#tose

Saving the princess is optional

This short is part of my Gaming Year in Review 2025 video!

Dragon Quest I is the fifteenth game I beat in 2025. I absolutely loved the Game Boy Color version, but should I try other versions of the game?

Transcript:

It’s the first Dragon Quest game for the Game Boy Color.

Before the events of the game, the king’s daughter, Lady Lora, is kidnapped by the DracoLord. You, as a descendant of the legendary hero, Loto, are tasked to save her and defeat the DracoLord.

As it turns out, you gotta traverse the land to collect sacred artifacts entrusted to sages. Along the way, you slay a million Slimes, Golems, and other monsters to level up your strength and magic.

At each town, there are various upgrades to purchase at the local shops and NPCs to share chisme.

Once you have collected everything you need, you can go ahead and summon the bridge to the castle where the DracoLord will offer to share half the world with you. As a thanks, you kill him twice and seize the entire world for yourself.

The Game Boy is better than the arcade

This short is part of my Gaming Year in Review 2025 video!

The Tower of Druaga is the fourth game I beat in 2025. I wanna go back to the arcade version, but should I try the NES version, too?

Transcript:

In The Tower of Druaga, you play as Gilgamesh and your task is to fight your way up 60 floors of this tower to save Ki from the titular Druaga. Each floor contains a task that’ll spawn a chest that will either kinda help you or kinda hurt you. You also need to find the key to the door before a big ol’ electric ball comes to kill you, and if it doesn’t, an even faster after one will.

Here’s what makes me like the Game Boy version so much. It faithfully captures the essence of playing the arcade game while making some changes that feel natural to a handheld game. Like, not instantly dying anytime your incredibly slow character touches anything while you’re mid-sword swing animation. Hell yeah, now we have HP! Did you make it several levels and then die in a dramatically lame way? Well, now we have passwords at every floor milestone!