A/N: This next review episode acts as the follow-up to the sixth chapter of my substory RWBY's Nostalgia Commercial Commentaries, where Don Bluth makes a special appearance and tells Team RWBY at the end of the chapter about his request for them to review one of his works.


In this fifty-fourth review episode and another special review, the four members of team RWBY is tasked by their special guest, animation legend Don Bluth, to play one of the hardest arcade games of the 80s as well as the remarkably innovative animated video game, Dragon's Lair. One thing was for sure, it will be a huge quest as the huntresses try to beat the game.

In honor of Don Bluth.

Team RWBY's Game Review Special of Dragon's Lair

BEACON ACADEMY
11AM

The next day after their fun Saturday morning with their reminiscent review of the Fox Kids programming block, they got a video call from a special guest they met and talked to in one of their commercial review sessions in the past.

And it was none other than animation legend Don Bluth.

He had requested team RWBY to review something in the past albeit the things the four said they took back during the commercial review session they had a while back.

Today, Ruby, Yang, Blake and Weiss were playing on their new XBOX console playing what Don Bluth requested, which was the innovative 1980s animated video game none other than Dragon's Lair.

"Hello, I'm Ruby..."

"...I'm Yang..."

"...I'm Blake..."

"...and I'm Weiss."

Team RWBY said in unison, "We remember it so you don't have to."

"You see, after we did our sixth commercial review session that we didn't expect Don Bluth appearing as our special guest, he let us know that he wants us to review a work of his. Yep, we're going to play the classic Dragon's Lair. It doesn't sound that bad, but have you actually played Dragon's Lair?! Of course not! Nobody has! You just watched it like everyone else did and waited for that eccentric millionaire to come in, blow all his money and figure out what moves you're supposed to do.", Ruby starts off.

Yang told respectfully, "Okay, here's the thing, the game really is innovative and beautiful. Nothing had ever been done like it before... BUT IT'S FRIGGING HARD!", exampling, "Imagine The Legend of Zelda II, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Silver Surfer games blindfolded. Our friend Athena Cykes would just quit on it before it even starts because of the difficulty. That...is only the training to how hard this game is!"

"Is someone regretting not talking about how awesome I am?", Don Bluth assumed via transmission on Ruby's Scroll.

Blake said, "You're awesome, Bluth. In fact, your work was awesome to be honest. The rest of us think so."

"Do I need to do a death glare again?", asked Bluth.

Weiss replies, "Please no. That was a misunderstanding back when you appeared during our commercial session."

"We don't want shaming disapproval of every typical grandparent, no disrespect.", the leader of team RWBY said.

Don Bluth kindly told, "Less talking, more reviewing."

"You got it.", delighted Ruby.

Dragon's Lair

Ruby starts off, "So if you don't know, Dragon's Lair came out as an arcade game in the 1980s. The story was what every story was for a game in the 80s, guy saves chick. But to be fair, this one did had a good sense of humor as both the hero and the damsel seem playfully airheadish. It was the first cinematically animated adventure quest with Don Bluth as the director of animation. Back then, it was practically impossible to replicate it on other platforms. But today, it's been adapted to several consoles and has been beautifully updated."

"But with that said, it's still freaking impossible!", gritted Yang, "Now granted, you can set it to easy with the arrows always telling you where to go. But there's a name for that, I believe... It's called...cheating."

Blake agrees, "Yeah, the arcade game didn't work that way. So that's not what we're doing, either. We're gonna play it as the game intended, the way that made it popular when it first came out. No cheating.", starting the game off before reminding, "With that in mind, the controls are seemingly simple. Up, down, left, right, and push one button to use the sword."

"Easy enough, right? Well, here's the problem. It's not always clear what you're supposed to do. Sometimes, it's a no-brainer. You see a monster and you use the sword. But other times, you're supposed to move out of the way.", Weiss said before showing an example where Dirk tries to get his sword but is overwhelmed by the jumping skulls when they appear a second before.

The red-black-haired huntress groaned, "Daaah! How are we supposed to know to use the sword on this bat monster but run away from those jumping skulls? But, so what, we can just learn from my mistake on the next turn, right?", clarifying, "Eleven herbs and spices of wrong. You see, because this was a new kind of gameplay, the developers thought it might be too easy. So they change up the levels so you wouldn't figure it out too quickly. Because of this, you have to remember what the right choice was ten stages ago when it randomly pops up again, because every single stage needs to be defeated, sometimes twice, in order to get to the final level."

When they reach another stage with a monster's eye stalks appearing with Dirk slashing at it as it dodged, but is suddnely wrapped by the eye stalks when they appear again, the blonde huntress irritated, "Ugh! Okay, in that one, I used the sword only once, very important.", also reacting to when Dirk is hit by an enchanted anvil and rams him into a wall, "Okay, in that one, I don't use the sword at all, I jump back. Putting it in the vault.", and witnessed Dirk blown by strong winds and noticing a glowing diamond but is suddenly pushed into the abyss where the diamond was, "What?! Wait a minute! It was a glowy thing! How are e supposed to not go after a glowy thing in a game?! It's a glowy thing! It's like telling a dog not to go after a bone! It's freakin' nature!"

