog stick to aim, was notably criticized for having a poorly-implemented targeting system that made it difficult to aim. Frequent criticism centered around its unwieldy camera that often got stuck or prevented the player from seeing the on-screen action, and was mapped to the same as the aiming reticle.The game was also panned for its poor voice acting, low quality graphics, character animations, and sound design; in particular, GameSpot 's Navarro felt that the game was a 'cacophony of terrible effects and voice acting'—noticing the re-use of stock sounds notably used in, and comparing the title character's voice to a cross between a and 'the '.
He also felt that, due to the game's 'disjointed' cutscenes and narration, the storyline of the game was nearly incomprehensible.While Aaron Boulding of praised the game's unique visual appearance and presentation, along with the ' audio effects whilst slowing down time, he concluded that Drake of the 99 Dragons was 'a good idea that went horribly astray and ended up disastrous' and that 'there's no need to rent, purchase or entertain the thought of playing this one'. GameSpot 's Navarro considered the Xbox version 'an out-and-out failure in every single discernable category'. ^ (November 3, 2003). Drake of the 99 Dragons. Level/area: Introducing a Killer.
Idol FX (November 3, 2003). Drake of the 99 Dragons. Majesco Entertainment. Level/area: Honing Your Skills.
Idol FX (November 3, 2003). Drake of the 99 Dragons.
Majesco Entertainment. Level/area: Chasing Ghosts. Idol FX (November 3, 2003). Drake of the 99 Dragons. Majesco Entertainment.
Level/area: Death in Person. 'Drake of the 99 Dragons (Xbox)'. P. 7.
EGM staff (January 2004). P. 148. Reiner, Andrew (January 2004). Archived from on January 12, 2008. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
^ Navarro, Alex (November 26, 2003). Retrieved September 10, 2014. ^ Boulding, Aaron (March 8, 2004). Retrieved October 28, 2019. ^ Boulding, Aaron (February 3, 2004). Retrieved October 28, 2019.
'Drake of the 99 Dragons'. January 2004. P. 70. Semsey, Rob (December 8, 2003). IGN Entertainment. Archived from on January 13, 2011.
Retrieved October 28, 2019. Jackson, Jonah (March 2, 2004).
Archived from on March 13, 2004. Retrieved October 28, 2019. ^. CBS Interactive. Retrieved October 27, 2019. ^.
CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 17, 2013. Navarro, Alex (November 1, 2004). CBS Interactive.
Retrieved October 28, 2019.External links. at.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DrakeOfThe99Dragons
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Drake of the 99 Dragons is a third-person shooter for Xbox and PC, released back in 2003. It stars an undead assassin named Drake, the last surviving member of the Dragon clan, on his quest to restore the Dragons' honor by eliminating the rival clan that killed them all and stole an ancient treasure of theirs.
While the game attempted to convey a sense of stylized comic book action by utilizing cel-shaded graphics and giving Drake the ability to wield two guns at once and stop time, Drake is much more notorious for its low production values and many camera issues, making the game needlessly difficult. For those reasons and more, it has earned itself a spot on many, many 'worst game ever' lists.
In 2018 the game actually managed to see a re-release on Steam, proving once again that there's No Such Thing as Bad Publicity.
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Drake of the 99 Dragons contains examples of the following tropes:
- '90s Anti-Hero: Drake is an undead assassin with a black leather coat, a pale corpse-like skin color, uses an infinite number of guns, always beats up and kills his enemies, has a soul absorbing power, and he speaks primarily in corny Badass Boasts with a raspy, low-pitched voice. You may think he's a parody of this before realizing he was meant to be serious.
- A God Am I: On realizing he's undead, Drake yells, 'Am I... INVINCIBLE?!?' and jumps out a window to test it. He promptly dies.
- All There in the Manual: The prequel comic says the name of the setting is 'Neo Macau', confirming it does take place in a futuristic China.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The final level allows you to respawn with the press of a button instead of being sent to the Guardians.
- Badass Boast: Drake attempts this as part of his introduction. Although in theory it should be cool, the fact he can't keep his mouth closed as he's talking to himself in an empty room and is playing with a pair of unloaded handguns all the while just renders it a weapons-grade level of corny in practice:Drake: (flipping two handguns around) Those who know my name whisper it in fear. Most people I meet, I only meet once. I am Drake, the Assassin. To me, life is all about death.
- Blank White Eyes: Drake has these to make his undead-ness more apparent, though his character model still has them even before he dies.
- Bullet Time: One of Drake's powers. He can slow down time, but it's incredibly unwieldy and has little practical use due to the fact Drake slows down as well with no alterations to the controls or anything to make dodging or generally moving easier. What's more, the ability is triggered either with one of the face buttons (which requires either letting go of the fire button or an awkward finger position) or clicking the left analog stick (which is far too easy to do accidentally).
