Dragon Master (Arcade) - All Throw Moves & Boss Glitches

Hi everyone, welcome to All Throws. This time we're looking at another Street Fighter II clone called Dragon Master. This is a South Korean competitive fighting game made by Unico in 1994, for arcade hardware.
Dragon Master clearly "borrows" ideas from Street Fighter II. Most notably, the character Gloria looks like Chun-Li, and has the throw move of Dictator (Vega / M. Bison). Klaus Garcia has Guile's German suplex, along with Chun-Li's air throw.
You will be able to recognise many special techniques from Street Fighter II in Dragon Master, such as the Psycho Crusher by Dictator (Vega / M. Bison). Multiple characters share similar special moves like a rolling attack inspired by Blanka from Street Fighter II.
It appears that some Street Fighter II sprite work has actually been traced over to animate character movements and attacks. Strangely, Klaus Garcia uses a Shoryuken animation to teleport, which has no effect as an attack.
I even noticed that some graffiti in the background of Darkman's stage is reminiscent of Capcom's Final Fight logo.
Unfortunately, the character design of Dragon Master is a lot more generic compared to Street Fighter II, with many of the fighters being regular-looking guys. I do however like the character Deliza; her alternate costume reminds me of DC's Poison Ivy, or Mongoria from SEGA's Comix Zone.
As with the original Street Fighter II, there isn't a great deal of variation in terms of throwing techniques. Most characters have either a typical shoulder throw, or a German Suplex. What I found interesting is that Zangief's jumping spinning piledriver was assigned to Joey, a normal-sized character, rather than a large grappler-type character like Mozard (who has Zangief's German Suplex).
I was able to play as the 3 boss characters in Dragon Master by using cheats for MAME. Disappointingly, Dynamo has no throws. Mozard's throw causes the game to crash and reset, if perfomed by the player. I therefore had to allow the CPU player to demonstrate the move. Garner's throw only works against blocking opponents. He can also use a lightning grab attack, which pulls the opponent towards him. This causes boss characters to temporarily become invisible, since there are no sprites depicting their response to this move (bosses do not fight each other in standard gameplay).
My main criticism of this game is the poor sound design. The music sounds noticeably tinny. Some stages use repetitive and annoying background noises, like the whales in Gloria's stage, or the coyotes in Dynamo's stage. Sometimes the background noises are given priority over sounds from the fighting action.
Overall I found this game enjoyable to play. The gameplay felt smooth and the bonus rounds helped to add extra excitement. It was also fun to recognise which aspects of the game had been directly copied from Street Fighter II.
Thanks for checking out All Throws. Remember to subscribe for more grappling goodness.

[@leandrusi4533]

That Mozard has the exact sprites from Zangief´s medium kick and throw wtf UNICO

[@lucasmr3215]

Joey's throw was the best

[@AllThrows]

Easiest spinning piledriver in any game.

[@crencottrell7849]

This game deserved a sequel.

[@fatihmericozarslan3245]

The second fighting game developed by Unico. I remember the first one. It's called "Master's Fury".

[@AllThrows]

That's interesting. I assumed this was the first one. These Street Fighter rip-offs are turning out to be better than expected.

[@fatihmericozarslan3245]

@@AllThrows You're right about the game. I checked out the release years just now. Dragon Master is the first one, released in 1994 while Master's Fury is released two years later.

[@hoodmistressreloaded]

You say in the description that Gloria has a similar throw to Chun-Li, but she clearly ripped hers off from M. Bison. On the other hand, Klaus certainly knocked off the Chunster's air throw (AKA her Ryūsei Raku)

[@AllThrows]

Whoah, people actually read my essays? :) I've been meaning to update that point about Gloria's throw, so thanks for the reminder. I also added in your observation about Klaus using Chun-Li's air throw.