This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on February 15th, 2020.
Welcome back to the PlayStation Basement, a weekly review of games for the original PlayStation that are somewhat obscure, unusual, or unknown. Games are rated Good, Bad, or Neutral to emphasize the review itself. Now, let’s go!
Yesterday was St. Valentine’s Day in the United States. A Christian feast day for one or more Saint Valentines descended from a Roman holiday of wild merrymaking to promote health to the flocks of shepherds, the day was popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare hundreds of years ago. Today, Valentine’s Day is often celebrated in a relatively secular way with the giving of cards, chocolates, flowers, and plush toys between lovers and school children. I really thought about a good game to celebrate this holiday with. Last year, I had the bizarre dating/racing game, Love Love Truck. That game was just perfect, but I think that my game for today works similarly well: Azure Dreams.
Azure Dreams was developed and published by Konami in Japan, North America, and Europe. Originally released in Japan as Other Life: Azure Dreams on November 13th, 1997, the game came to North America at the end of June in 1998 and to Europe in December of the same year. A light, Japanese-style roguelike in the Mystery Dungeon style, I don’t know if America was ready for something like this back in the late 90s. Similar titles, Torneko: The Last Hope and Chocobo’s Dungeon 2 didn’t seem to fare particularly well either. Despite a few games like this on PS2 (The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigi no Dungeon), the randomized, dungeon-crawling RPG basically died out in North America until the boom from the DS and Steam. When I got Azure Dreams back around the year 2000, I was very confused by the gameplay. A turn-based game that doesn’t transition into battle sequences every few steps? A randomized dungeon that limits your level and items upon entrance? The monster-raising was the big draw here for me; the poor localization was the big divider more than anything. The game sat on my shelf for around twenty-years after I tried playing it once or twice. Now here we are, and it’s finally time for your 15th birthday, time to enter the Monster Tower that looms over the desert town of Monsbaiya.
On the North American cover, the Monster Tower looms high ahead. In a detailed style, the hero, Koh, stands on a cliff and starts excitedly at the dangerous tower. The image recalls elements of both Dragon Quest’s Akira Toriyama with his textural cartoons and Final Fantasy’s Yoshitaka Amano with his flowing paintings. The European cover uses the same image, brightened and more zoomed out. Instead of a scroll, the title is also displayed in sky blue letters in the center. On the original Japanese version, the art shows the main character surrounded by the many love interests and other female characters. It’s a very saturated, crayon-style image that looks like something from Harvest Moon. While it’s very nice, I prefer the call to adventure offered by the Western releases.
I used to really dislike the graphics of Azure Dreams, but I like them now. The games uses pre-rendered sprites, similar to Donkey Kong Country or Super Mario RPG, and 3D locations. When I was younger, I always thought that trying to create 3D images with simple sprites looked kind of bad. I still think it can look bad, but Azure Dreams does it right. The characters and monsters are kind of bulbous and cute, and I don’t think this effect could be achieved with any other style. Everything looks like a puppet, a toy, or a fairy tale book illustration; it’s beautiful. The animations are somewhat limited, but they are adequate for this type of game. I really like the colors used; the settings feel very warm and alive. In addition to the sprites and all of that, there are also some very nice cutscenes that utilize the wonderful illustrations by artist Nobuteru Yuuki. Overall, Azure Dreams does a good job with what it has, but it won’t impress graphics hounds (of course we are talking about a 20+ year-old game anyway).
Azure Dreams uses a fusion of obvious and unique sounds to create the world of Monsbaiya and the Monster Tower. The soundtrack uses similar themes throughout that fuse Western and Eastern influences into something entirely of fantasy. The production is very clean too. The sound effects are similarly well-recorded and lively. The hits sound heavy, water splashes as if your PlayStation might be getting wet, and the coins really jingle like a handful of pennies and dimes. I love the jumping sound too! All of these sounds are familiar enough, but there’s a lot of polish here and some unique little tweaks that make it all sound specific to this game.