- Camera Screw: The auto-aim function and the camera were mapped to the same analog stick, making combat virtually impossible.
- Cel Shading: Only really visible on Drake's trenchcoat.
- Cutscene Incompetence: Not counting the death that starts the plot, Drake is killed in cutscenes five times over the course of the game. He actually dies so much that he drains the guardians's power due to having to bring him back, forcing them to shunt him into one of his previous corpses.
- Double Jump: One of Drake's standard abilities.
- Fake Difficulty: The game is very hard. Not because of any legitimate difficulty, but because the game is so supremely, fundamentally broken on every level that even the tutorial fight can easily kick your ass. The game's auto-aim makes it difficult to land a hit on enemies (along with being mapped to the camera), the player frequently finds themselves in enclosed spaces, and the controls are rather slow and floaty.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The soul manipulation abilities don't work. You can die jumping off a building the game forces you to jump off. Drake can get stuck up to his waist in the ground at random. And so on, and so forth.
- Game-Over Man: The guardians, who mock you every time you die. The player will likely get tired of it really quickly.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Tang's goal with the Soul Portal Artifact is to use the souls of the dead to power an army of cyborgs to Take Over the World, which is the most characterization he gets in the game.
- Guns Akimbo: Drake can wield two different guns in each hand.
- Gun Twirling: Done obsessively by Drake in cutscenes, often while spouting off hefty amounts of exposition.
- Heroic Bloodshed: It’s supposed to be this, with Drake’s moves and style derived from hallmarks of the genre. However, Drake’s so bad about abusing his reincarnation ability (mostly for dumb reasons) and the whole thing is such a weird mishmash of Chinese mythology and Take Over the World that it ends up falling flat.
- Idiot Hero: Drake. Almost every death in-story is a result of Drake's stupidity and recklessness.
- Informed Attribute: Drake is supposedly a master assassin. His tactics? Run in and shoot everything around him, constantly throwing aside empty pistols covered in his fingerprints and DNA. He also dies constantly. Not normal gameplay deaths. Cutscene deaths.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: Drake's got a pretty hefty jawbone.
- Large Ham: Drake. Probably the one good thing about this game is his So Bad, It's GoodHam and CheeseSerious BusinessChewing the Scenery.
- Last of His Kind: Drake is the last 'living' member of the Dragon clan.
- Left Hanging: The comic tie in depicted a large subplot about a crime lord named Tim Chung that never made it into the game.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Every time the player dies, they have to sit through two loading screens so that they can be taken to the guardians' realm for them to mock you for your failure.
- MacGuffin: The Soul Portal Artifact, which Drake spends the entire game trying to get back from Tang and his minions.
- Obvious Beta: If this game was supposed to be sent out like this, we'll eat Drake's trenchcoat:
- The Time-Slowing and Time-Freezing abilities are useless because they also affect the player. The other abilities don't work, period.
- Fall damage is extremely inconsistent; frequently you'll die falling from shorter distances than you'll survive. Even worse when taking a long drop is the only option forward.
- Power Tattoos: Drake's chest tattoo of the Undying Dragon, given to him by his master, is why he can come back to life. It must be fed souls on a regular basis to hold Drake to this world.
- Shout-Out: Drake's tattoo of the Undying Dragon is a Shout-Out to the Immortal Iron Fist, who has a Power Tattoo of a dragon named Shou Lou the Undying on his chest.
- Take Over the World: The Big Bad's very creative motivation.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Drake dies in-story a grand total of seven times.
- Throw-Away Guns: Drake doesn't carry magazines but an infinity of loaded guns. Instead of reloading, he drops his empty gun and picks another loaded. Which is stupid, since he's leaving behind tons of fingerprints and DNA that could easily be used against him.
- Totally Radical: In one cutscene, Drake uses the phrase 'out of this world' completely seriously; not one trace of irony, parody, or humor anywhere (though it has humor if you count Narm).
- Too Dumb to Live: At one point, Drake dives out of a window at the top floor of a skyscraper for no real reason- apparently to test his powers and see if he truly has become invincible. Spoilers, he doesn't- he predictably dies on impact, is called out on it in the afterlife, then sent back down to Earth. Lampshaded too. 'The Undying Dragon can't protect Drake from his own stupidity.'
- Time Stands Still: One of the powers Drake attains later on. Although this sounds cool in theory, it's useless because Drake stops as well.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Drake. He does wear a trenchcoat later on over it, but still.
- Wall Run: Drake gains the ability to do this toward the beginning of the game. Again- cool in theory, but near-uncontrollable in practice. Made even worse by the fact it becomes compulsory in several places.
- Would Hit a Girl: Drake has no problem with killing female enemies, and against one of the bosses (One of the Big Bad's henchwomen), even goes as far as to continue beating her up even after he's already taken her down.