Play Tower of Druaga Online

Namco brought Tower of Druaga to the Game Boy in 1990, a time when handheld dungeon crawlers were still finding their footing. It was a port of an arcade game, and like many of its contemporaries, it didn't try to reinvent the wheel. You got a simple quest, a maze to navigate, and a lot of patience was required.

You control the knight Gilgamesh, climbing a sixty floor tower to rescue the maiden Ki from the demon Druaga. Movement is screen by screen; each floor is a single room full of monsters, hidden items, and traps. You attack with a short range sword, and later a bow, but the real challenge is figuring out which enemy to kill or which block to push to make a key or a staircase appear. The pacing is deliberate, almost slow, and the difficulty is unforgiving if you don't pay attention to subtle clues. It feels like solving a brutal, interactive puzzle more than an action game.