At this point in time, I think that many people are familiar with the general idea of a roguelike. I actually find this term to be heavily misused in the last few years with labeled titles on Steam including twin-stick shooters, platformers, and beat ‘em up games. I don’t think that these games are necessarily not roguelikes, but I also feel like there is more to the sub-genre than randomization and permanent death (the latter isn’t even a part of Mystery Dungeon-style roguelikes like Azure Dreams). Creative ideas abound in offbeat roguelike games such as ToeJam & Earl and Rogue Legacy.
Like Rogue, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, Nethack, and Ancient Domains of Mystery, Azure Dreams is a randomized, turn-based dungeon-crawling game with treasures to find and monsters to fight. The game is played on a grid, and everything is displayed on screen – there is no battle screen that appears every few steps as in Dragon Quest or Wild ARMs. Instead, every character on the same floor as you takes a turn the same time that you do. When you take a step, swing a sword, or use an item, monsters or familiars can take the same kinds of actions. It is therefore important to manage your action-economy and not just screw around as a griffon assaults you. It is also important to manage your inventory. You can only bring a few items with you into the dungeon, and items you find may be beneficial or cursed. Eggs are especially good items to find, as they can be hatched into familiars to assist you in the tower. Leveling up familiars is key, as your character’s level resets every time you leave the tower. Equipping good weapons and shields and training powerful monsters are keys to success. It’s also worth considering that valuable items are worth taking back to town to sell. The tower isn’t the only important place in Azure Dreams.
The town of Monsbaiya is a crucial element of Azure Dreams. It is here that your character awakens in his bed every morning. You can then talk with the inhabitants of the town, play minigames such as bowling or acting in a comedy, buy and sell items, pay for buildings to be built, hatch and fuse monsters, and take on requests that need to be carried out within the Monster Tower. By finding and selling valuable items from the tower, you can raise enough money to expand or decorate your house and even build new establishments for the town. This all can offer new benefits and generate new scenarios for your character, including improving relationships with other characters. It could even lead to marriage with a special girl like the tomboyish Nico Southey or the mercantile Fur Gotts. The romance angle is a major part of this game with suggestive dialogue and many single ladies to date. Since there are no love levels like in Harvest Moon, these relationships feel very natural if a bit like a harem anime. Overall, I really felt a part of this world with how organic the interactions and town improvements were.
There is some oddness here though. The localization is particularly non-localized at times. Names are capped at six characters, for example, preventing me from using my full name in-game. This happened to me a lot in the 90s, and it led to me often using the canonical name for the character in the game instead of my own. In Azure Dreams, this also means that NPCs have some really weird names too such as Cherrl (Cherryl), Grandp (Grandpa), Coppe (Copper, I assume), and NcsDad (Nico’s Dad). Japanese wouldn’t have these problems of course. Dialogues can be short and stilted at times, especially Kewne’s tutorial at the start of the game. Even item descriptions can be somewhat unclear such as the Mazarr Seed (“increases the level”) or the Tumna Fruit (“turns into a frog for a while”). The game is also a bit repetitive, especially if you keep the same monster for a while. The randomness and variety of monsters (50 total) do help fix alleviate this issue though. You’ll still be entering and exiting the Monster Tower many times. I don’t think that that is such as bad thing either.
Coming in during the Pokémania of the late 90s, Azure Dreams created a special little world for players to explore that harkened back to older, dungeon-crawling fantasies mixed with the interactions and relationships of Harvest Moon. Though roguelikes were rare on American consoles in those days, the sub-genre has grown to include many, many fan-favorite games in the last decade such as Rogue Legacy, Darkest Dungeon, Etrian Mystery Dungeon, Faster Than Light, and even Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. Azure Dreams even got a sort of sequel during the DS dungeon-crawling boom: Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal. Ever Oasis also takes some cues from Azure Dreams with a similar desert town that needs to be built up for its cute characters. I would love to see a remake, remaster, or new sequel to Azure Dreams, hopefully with a better translation this time. Maybe one day that will be so. For now, the Monster Tower stands waiting for explorers.
Azure Dreams receives a Good.
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