Chinese folklore has long been the go-to cultural area if you want to add a dose of profundity to your otherwise mindless martial arts film or beat-‘em-up game.
Shamrock’s Dragon Bricks, though, is the first instance that I can recall in which such an approach has been taken with a Breakout clone.
The game plays like any number of similar block-breakers - you take control of a bat (it’s a boat travelling back and forth across a section of river here) and have to keep a ball (here a yin-yang sign) in play, taking care to smash anything in your way (tile roofs, lanterns, kung-fu monkey gods).
Dragon Bricks plays as solidly as any other game in the genre, and includes the now essential array of power-ups. These range from magnets that make the ball stick to your bat - I mean boat - to firework rockets that decimate anything in their way.
Tacked onto this pleasant-if-unspectacular gameplay is a rather loose take on the classic Journey to the West fable (or Monkey, as you may know it). Playing as Monk Syuan, and accompanied by a river god, you must make your way across China to… well, I forget. I think it has something to do with retrieving a scroll.
It’s told in a rather clunky fashion that betrays an iffy localisation from Russian. It’s not that there are many outright howlers - it’s more that the writing comes across as stilted and forced. When you’re told by your companion: “Monk Syuan! I have a feeling that something awful will happen if we don’t win in 2:00 minutes!” it’s a none-too subtle way of setting up the next level, which is indicative of the quality of writing throughout.
Dragon Bricks is a decent if thoroughly unspectacular Breakout clone, made slightly more interesting by its cod-ancient Chinese setting. Fans of the genre could do worse than check it out, but if you’re a stickler for compelling narrative or cultural authenticity in games, you’d best give it a miss.