from Game Arts, such as the action games Fire Hawk: Thexder 2 and Silpheed. Game Arts, however, did most of the work in producing Alisia Dragoon, adapting the artwork into environments and creatures that can be rendered by the console hardware and writing them as lines of software code. Reception Alisia Dragoon sold few copies on its release in Japan. The game was published earlier by Sega for North America. However, it was a subdued release; Sega did not place major advertisements for the game in the media. To localize the contents for the Western market, the video game publisher made several cosmetic changes to Alisia Dragoon. Instead of a big-eyed heroine drawn in typical anime styling, Alisia was portrayed as a golden bikini-wearing barbarianess on the box covers outside Japan. The Western depiction of Alisia was likened to the scantily clad females in artist Boris Vallejo's work. Westerners were more enthusiastic toward the game than were the Japanese, although there were a few negative appraisals. GamePro magazine opined Alisia Dragoon responsive controls, coupled with the hectic action and handsome graphics, made the game highly desirable for owners of the Genesis console. The Lessers of Dragon magazine were equally impressed with the gameplay, praising Alisia Dragoon for its "solid arcade action" that satisfied their "need for fast reflexes". Mean Machines Julian Rignall praised the game for its pet monsters design, calling the management of the pets in the game an encouragement toward tactics. His fellow reviewer, Richard Leadbetter, wrote the game was visually attractive with "beautiful sprites" and "amazing backdrops". He found the gameplay challenging, being forced to conserve energy as the game "[threw] everything but the kitchen sink at [him]". Rignall agreed with Leadbetter on the game's difficulty, which along with the secret rooms and power-ups to be discovered made Alisia Dragoon an excellent action platform game that had long-lasting appeal. Of the hundreds of Genesis games, Mega magazine rated Alisia Dragoon among the top 100 games, calling it "[probably] the best dragon-based platform game around." Despite the positive sentiments, sales of the game outside Japan were weak. Sixteen years after the game's release, Todd Ciolek of Anime News Network reviewed Alisia Dragoon and repeated much of the same sentiments as the Mean Machines reviewers. Noting Gainax's catalog of games, he noted that Alisia Dragoon was very different from the rest; instead of targeting hardcore fans of anime and