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cardinalphoenix reviewed The Nightmare of Druaga for the PlayStation 2...

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...and gave it a 9.0!

Not many remember the ancient Tower of Druaga game, likely only playable nowadays on internet emulators. Long ago, our yellow-armored hero, Gil, made his way through a top-down view of a maze, his enemies were your typical dungeon fare, and his attacks...well...attacking in the game consisted of pretty much holding down the sword button and running into bad guys...although, among the physically harder of these bad guys, this method didn't work. Namco's remake of this game, however, takes this exceptionally simple style, polishes it up with newer conventions and traditions and adds to it what it needed to be great.

One aspect that really drives this game, and drives other games with much more freedom and choice, is how it forces you to deal with consequence. Games like Elder Scrolls, Persona 3, Fable, these games give you choices and results of your choices. Nightmare of Druaga's save system, of NOT letting you reset and resume a previous save, does this very well. It forces you to think about every action...if you choose to take the weapon that brought you to the final dungeon and fuse it with another because you want a special skill, and it ends up flopping? You should've thought of that and acted more cautiously! You're surrounded by Will O'Wisps that can kill you in one shot, and you think you can make a break for the door? No, you need to go back to the start...and why? Because if you die, you lose everything in your pack that doesn't have a rune etched into it. This all must sound incredibly discouraging, and believe me, I've put this game aside myself because of how depressing it can be to lose every item I haven't stashed, especially after crafting a terrific sword with great skills on it, just to be caught off guard by a little spiky thing that can reach real far, or because I got too greedy in a secret room and "went for it" while getting descended upon by vampires. However, it's a bit more realistic in that sense. The grid you follow when moving around and fighting also lends itself to a bit of strategy. You can only move so fast and, like in real life, if you're positioned right, you can get the perfect shot off that can win the battle! Granted, anyone who's played this game will say that realism is about the last thing this game portrays.

But in the end, this game is fun and rewarding. It presents you with a daggum rough challenge and says, "here! See if you can finish this one, pal!" The original Tower of Druaga was probably a lot of fun in its day, but that's because people didn't need to cry and become best buddies with characters, who are down to earth and relateable and just like them, in order to appreciate a good run through a dungeon. As hard as it can be sometimes, if you're careful and rack up lots of levels fighting the hardest of monsters, at least each level can grant you some strength. Strategic RPGs, like the original Baldur's Gate, broke down boundaries of what RPGs should be...unfortunately you could journey the whole land to achieve one level higher, only to score...what, +1 hit point? Really makes the journey worth taking, ;-)

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