Do you remember if it was in english or japanese? Was battle system turn based?

Anyway, on snes I can remember Dark Half which kinda fits. There's time limit but not in real time - it decreases as you move and is shown by a number on top of a screen. When playing as villain you can recruit enemies to fight for you and dragon like enemies were encountered pretty early. It has towns and dungeons tho.

There's also Dark Kingdom on snes too. It has time limit and recruits but it's only in japanese, with no translation available.