Rise of the Dragon

Sega CD

We rented this game and the Sega CD system (the best system to play this game on) back in 1994. I remember the character getting arrested at the start of the game because we didn't have him putting on his cloths, we were so use to characters always being fully dressed in video games. I played it with my older sister (she was better at playing it than I was) and we could not stop playing it. But we didn't get to beat it, we only had it for 4 days and that was it... I haven't been able to play it since. Lucky there's play-through or long-plays on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbmn37XngHc

Setting and Characters

The Sega CD version has a green tint to almost everything, giving it that rundown Noir look with a future setting. It's like playing a 1980s digital cyberpunk Sci-Fi mystery comic book or graphic novel game. It somewhat reminded me of Blade Runner and Heavy Metal, the story of the New York Taxi cab driver since it's based in the future.

But unlike Rick Deckard, William 'Blade' Hunter (voiced by Cam Clarke) had more of a personality and attitude, had relationship problems with his girlfriend Karyn Sommers (voiced by Tress MacNeille), he doesn't just meet some woman and instantly fall in love. The voice acting may not be top notch, or what we're use to today, but it's not bad.

Gameplay

It was very much ahead of its time

1. You get choices on what to say to people, up to 3 or 4 different dialog options.
2. Say the wrong thing to key characters, they will refuse to help you with your work, which can render the game unwinnable.
3. If enough time has gone by and on and you haven't slept at your apartment, you'll end up sleeping on the street and you'll get robbed.
4. There are other nice little touches throughout the game, like if you leave your keycard, you'll be locked out. But you touch that pipe above your door, it will short circuit and the door will open.

However, nearing the end of the game, there are three sections of action, the first one is where it turns into a on rails-shooter, but the screen doesn't move, which means you can't move, but it's not that hard. The next two, it becomes a flat side-scrolling shoot'em up, neither of them works very well, but moving a crosshair to shoot seems to fix more into the game's style.

Also, the game doesn't really have any replay value, it shows what happens if you do or say the wrong thing, a few ways you can die and a different ending, but that's it. But it's still a great classic game from the 90s.