"Oh, we're back here again. Okay, use the sword only once.", reminds the black-haired huntress when they appear at the room with the monster's eye stalks again, slashing once and instead of slashing again, they moved forward and dodged it, "Ha! Screw you, purple peni!", soon exasperating when the stairway turns into a slope as the flashing yellow light aims at the portal hole but team RWBY instead pulls the chain, releasing water from the gate as Dirk slid down and fell with the water drowning him, "Wha... ha... That was two glowy things! You just got in my head not to even go after one glowy thing, and then you give me fucking two?! That's like telling me not to go after a cupcake, and then you give me two cupcakes, and then you smack me in the face for not going after the two cupcakes! WHAT DO YOU WANT?! In the depths of your ignorance, what do you want?!"

The white-haired huntress soon advanced to the next stage where bricks magically build with the blue flashing light appearing at the door ahead of them, "Glowy thing.", thinking for a short moment intensely and hesitantly, "...Yes?", as Dirk was seen going through the bricks successfully as team RWBY cheered; she saw another blue flashing light on a sign that says Drink Me over a potion, "Oh, another glowy thing.", but saw Dirk turning to dust when drinking it, "OOOHHHHH! It said Drink Me! The goddamn game gave me an instruction, and it lied to me! I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO DRINK IT EVEN THOUGH IT SAID DRINK IT! WHO'S RUNNING THIS GODDAMN PLACE? GLaDOS?!"

"Sometimes, they're kind and cleverly layout clues for you. Like, whenever a space is available, that's probably where you're supposed to go. Once in a while, even a door will open and close to indicate that's where you're supposed to head towards. Logical deduction can be the obvious route.", Ruby instructs, "But even the directions can be a little confusing. Look for example.", as she played through a stage with fire appearing, "Does this count as down or left? In the one fraction of a second, you have to have to make a decision.", hesitantly asking in another intense moment, "Down?", but witnesses Dirk get burned much to her and the three teammates' frustration.

Yang admits when they reach a stage with the Lizard King, "Now this one seems pretty easy, giving you plenty of time to figure out which way to go.", managing to go to the right directions and averting the Lizard King's attacks, "Child's play.", but is alerted when Dirk has an intense fight with the Lizard King as they exchange swings, "Oh, God! Oh, shit! Oh, man! Oh, no! Oh, cock! Oh, dick! Oh, whatever swear word I left out!", but soon saw Dirk get bonked on the head and losing a life, "Oh, fuck!"

"Whoa, you're really bad at this.", pitied Don Bluth in respect.

Yang exclaims, "You think?!"

"I could usually win this in ten minutes.", bets the animation legend.

The elder sister of Ruby said, "That's because you made it. No offense."

"None taken.", Don Bluth said, "Actually, there is more effort in this layout than you may think. I'm not a gamer. And so, when it came time to doing the game, a young man named Rick Dyer brought it to us and said, "I want you to do a game about a little knight that goes into a castle and saves a princess." The whole idea, the concept sounded good, but I didn't know how to do a game. So the entire game, which is about twenty minutes worth of animation, is a threat and resolve; a threat and resolve. The fun of the game was showing how many funny ways a person can die and still resurrect."

Blake appreciates, "I do have to say, one of my favorite things is hearing Dirk's wide variety of cowardly screams. Actually, I wouldn't be shocked if Bruce Campbell was inspired by some of Dirk's cries.", imagining Ash's screams overplaying with Dirk's cries in the game, "God, this game is so hard!", the Faunus cursing when losing three more lives in instances including Dirk getting shocked on the throne, falling into a pool of hot lava and run over by a ball, "Damn it... Damn it... DAMN IT!", admitting, "I would let Ruby and Yang or even Don Bluth do a Top 11 list for the deaths in this game, but now wouldn't be the time..."

"Would've been nice.", Don Bluth said, "No offense."

"None taken again.", Weiss says, "But hey, at least we've made it to the final level! We're about to win this game! After...Daphne...talks...to us.", the four being bashful when hearing Daphne's distressed yet glad voice of telling the players to use the sword to slay the dragon; the dragon breathed fire as the Schnee girl alerted, "Oh, eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize!", seeing Daphne again as the four were distracted, "Oh, wow.", but is alerted again during the fight, "Eyes off the prize! Eyes off the prize!", the girls managing to slay the dragon in the end as the four cheered victoriously, "Strangely enough, the final level is surprisingly not that difficult. Maybe they finally wanted to show some freakin' mercy."

When the game ends, the girls switched to the next game to review.

The leader of team RWBY introduced, "Though, to be fair, that's more what Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp is for.", summarizing, "This was a much better put together gameplay. That flashing light that only gave direction once in a while is now throughout the entire game. The story is still the same, with Dirk saving Daphne from an evil villain. But luckily, the villain has a brother, who happens to be a time machine.", deadpanning skeptically, "Well, obviously.", saying next, "Trust us when we say that's the least of this game's weirdness. It starts off when you see Dirk telling his incredibly fruitful seed that their mother has been kidnapped again."

