We say RPG all the time describe the kind of game that 35 years ago or so wouldn't be considered an RPG they often have swords and sorcery or barring that baseball bats and second
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I powers they often focus on epic storylines and battling great evils dungeons may be trek through dragons may appear yet to the pen-and-paper gamer there's always been a disconnect in illegitimate use of the turn there's a
world of constant adaptation with there's no such thing as programming limitations so it seems even more strange to take this free-flowing concept of the RPG using in fact the
most venerable name in the industry and try to fit it into an arcade format where it's not about creative solutions to problems or diplomacy checks it's about shoveling more quarters in the
machine Dungeons & Dragons chronicles of misstara gems Capcom's two attempts at RK defying the D&D franchise together into one package just like they did on the saturn in japan back in 99 only now
since it's on the ps3 you can enjoy the full four player experience online or locally with leaderboards and trophies and the rest of the trappings of the modern era but rest assured this is
still a wooly abusive mid-90s brawler full of enemies with a greatest reach advantage swarms of foes from every side thus requiring you to recruit your friends who plop their quarters in the
Machine and loads of crap to pick up off the ground cache share cache makes sense especially since you can shop between stages weapons located stuff like daggers and hammers what can be used as
projectiles that makes sense rings of magic missle yeah I guess it really is D&D at least setting certain familiar [Music] two separate games Tower of Doom and shadow over misstara compiled here
while they share plenty of similarities it's pretty easy to see the improvements the latter made over the former Tower of Doom offers only four character classes has more limiting controls and only
shows the sub weapon you're currently holding shadow of earnest ara adds the magic user and thief characters to the standard elf dwarf cleric warrior features ten chapters of action to its
predecessor seven and incorporates a secret of mana esque item ring for managing secondary weapons this makes it easier to take inventory at a glance both games feature a massive array of
items that due to limitations on the display might get crunched down into unintelligible masses a ring of kir serious wounds for example may display is just csw on your item ring they even
get a puzzle over its meaning while being harried by Tuco balls in a null named Chuck [Music] this is exactly the kind of game I'd never want to come upon in an arcade because it works so much
better when the 25 cents of play limit is removed the branching storyline is actually fairly engaging and you find yourself really wanting to take down the evil dragons sorceress regardless of how
many trips you make to the change machine that no longer exists further the total collection of the items acts as a separate goal as the title screen for each game chronicles just how many
trinkets and baubles you've managed to obtain in each title and then there are in-game achievements that award vault points used to unlock the original artwork the alternate game modes and
even the original promo flyer that still has the address of Capcom's arcade headquarters in Arlington Heights Illinois talk about a blast from the past just turn down the audio a bit sure
it'll be tougher to hear the lifted directly from Mega Man X soundtrack but at least you won't have to hear the dwarf constantly.