A pair of arcade games from the days when arcades actually had video games.
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Later this month, Capcom will release an arcade two-pack in the Wii U eShop in the form of Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. As excitement begins to build for these games among some of the NWR staff, others are left scratching their head, unsure they've ever even heard of these arcade games.
For those of us who are old enough to have grown up through the heyday of the NES and Super NES, arcade games hold a special place in our hearts. Unlike modern arcades that are largely filled with dusty Dance Dance Revolution machines, four player NASCAR racing games, and versions of Deal or No Deal designed to give you tickets which can be redeemed for Tootsie Rolls, arcades in the early 1990s were filled with games that were light years ahead of the best games you could play at home. Even when the Super NES came out, it took quite some time before Street Fighter II came along and, for the first time, truly replicated the arcade experience at home.
By 1993, games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, and X-Men had defined the genre of sidescrolling brawler, with hundreds of generic henchmen attacking beloved characters in colorful, gorgeous landscapes. That year, Capcom released Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom. Because fans had been playing these types of games for three to five years already, and because the characters in Tower of Doom weren't immediately recognizable, the game appealed to a smaller audience then it's forebears. Even still, the gameplay was directly descended from them, and in many cases improved.
Your chosen character represents a stock D&D archetype: Cleric, Elf, Dwarf, Fighter. These characters will level up over the course of the game, as well as buy and earn equipment. In addition to character customization, Tower of Doom had branching paths, giving players the option of where to go next on a map, meaning players needed to come back and put more quarters in to see the entire game.
In 1996, as the days of the classic arcade video game were beginning to draw to a sad close, Capcom released a followup to Tower of Doom titled Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. The game improved on Tower of Doom in many ways, including gorgeous visuals, more characters (Mage and Thief), alternate outfits, and more combat moves. Taking a look at other mid-to-late 90s games from Capcom such as Darkstalkers and Street Fighter III, it becomes clear that Shadow over Mystara is in good company when it comes to visuals. Although the side-scrolling brawler has certainly been around for a very long time, these are two of the least exposed, and most polished games in the genre.
The two games have been packaged together before, in a 1999 Japan-only Sega Saturn release titled Dungones & Dragons Collection. The ports, which received a very limited run, however, only supported two players. The Wii U collection, releasing June 18 for $14.99, will support up to four players and online play. These games are being unearthed for the first time in over a decade, and Wii U owners who take the plunge will find something that you can't find in modern arcades: video games.
Topic: Dungeons & Dragons Arcade Games: An Education (Read 1228 times)
