The Tower of Druaga (Arcade, Famicom)

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comchia
Posts: 50
Joined: January 4th, 2020, 9:20 pm

The Tower of Druaga (Arcade, Famicom)

Postby comchia » October 1st, 2022, 6:28 pm

So, after twenty-something years of owning this game in one format or another, I finally finished the ultra-hard 1984 game The Tower of Druaga!

This is probably the hardest game I've ever finished, and fascinating in more ways than one. On the one hand, with many of the obtuse puzzles, devious traps, and kind of clunky maze controls, I can see why this never really took off in the USA, especially with mechanics that we'd just consider broken nowadays.

And yet, weirdly, I still like it a lot, though only if I have a walkthrough. With how random some of these puzzles are (the PS1 Namco Museum port has a puzzle literally calling for ejecting the PS1 disc! :O ), it's basically a necessity for me. It reminds me of some old Sierra games in that regard, and I usually try not to use a walkthrough!

I like the whole art style, and that, even with a walkthrough, there's still a lot of challenge in fighting enemies and accomplishing tasks that aren't easy. The scoring and item systems are also satisfying as well. Now that I've finished the original 60 levels (via Namco Museum on Switch), I'm planning on going through the Turbografx-16 remake, as well as some of the ports and extra towers on the PS1 port. Maybe there's something in my brain that keeps me back to this flawed but weirdly satisfying game.
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