For the longest time, I have had zero interest in Dungeons & Dragons as a whole. I have never played the main tabletop game before, nor have I seen or taken apart in any of its spin-off material, not because I think that it’s lame and bad (even though some of it probably is), but because it just doesn’t really look like something I would like all too much. It all looks like some of the most typical fantasy medieval shit you would ever see, which makes sense given how long it has been around, and as for the main tabletop game, it looks way too complicated to set up for my small nugget that I refer to as a brain. But hey, there’s gotta be a reason why the franchise has been going on for as long as it has, as well as why many still play the game and celebrate the series to this day, so I figured it was about time that I finally took a look at something D&D related so that I can slowly inch my way into becoming a fan of the series. Naturally, I figured the best way to do this would be with something very close to what I am familiar with, and that would be with Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom.

For those who are unaware, this is a D&D beat-’em-up arcade game that was made by Capcom in the mid-90’s, and it’s only just one of the many, MANY, MANY D&D games that have been released from the late 80’s all the way to today. I hadn’t known about this game for the longest time until a good couple of months ago, but I had some pretty high hopes going into it. After all, this was Capcom that we’re talking about, and they have had plenty of experience with making some great arcade beat-’em-ups in the past, even ones that have a similar setting and approach to gameplay like this one did. So, I played through the whole thing in one sitting, and yeah, it certainly did not disappoint. This is a really good beat-’em-up from the mid-90’s, one that does have some slight hiccups that make the journey somewhat sluggish and repetitious, but not enough to where you and three other friends wouldn’t be able to have a great time with it for an afternoon.

The story is pretty typical for that of a fantasy setting, where the land of Mystara is thrown into chaos by the evil Arch Lich Deimos and all of his evil minions from the Tower of Doom, with the Republic of Darokin having no chance of fighting back successfully, so it is up to four brave adventurers from separate parts of the land to join forces and take down the evil threat once and for all, which is as bland as you can expect, but it is clear that this game isn’t focusing too much on the story, so that doesn’t matter too much. The graphics are pretty great, having that shine of quality Capcom arcade games around this time typically had, while also having plenty of great designs for the stages, characters, enemies, and bosses that you will come across, the music is pretty good, feeling like the proper music you would imagine while going on a big adventure to complete a quest, even if none of it stood out to me as anything all too memorable or exciting, and the gameplay is what you would expect from a beat-’em-up of this style, but there are some changes to the formula and some mechanics introduced to make the experience more memorable.

The game is a hack and slash side-scrolling brawler, where you take control one of four different classes that best suits you and your play style, go through many different levels across the land of Mystara, fight against plenty of different fearsome beasts and foes using whatever weapon you have, as well as whatever additional weapons that you can find along the way, gather plenty of gold, potions, and additional firepower to help you out along the way, gain experience points from defeating enemies so that you can level up and get stronger, and take on plenty of fearsome bosses that will challenge you in plenty of ways, even making you think of different ways of defeating some foes. If you have played some of Capcom’s previous beat-’em-ups of this style like The King of Dragons of Knights of the Round, you’ll pretty much know what you are getting into here, but for what it is worth, not only is the gameplay still fun as a whole, but there are those changes I alluded to earlier that does make the game feel a little more special in its own way.

For starters, one of the things that I really appreciate about this game is that it does make you feel like you are going on this grand scale adventure to save this world from this big bad evil doer. There are a lot of points throughout the game where you will be given plenty of text boxes to read, detailing some of the events of the game and what the people of the world are going through, which you don’t typically see from beat-’em-ups at all, but for this game, it feels just right being here. On top of that, there will also be times where you will be approached by people to aid them with their troubles, and you can actually choose whether or not you want to go and help them clear out the monsters causing them harm, which, again, makes this feel like your own personal journey. Whether or not you want to help out is all up to you, which does feel like it would fall more in line with something you would see from D&D.

Aside from that, while the main gameplay remains pretty faithful to other games Capcom had made in the past, there are some differences here such as the use of secondary items. As you go about killing monsters and opening chests, you can find plenty of additional means of firepower like arrows, hammers, bottles of flammable oil and so on, as well as being able to buy them from the shops. You can use these as ranged weapons against your foes whenever you are in a bind, which does become pretty handy for some of the fights that you will get yourself into. Unfortunately, these items are limited, so you can’t fully rely on them to get the job done, but that does make it so that you have to strategize when it would be best to use some of these items, which is always nice when a game like this does that.

I can’t say that I did enjoy everything about my journey through Mystara though, because there are some elements that, again, do make the game feel sluggish and repetitive. Obviously, the game plays exactly like you would expect, but at least when it comes to the class I chose, the Fighter, it can feel somewhat clunky to move around and get hits on your opponents. Maybe that was the point of the character, since he is obviously a lot bigger and stronger than the others, but I dunno, I kinda prefer my fighters to be a little more agile than this. This only applies to the Fighter though, as the other ones most likely do play somewhat differently compared to him. What doesn’t change between all of the characters, however, is how you go about getting items. In order to get items that enemies or chests drop, you have to walk over to them and press a button to pick them up, which is pretty standard for a beat-’em-up, but considering the sheer amount of items some enemies can drop, you can be spending a good majority of this game just positioning yourself over items and picking them up, which does get pretty tiring. I would’ve preferred it if they just made it so that you just walk over the items to get them, but that would probably interfere with co-op gameplay a little bit, so I don’t know. Just wish it didn’t take up too much time.

Overall, despite some annoyances with how some characters play and how you pick up items, Tower of Doom is still a great beat-’em-up and a great D&D game as a whole, being simple enough to where any fan can easily jump into it with friends and have a blast, while also introducing new elements you don’t typically see in these games to make playing through them feel fresh and exciting. I would recommend it for those who are big D&D fans, as well as those who are just big fans of beat-’em-ups, because while it isn’t anything too original or exciting, with the right group of friends to tag along, I’m sure you all could have a great time together slaying monsters and saving this land… just like in a regular D&D game, I’d assume. Although, with all that out of the way, now that I have covered one D&D game, I guess that means I am gonna have to cover all of the other ones at some point….. and there’s gotta be at least 50 of these things too…………. I have made a huge mistake.

Game #550