The Tower of Druaga

The Tower of Druaga (ドルアーガの塔, Doruāga no Tō) is a 1984 arcade action role-playing maze game developed and published in Japan by Namco and the United States by Bally Midway. Controlling the golden-armored knight Gilgamesh, the player is tasked with scaling 60 floors of the titular tower in an effort to rescue the maiden Ki from Druaga, a demon with eight arms and four legs, who plans to use an artifact known as the Blue Crystal Rod to enslave all of mankind. It ran on the Namco Super Pac-Man arcade hardware, modified with a horizontal-scrolling video system used in Mappy.

Why It Deserves the Blue Crystal Rod

 * 1) Menacing difficulty.(Which can be good or bad)
 * 2) It has a design that helps it stand out from all the other early 80's Namco arcade games
 * 3) Some tasks required to get Treasure Chests can be simple.
 * 4) 60 levels of mayhem which is good enough. (59 if you don't count Floor 60)
 * 5) Gil can grab items that can increase his speed, power, and defense
 * 6) Killing enemies is simple, Just hold down the button and walk through them with your sword out.
 * 7) Gill can also block spells using his shield
 * 8) Adventurous Music
 * 9) Easy to learn Controls
 * 10) The TurboGrafx-16 version is not only a port, but an enhanced remake.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Artificial Difficulty, Despite being an arcade game, It doesn’t give you clues on how to obtain the chests. And once you get a Game Over, It’s back to the start. Many have said that this game was near impossible to beat.
 * 2) The Game Boy version is not a pretty good port.

Reception
The Tower of Druaga was a critical commercial success in Japan, attracting millions of fans and spawning a franchise.

In North America however, The game was received a highly negative reception due to it's difficulty, slow gameplay, use of hidden items required to beat the game, and controls.

Trivia

 * According to Gaming.Moe, Every Japanese retro arcade must have this game by law.