Official Website

Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Adventure

Number of Players: 1

Some people like role-playing games, some like adventure, and others like both. There are those few that simply love every type of game that's out, but we're not talking about them right now. At times though, the best-loved genres meet together as one, much to the delight of fans. Dark Cloud for example took the RPG concept and added it to an adventure/action game to come up with something that was a winning combination, especially when you think back to the more recent Dark Cloud game. Some games though want to not only bring these genres together, they want to try and bring back a little bit of old school gaming as well, such as The Nightmare of Druaga.

Part RPG, part action and adventure game and part turn-based strategy, Druaga puts players in the role of Gil, a young prince whose kingdom was once the spot of a great war. Peace has been a part of everyday life for years now, but that is until Gil's beloved Ki is taken prisoner. Gil must journey into the depths of the Tower of Druaga to save her, but it's a journey fraught with peril around every turn, fearsome monsters, magic, and adventure. Gil however must take on this quest alone, and each level puts him in greater danger as he not only seeks to rescue Ki, but also stop the deadly sorceress Skulld from bringing forth the means to begin another war.

It's a fairly common storyline that we've seen many times in the history of video games, and one that was existence long before in stories. The brave hero must go on a quest of self-discovery and bravery to save his love facing trails and tribulations. Mario has done it far too many times for the love of Princess Peach, we've seen it in Ghouls n Ghosts (or Ghosts n Goblins depending on which version you've played) and the list continues to grow. The Nightmare of Druaga seems like a good concept at first, but it can be a little deceiving.

The basic idea is that you will go through level after level in order to find Ki. In each floor, one move is equal to a single turn. You can heal by simply moving, so that's a nice bonus, and with your map you can see what monsters and treasure chests are around. Your objective is to find the key to progress to the next floor. As you fight, you will earn experience and eventually level up. You can also smash through walls to make your trip a little quicker. Open chests and you will find items, armor, and weapons inside that can be used, equipped or even sold. More or less, these are the basics of the game.

With the fighting aspect, if a monster is surrounded in blue light, you will strike first whereas red means that it attacks first. During battle you can use magic, if you have it, and this may make things easier in some regards. In each of the levels, there are certain conditions that you can met to get special chests. Sometimes will be the order you defeat monsters in, at times it is not defeating any of them, and so on. These special items though should be the thing that you are after above all else. Not only do they have some of the best abilities but they are also rare much of the time, and there are points where the light surrounding you will begin to fade and in order to get more illumination, you will need to sacrifice an item to shed more light on the subject as the case may be. You also can use a magic feather to warp out of the dungeon and enter the main castle.

Within the castle walls, you can sell items, store them, get missions from the townspeople, or have your weapons and armor enchanted by combining them. Keep in mind though that each thing you enchant only have so many slots assigned to it, so you may find yourself giving up one ability in favor of another. But, here's the bad thing with that. If you should die in a dungeon level, all of your items will be down in the murky depths, and you're going to have to go and get them again. This can be frustrating. The nice thing though is that if you are a high enough level, finishing a stage you've been through will give you the option to go to a bonus stage with stronger weapons, and stronger monsters as well. This is only for the brave of heart, and those with a level that is high enough to meet the challenge.

The real problem with this game though is the repetition that is involved. You'll finish a level and move to the next, fight and find the key, and the process repeats over and over again, though you may find the occasional boss battle throw in for good measure. The dungeon levels really lack and type of real intricacy and aren't the type of thing that leaps off the screen at you. Instead, they tend to be rather bland. In order to try and disguise this, the designers have made the characters have an anime appearance, but I can't really say that this is quite enough to lure gamers in, though some will be simply because of this fact. Also though, the anime look is more of an older style that isn't seen quite as often these days.

Another complaint I have is that although the designers did right by adding in the limit to the inventory, adding a little realism, there is too much time spent traveling back to the city to sell off older or useless items and then having to go back and travel through stages that you've already completed. Sure, you might gain a little experience for Gil on the way back, but before you know it, the inventory is filled once again, and so it's back to town we go.

Saving with the game is a pain. It's not that it's difficult, but once you save, the game wants you to shut the system off. But, here's the reason why, and I think that many reviewers have missed this fact. Let's say you've died in a dungeon and you want to reset and load your last save. It's an easy technique, and we've all done it a time or two, but if you own a GameCube and have played Animal Crossing, you know that you get scolded for resetting the game. Nightmare of Druaga is the same way. Should you decide to reset in hopes of restoring from a previous save, you'll get a lecture about why it's bad and that you shouldn't do it again. So, while it seems like a good option, it's completely out of the picture.

Ultimately, while The Nightmare of Druaga isn't really a bad idea as far as the game itself goes, it's really a little date in the way it is presented and for most the highly repetitive nature is going to get very old very quickly. There are quite a few other action, adventure, and role-playing games that are out on the market that are going to provide quite a bit more entertainment that what Druaga does, and sadly I'd have to say that it might be worth a rental, but I don't think that too many gamers are going to get too much enjoyment out of it in this fashion.

-mike-