Dungeons & Dragons Tower of Doom
Eternal Cuddly Gamel #10
Type of Game
Best vacation buddy ever. Best arcade machine, too. And that's even though I didn't have much to compare it to.
Release date on our machines
April 1994, when I still thought Capcom was a sub-brand of Street Fighter II.
Developer
Capcom Co., Ltd. But then, isn't that a sub-brand?
Publisher
Capcom Co., Ltd.: The ultimate arcade master among the great arcade masters
D&D Tower of Doom : available on Steam, on the Chronicles of Mystara compilation. It was also released on PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360, but it's starting to show its age.
Summer 1996, during summer vacation. I was spending a week at a campground with my mom, my stepdad, and my sisters Elena and Rebecca Vestibule. I can’t remember which region of France we were visiting that time—maybe the Gard, maybe the Lot—it doesn’t really matter. As soon as we arrived, I went to buy an ice cream at the bar, following a sort of comforting ritual that I repeat every year. Plus, it gave me a break from my parents; after an eight-hour drive in the RV, I was sick of seeing them. As the person behind the counter went to get my white chocolate Magnum, I turned my head, and my gaze fell on something that piqued my curiosity: a gleaming yet understated arcade machine—ultra-stylish, with its black casing, the game’s poster and characters above the screen, and the four controllers for just as many potential players below. To be honest, I don’t actually remember what the machine looked like—I just Googled it. Boo! Cheater! That said, I do remember being drawn to it like a fly is drawn to the prospect of disfiguring a protester with a Flash Ball Gun. Unless I’m confusing it with a police officer, I’m going to look into this further. When I say “it piques my curiosity,” that’s the biggest understatement of the ’90s, right? The proof: I didn’t eat any other ice cream the whole trip. All my pocket money and savings ended up in the machine’s coin slot. I didn't even buy a single trilobite fossil or a single piece of malachite that year! I stuck around at the Tower of Doom as much as I could—as soon as I finished eating, as soon as I managed to slip away from whoever my friends were at the time—hoping I wouldn't come across as a total loner.
Summer of Doom
But I was playing it all alone. And I thought it was super hard. All I had to do was get one or two guys to join me, but no; I wanted to keep it all to myself. So weird, this counterproductive gatekeeping. And incredibly specific, too. But while I would have loved to get my friend Randall Geyser or my cousin Walter Valise to join in, there was no way I was going to share that priceless gem with random kids I’d never see again in six days. I never managed to finish Tower of Doom before the end of the trip, which frustrated me immensely. Luckily, I never knew it existed on the Saturn; I would’ve surely tried to get my hands on the console come hell or high water (and without any pocket money, at that). Well, I say “luckily,” but what kind of sane person would be satisfied with NOT getting a Saturn? What a huge mistake I made asking for a PlayStation, Jesus! Oh wait, nobody would say that either.
The arcade experience -not- home
Capcom’s BTA arcade games in the ’90s blew the competition out of the water with ease. And what does BTA stand for? “Bliss Towards Action, of course—what else?” We’ll exclude a few exceptions out of the equation, evidently. I’m going to stop ending sentences with a bunch of words starting with “E” now. Take Konami and its Turtles in Time, for example. Back then, I didn’t go around spouting these obvious truths to anyone who’d listen on the street, since I wouldn’t have understood a word of it myself. I’d barely ever touched an arcade machine in my life. Maybe just a tiny bit at the Rouen fair, but I’m not even sure about that. And yet, I took a big hit from some of that crazy hype right in the gut. Just a single CPS2 machine was enough. A few butterflies from that wave are still fluttering in my stomach today. At the same time, it’s a magnificent 2D fighting game, a D&D licensed title, a story set in the world of Mystara—where I’ve read a few novels that also take place—and gameplay that’s been crafted with enchanting care. That was all it took for me to fall for it. And so I embarked on this exhilarating epic with enthusiasm.
