@mnull,

What version of rom do you have?

The reason I ask is there are versions that do that by design. The version I started with did exactly what you are describing, you just got random scenes and it never started with the draw bridge.

I went to the DLE 2.1 version and it starts with the drawbridge every time.

http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/tech/pages/dl.asp

front he above webpage Rev A through F2 are the original rom sets. F2 is the rom set that has the 'Very Hard' setting.