The Tower of Druaga

The Tower of Druaga is an interesting game. You see, it starts off pretty simple. You play as a knight in golden armor navigating through mazes, finding keys, fighting enemies, and unlocking doors. Your goal is to climb the tower and rescue the princess at the top. It is a classic cliche that all feminists despise regardless of how harmless it is today.

Each level sees you navigating a maze for a key to a door leading to the next level. Along the way, you will battle a variety of enemies. Level one offers... Slimes? Boogers? I don't know what they are. They die in one hit. Level two brings in black variants that are more aggressive but still go down in one hit. Level three introduces blue knights who draw their swords against you. They take a few hits. Level four unleashes the wizard who will appear and disappear repeatedly firing shockwaves in your direction. You can block them with your shield.

Level five is where the biggest problem with the game lies. Rather than introduce a new enemy, Druaga unleashes multiple wizards. Considering the difficulty and tension when dealing with just one wizard, dealing with over five appearing in one second intervals is damn near impossible. Progression is bogged to a crawl as you need to pay attention to where a wizard is firing from and when you are close enough to kill one. If you end up sandwiched between two wizards firing at you at the same time, you might as well just quit.

Beyond the wizard, this game has a few problems. The knight you play as is slow and considering you are under a constant time limit, the game can range from tense to boring. The act of attacking is also sluggish. Hold a button and you slowly draw your sword. Keep holding it or you slowly put it back in it's sheath. You also can't defend yourself with your sword drawn so killing a wizard while blocking a shockwave is impossible. Enemies can kill you around corners in a very unfair manner. The slimy boogers I was talking about have killed me while crossing a corner more times than I care to say even with my sword drawn. Levels vary in length depending on where the key to the next level is located. It's randomly generated so it's never in the same place. Sometimes, it's right next to the door where no enemies happen to be. Other times, it's on the opposite side of the map making the level long and boring.

The Tower of Druaga is akin to a Venus flytrap. It's difficulty is welcoming at first but then you are thrown into the lion's den where escape is next to impossible. If you're curious, try it out but I don't recommend it.

Oh, Druaga... The great ideas it had, with secret upgrades that tip the scale of battle in your favour, the witty conditions to getting them, various enemies that demands a precise combination of sword-and-block inputs that will be a groundwork for Zelda later on, falls flat with its uninteligibility, mind-numbing length, inconsistent grid physics, and broken powers of the enemies. We could have had something here.

The NES port at least has continues.