"And the first level is literally escaping your mother-in-law.", the elder sister of Ruby described as the girls react to the first stage of the game, giggling, "It's pretty hilarious.", and then told, "At first, it looks like you're just following them through time as you drop by the Prehistoric age, Ancient Egypt and even the Garden of Eden. But then it gets really weird by traveling to a giant Beethoven in a flying piano, and even Wonderland. Yeah, like Alice in Wonderland. It makes no freakin' sense, but it looks amazing."

The Faunus girl outlined about the animation, "This is some of the most imaginative imagery you will ever see in a game.", before asking Bluth, "Don, what the hell were you smoking to come up with these weird-ass ideas?"

"You know, Dragon's Lair II was really fun for me because we didn't have to stay in the same time zone and we didn't have to stay in the same location. So, you know, it just triggers the imagination that you can go into any place that you can imagine. With animation, anything is possible.", Don reminiscenced.

Blake issued, "The only downside is, once again, the game developers were afraid this would be too easy. So they added little trinkets and treasures you're supposed to pick up throughout the gameplay."

"Not a bad idea, until you get to the second-to-last level and realize that if you missed even one of those trinkets, you had to play the entire game again, all over, collecting every single last one.", revealed the Schnee heiress.

Ruby challenged, "Son of a... Okay, we've played through it once, we can play through it again!", playing through again, "Let's get all those items. Here we-", but gets the message that they missed some treasures again, "NO! What the hell am I missing?!", and after several attempts they tried to collect what they could find but end up with the same message; at one point, they found a butterfly during the Beethoven section that wasn't seen due to the fire-breathing cat, "Wait, what did we just do? Hold on. Are you telling me that the butterfly is glowing, signaling me to grab it, the exact same time the fire is glowing the exact same color?", before a silent moment ensued.

"Wow. It's like the extended of cruelty of the first game is condensed down into a one single solitary 'Fuck You' moment. Well, guess what, 'Fuck You' moment? FUCK YOU!", swore Yang, "Goddamn Magic Eyes are easier to see than that!", and climaxed, "But, whatever, we're fortunately down to the final level. I have to get the evil ring off Daphne and kill the wizard before she eats me. And we've only got one life left to do it with.", intensifying, "Come on... Come on!", until Dirk removes the ring from the transformed Daphne onto Mordroc's finger, "YES! There it is, baby! There it is!"

Blake relaxed when Daphne turns back to normal and Dirk gave a true love's kiss to wake her up, "Well, it only took us eight playthroughs of the entire game, but we finally won the damn thing...", before seeing the flashing light and frantically continued, "Oh, shit, we're still going?!", struggling to stay alive as they coordinate with the flashing lights, "Oh, my God, you're making us play through our happy ending! We don't know if that's awesome or awful. It's awesful, I could say.", reaching the final part of the game where Dirk and Daphne share another kiss and head back on the time machine to go back, "Okay. Almost there... Allllmosst therrree..."

And in one more intense moment...

...they made the right turn.

"YEEEEEESSSSS! WE BEAT THE GAME! WE LITERALLY WON THEIR HAPPILY EVER AFTER!", team RWBY cheered whilst they saw the ending of the game.

Weiss doubted, "But if we lost our last life in this level, we would've been totally devastated... We'd make that number one in Ruby and Yang's Top 11 Dragon's Lair Death Scenes for sure."

"I agree.", Don Bluth smiled happily.

Ruby said, "Okay. Now that we've beaten it, we just gotta say... THESE GAMES ARE A PAIN! They're beautiful and amazing to look at, BUT THEY'RE A GODDAMN PAIN!"

"I'm glad they're so groundbreaking and innovative, but they are impossible!", admitted Yang.

Blake also said, "They are so freakin' frustrating and so incredibly hard!"

"I want to support Dragon's Lair, but only to watch it, not to actually play it!", Weiss preferred.

Ruby wondered, "Have we learned anything after going through all this?!"

"I just wanted to give my thanks that you've reviewed it. I understand your frustration challenging the game's difficulty. But as long as you loved the animation, the characters, the artwork and the story and everything else, I am perfectly fine with it.", Don Bluth told.

Ruby smiled, "We respect you, Bluth. I hope the Dragon's Lair movie comes out very soon. We totally support it..."

"As always, it's been a pleasure.", Yang bid farewell as Don Bluth and team RWBY said their farewells via transmission before turning it off.

Thinking about Bluth for a few moments, Blake and Weiss question, "So, what now?"

"Let's review another random film. Dragon's Lair may be hard, but its animation and concept is unforgettable...", Ruby planned as the four continued on with their day.

End of Team RWBY's Game Review Special of Dragon's Lair

Up Next: Team RWBY's Commentary of Small Soldiers