Oh crap, here I go again with the E. I usually chose the Cleric because I already loved it in Warriors of the Eternal Sun, which was the only other Dungeons & Dragons game I knew. I just never picked the Dwarf—I’d already had my fill of them, especially in Golden Axe. And they still drive me crazy in Total War: Warhammer III—those eternal grumblers. Anyway, I loved seeing the same spells as in my old Mega Drive RPG! Continual Light and Cure Serious Wounds—yes! Same goes for the Elf, with Magic Missile and Cloudkill. It’s worth noting that Dwarves and Elves are relegated to mere classes, just like Fighter or Cleric, according to the old TSR rules. Fortunately, complaints from anti-racist activists have since set things straight. Well, the similarities to Warriors whatever end there, thankfully. We’re treated to a ton of action, thanks to a pretty stylish array of available moves, including charged attacks, parries, dodges, and other counterattacks.
Not to mention the bow that anyone could use, flammable oils to throw, daggers to, um… throw as well, and finally spells, which even the biggest brutes could cast by picking up magical items. I didn’t spend enough time there to master all the intricacies of the system, but I liked to think that, eventually, I could have. Then comes the question we all ask ourselves, but don’t really care about the answer to: why are we even fighting, anyway? Because the monsters—who usually just mess around among themselves and don’t eat more than three innocent citizens a day—have suddenly decided to attack a common target (the poor humans, that is) with a level of coordination never seen before. What if… what if someone with very sinister intentions were pulling the strings? Say, a mega-powerful lich, holed up in a huge black tower that sprang up out of the ground a week earlier? Oh yeah, that could be it, actually. Let’s go check it out. Before we get there, we’re going to have to deal with a colorful menagerie of monsters.
I was already familiar with some of them—again, thanks to that Warriors stuff—like the owl-bear, the ghouls, the troll, and the manticore. I discovered others, from the totally lame kobold to the tougher gnoll, but most of all the Displacer Beast. A giant black panther decked out with tentacles that also appear to have jaws—and to top it off, she can cast a clone of herself! It wiped me out every time, but I didn’t hold it against it. It was just too cool. If you ever feel like it, there’s a fork in the path that lets you avoid it and visit another area instead. That’s the only one, as far as I can tell. But I didn’t get very far there either. The only time I actually made it past the halfway point was when I took over the game from a guy who’d been hogging the arcade machine before me and who took off after losing all his lives. I quickly popped in a ten Francs coin before the continue countdown ran out. And I got wiped out by a lightning-fast Dark Elf. Too bad.
I would have loved to explore all the locations in Tower of Doom. From the dungeons of a castle leading out to the ramparts (and that darn panther), to caves infested with skeletons, a drifting ship, and a swamp filled with fragrant mist… there’s plenty to see! Not to mention the secret passages. I found one all by myself—a rock that was just a tiny bit different in color from the rest of the cave, which you could push to open a passageway crammed full of loot! It must have been really worth it to team up with three others in co-op in there. Let’s talk a little more about the loot, actually. We spend almost more time picking up stuff lying on the ground than we do fighting. Enemies drop coins when they die, and chests contain jewels, weapons, magic rings, potions, and arrows. Some items boost damage, let you walk faster, or make you resistant to fire (just like in Warriors something, as usual).
I could never get enough of that loot. I couldn't let even a single bronze coin lie on the ground, even if it meant getting a kick in the ear from a Troglodyte. I’d go even crazier when I opened chests overflowing with gems and solid-gold crowns! Enough to clean out the shop at the next level! Yeah, because a merchant appears out of nowhere as soon as you finish a stage. In a town you’ve just pacified, I can understand that. In the middle of a cursed desert, though, it doesn’t make as much sense to me. Especially with their friendly, slightly goofy faces and their shop made entirely of rough stone that can’t be moved a single millimeter. I know, who cares about these kinds of inconsistencies as long as they make life easier for the player. If they were going to do that, couldn’t the merchants have sold something other than the same items from start to finish? Arrows, daggers, potions, and oils! Do they all get their supplies from the same wholesaler or what? I hardly bought anything besides healing vials, by the way. Maybe I should have diversified my shopping cart.
