In another time, in another world...

The Tower of Druaga is another one of Namco's smash hits from the 80s, only really outshone by the likes of Pacman. And thanks to this article, I was made aware that it turned 40 this month, at the time of writing this.

As a kid, I had a penchant for arcade-style games, really as far back as I can remember. There was a local pizza joint in my small Kentucky town that had one of those cocktail Ms. Pacman cabs, and I'd ask to play it any time my parents had me tag along to pick up food. I, like a lot of folks my age, have fond memories of being bad at Space Cadet 3D Pinball. My favorite for a long time was Dig Dug, though I can't for the life of me remember how I played that one; maybe it was a PC port or something?

Anyway, it should come as no surprise that I would eventually get my hands on a couple of PS1 arcade collections--Namco Museum volumes 1 and 3. Both collections have games I had already played an enjoyed, but it was the games I'd never heard of before that really fascinated me. Volume 1 sported Bosconian, a cabinet that I had never seen in person until this year, and Toy Pop, another Japanese-only title that was hard but charming. Volume 3 had an honorable mention in Phozon, but the real star of the show was this strange little game called the Tower of Druaga.

It seemed so mysterious to me at the time. The game's attract mode shows no gameplay or scoring hints, nor does it make any sounds. (It feels like a step above Polybius, in that regard.) When you start the game, it drops you into a maze with no instructions. It's not too hard to intuit what to do, as a little exploration will reveal both a key and a door, but...you're so slow. You can swing your sword, but that is also slow. If you accidentally run into one of the green slimes wiggling around, you die immediately. Maybe you get bold and start grandma-walking towards some slimes with your sword out. Upon killing the third one, a treasure chest suddenly spawns. Now you're aware that this game has secrets. Maybe if you're feeling extra bold, you go to the second floor and start killing slimes again. Your second black slime reveals a chest, and this chest gives you special boots that make you move so much faster. So not only are there secrets, but there are secrets that make you stronger. And little baby me was hooked.

Now, Namco Museum vol. 3 came with a special instruction booklet for Druaga specifically. In it were instructions for obtaining the items, most of which are very helpful or necessary to beat the game. (An arcade game with an ending? Wild...) Unfortunately, my secondhand copy of the collection did not include this hint book, and my dad wouldn't let me get on the internet at home, so I was stuck trying to guess my way through the game. I only ever got the first three floors' treasures, and only made it to floor nine in my best runs, which left a long way to go to reach the top of the 60 floor tower. There was no continue screen on Game Over, so I couldn't quarter spam my way to victory either. Yet despite being "bad" at the game, it stuck with me, being an arcade game that I'd go back and revisit from time to time over the course of my life.

Within the last couple of years, I found myself hooked on this game again. I sat down one day on MAME with the goal of save-stating my way to the top, and by golly, I did it. But what was really wild was that this mysterious little retro game had even more secrets for me to discover. As an example, I found out by pure chance one day that there actually is a way to continue after Game Over. The machine doesn't tell you, but if you hold the attack button while pressing start, you are given the option to choose which floor you start on, all the way up to whatever floor you died last on. It even remembers what items you've obtained. Why the machine is set up this way when earlier Namco games have a dip switch that enables a continue screen is beyond me, but who am I to complain?

Far more wild to me is the revelation I got several months ago while browsing for information about the game. It was late, and I was sitting in the dark at my PC, reading the Wikipedia article when this line caught my eye: "In 1996, two altered versions of the original game, Another Tower and Darkness Tower, were included as hidden extras in Namco Museum Vol. 3."

Huh?

I pulled up Youtube, searching for some kind of video evidence. This video gave me what I was looking for. A series of inputs gives you a pickaxe to break down a wall in the museum, revealing an extra area with an extra cabinet. Booting into it gives you a harder arrange mode of the game, known as Another Tower, featuring new mazes and harder treasure unlocks. And then, if you enable a specific dipswitch, insert a coin, then perform another series of inputs, a jingle will play alongside a color pallete shift of the title screen. This is an even harder version of the game, called Darkness Tower.

I was taken aback. I quickly booted up the PS1 game on my RetroPie, since my PS2 wasn't hooked up at the time, and tested it myself. Sure enough, sitting in the dark, the clock ticking close to midnight, I unlocked these hidden game modes myself. It felt like something you'd hear about on the playground, like Mew being under the truck in Vermillion City, except it was real! You can see the pic I took in the midst of my elation below.

Of course, I wouldn't care about any of this if the game wasn't actually fun. And make no mistake, it is. A lot of English language reviews of the game paint an unflattering picture, but those reviews also make it clear that very little time was actually spent with the game. It's hard, to be sure, though no harder than many other popular arcade games of the era. (Have y'all tried playing arcade Donkey Kong recently? I'm lucky to save Paula once!) I've sunk hours and hours into it across multiple versions; to date, I've beaten the arcade original, Famicom port, Gameboy port, PS1 Another Tower, and Darkness Tower. None of these were done without continues, though, and I'd like to eventually get a 1 CC clear of the OG. Nothing for it but to practice!

If you haven't given this game a shot, maybe you should! It's arguably the pioneer of the action RPG genre, at least in Japan. It is one of the direct inspirations for the first Legend of Zelda game; Shigeru Miyamoto even had a cabinet brought into the office! You can try it out right now on the Internet Archive.

This page needs some cleaning up, but for now, I hope you enjoyed!