And, to complement the lackluster graphics and sound,
Dragon Valor delivers decidedly lackluster gameplay. It does a few neat things, and has a few interesting features that haven't been seen often in other games, but in the end it's a weak hack-and-slash with repetitive gameplay that'll have you packing it away long before you beat it.
You start off the game as Clovis, a young man who witnesses his sister's death due to the flames of a dragon. A man who was fighting the dragon perishes as well, and Clovis picks up his sword, becomes a Dragon Valor, and proceeds to kick said dragon's butt. The game continues like this, with Clovis and his descendants going off on adventures to kill the dragon/save the queen/kill the dragon/whatever. It's not exactly a stellar plot, and the mediocre translation does nothing to make it more interesting. Add in the fact that you can't speed up the text, and you've got more frustration than interest.
The actual game consists of standard side-scrolling hack-and-slash, with the occasional touch to mix it up. As you play, you get new spells to cast and use against the bad guys, which is nice. And although your descendants don't pick up everything that you have, they do keep some of the stat-boosting items and all of the spells. So, although you start off weak in HP and magic each time the game segues into the future, you still have some sense of progression.
Unfortunately, that progression is uniformly dull. You'll find yourself hacking through the same enemy types over and over, and although new enemies are certainly introduced throughout the game, it's just a matter of learning their patterns and styles. Enemy AI is uniformly idiotic, and I beat many a boss by swinging my sword, pausing for them to get back up, and swinging again. It's not particularly fun or interesting, and it doesn't make you want to keep playing.
Yes, the spells (some of which are nice, especially as they level up as you continue in the game) are quite nice. And the bosses are generally pretty cool, even if most of them have a trivial pattern that you can exploit to destroy them. There are some quite tough battles, too, as you progress in the game. But as a whole it just feels terribly weak -- a half-finished game idea.