Another little feature popping up between victories: experience gain! This RPG-specific mechanic isn’t exactly groundbreaking—I actually think it only gives you a small boost in health points. No choice in which stats to improve, no skills to level up. And anyway, why do we start at level seven? Aside from throwing us off or strangely implying that we’re playing as someone who’s already been around the block, I don’t see the point. A simple message like “Here’s a hero who’s already been around the block” and starting him at level 1 would have worked just like in any other game. You’d just released Breath of Fire, after all! You know how character progression works. I know—I played Breath of Fire III for ten minutes. Oh well, never mind—I’m just nitpicking to pad out this paragraph with fluff. None of that stopped me from having an absolute blast smashing monsters, with their hilariously funny screams. You have to hear them to believe it—they almost remind me of the ones in Heroes of Might and Magic II.
A good, raw sound for the fighters
The music is in the purest medieval-fantasy vein, doing exactly what you’d expect it to do: illustrating the distress of terrified villagers fleeing their homes, while you walk alone in the opposite direction, blade drawn. For example. Yeah. That’s it. No further details, except that three people worked on it, including a certain Hideki Okugawa, who would later work on the equally incredible Street Fighter III. It’s pleasant to listen to, but while I have an indelible memory of Tower of Doom as a whole, I haven’t retained anything from its soundtrack. I find it decent, but nothing special. No bad tracks, but no masterpieces either. It should have left a mark on me anyway—I’ve adored compositions far worse than this. And at eleven, I still had that ability to adore even the most mediocre details of a video game, turning them into crazy nostalgia that resurfaced twenty years later. Maybe the combination of the arcade machine and the campground bar kept me from fully appreciating the soundtrack. All the sonic charm of the 16-bit era is there, though—leaning more toward the SNES than the MD—but it’s still really cool. For all I know, the owner was playing special compilations for tap-dancing parties, and I didn’t hear any of the game’s epic melodies. All that remained were the screams of the Kobolds being slaughtered by the dozen—those I remember perfectly. One positive aspect, though, is the number of tracks available—about thirty. Almost every boss, every area, every dialogue sequence, and every battle in every setting has its own theme. Sure, that means they all last less than two minutes, and often no more than a minute and a half. But it’s still better than Gauntlet II or Fire Force and their single intro theme.
A fleeting love, but an eternal love nonetheless
Phew! If I’d had a mom and stepdad who listened to what I wanted, I would’ve asked to go back to the same campground the following summer, just so I could tackle Tower of Doom—for good this time. Of course, I didn’t speak up to express my wish—as was the implicit rule in our little family whenever something in life upset us. As it turned out, in 1997, we ended up at a holiday camp that was so cool we stayed there until 2002 (just in the summer, mind you). And we would’ve stayed even longer if I hadn’t messed up so badly there—to the point that my family ended up blacklisted. Sorry—teenage years, hormones, all that… No regrets, though. Plus, that’s where I met Tony Pringles, with whom I later spent a wild weekend playing Blood, Destruction Derby II, Mario Kart 64, and Mario Party. Another thing I didn’t know when I discovered Tower of Doom was that its sequel, Shadow Over Mystara, already existed. And by a manticore’s stew, how much fun I would’ve had if that arcade machine had taken the other one’s place in that famous campground bar.
I loved those summer gaming moments, which up until then had been limited to playing Tetris on the Game Boy or Columns on the Game Gear. In that single year 1996, I had a much more powerful gaming experience—at least before nostalgia came along and messed everything up. Also, I feel like I hardly saw my parents at all during that trip, which must reinforce my sense that it was a successful vacation. We didn’t do any activities together—or almost none. They were sleeping in the RV, while my older sister Elena and I slept in a tent. We barely ate at the same time, and we went about our own lives separately during the day. The absence of Tower of Doom wouldn’t have drastically changed things, but I prefer to convince myself that it would have. Thanks to that awesome arcade machine for turning me into a social outcast and thus keeping me away from my dysfunctional parents for a week. I really appreciated it.
Follow Tower of Doom publications on social media !
