0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Azure Dreams

     

Azure Dreams also know as Other Life Azure Dreams in its native Japan is a dungeon crawling Role Playing game with Roguelike elements developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and published by Konami’s subsidiaries around the world.

The game was release first in Japan on the 13^th of November 1997 with a June 1998 release in North America, the UK release of the game would not be until the December of that year, while the rest of Europe including France, Germany and Spain would have to wait until 2000 to play the game.

A stripped down version of the game would be released on the Game Boy Color in February of 2000 the game would also get a semi sequel  in 2005 on the Nintendo DS titled  Tao's Adventure Curse of the Demon Seal, the game would release a year later in Europe and North America.

Notable people who worked on this game programmer Kazumasa Ogiso worked as a programmer on the Silent Hill series, working as an enemy programmer in the original Silent Hill more recently he worked on the Metal Gear Solid V games both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.

The Demon or Monster Tower holds priceless monster eggs which can be collected by hunters and the player, these eggs can be taken from the Tower and hatched, the monster that is hatched from the egg will become the players familiars.

These familiars must be raised and trained with the player then having the option to either sell the monster or they can be used to fight alongside the player when they re enter the tower, these eggs are of course not easy to get your hands on with the tower full of monsters to deal with. Combat in the tower is a turn based system with one move or one attack counting as one turn

Also adding in the fact the Towers levels are randomly generated every time you enter the tower meaning different layouts every time to make things that more difficult, also every time Koh leaves the tower he loses whatever level he reached over the course of his time in the tower, the players familiars do not lose their level however if they were hatched outside of the tower, these levelled up familiars are key to progressing to the higher levels of the tower.

There is a great risk reward element to the game with only three ways out of the tower, either by Koh dying if this happens all equipment that Koh was carrying is destroyed, by sacrificing one of your familiars using an item in the tower called a Oleem or the preferable method of using a wind crystal which allows you to exit the tower at any time.

While the main portion of the game is entering the tower and trying to level up your familiars and acquire new monster eggs the town of Monsbaiya can be upgraded by Koh with the addition of a theatres, hospitals, racing tracks as well as improve the furnishings of almost all buildings in the town. The game also features relationships with a total of seven characters that Koh can romance from tomboy Nico to the the selfish Selfi.

Next to the small town of Monsbaiya is the Demon Tower (Monster Tower), home to countless monsters and creatures, the tower has attracted countless treasure hunters to it and the priceless monster eggs within its walls, the promise of great wealth drawing in the hunters.

At the age of 15 a young boy named Koh has come of age and has earned the right to enter the tower, for Koh it is more than wealth and fame that he seeks, he seeks his missing father,  Koh’s father was the greatest hunter of all and successfully reached the top of the Demon Tower (Monster Tower), however vanished soon after.

Critically the game was fairly well received with a couple of good review scores to its name, with the majority of the remainder in the above average range, with just a handful falling into the average or worse category. As usual though we will start with the best which comes from Swedish publication Super Play.

They scored the game at a very solid 84 the review calling it a game that wins in the long run with interesting and clever interactions between characters as well as having a seriousness to the overall story as well as having a major risk reward mechanic.

GamePro were next up while scoring the game at a very respectable 80, the review was disappointed that the game did not fully fulfil its potential. The reviewer called the game a unique twist on the RPG formula but sadly let down by its repetitiveness, poor translation and frustrating luck based evolution.

The did have praise for the game though with the reviewer praising the addictive nature of the game as well as interesting villains and a monster training that they found compelling. To conclude they recommended renting the game first, but fans of games like Suikoden and Vandal Hearts could do worse than give Azure Dreams a chance.

German publication Video Games are next up with another respectable score of 78, their reviewer praising the pocket monster style system the game uses, they were however slightly critical of the games graphics and the menu system which the review found that they needed to be a little easier to navigate.

GameSpot who scored the game a respectable 73, the reviewer was surprised that Konami had even bothered to bring Azure Dreams to the west. Calling the games protagonist a cross between Edward Scissorhands and Ronald McDonald, and a sarcastic attitude which is a far cry from today’s cookie cutter heroes.

They praised the face Konami has gotten bolder and braver with an increasing respect for the original Japanese source material, in what can be described as a niche RPG that strays from the conventional formula, and creating a game that is a mix of SimCity, Monster Rancher and a role playing game. Concluding the review had this to say, with a heart-warming story of discovery and companionship to boot, Konami has struck RPG gold again.

Dropping to the other end of the ratings scale we find two reviews both scoring this game at a 40, with All Game Guide and Legendra, starting with the former, with the review unable to get into the game, calling it a genius idea that has gone awry.

While French publication Legendra praised some of the innovations in the game and the honourable realizations of them, however some silly rules and excessive repetition overall make it a sloppy game. RPGDreamers who scored the game at a very average 50 called the game a love It or hate it kind of game, with the game having good gameplay but a story that is sadly lacking.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where we find that this game is quite rare with Gamedude offering $30 if you are looking to trade in your copy of Azure Dreams. If on the other hand you are wanting to buy a copy from them it will set you back a fair bit with a $59 outlay for a copy from Gamedude.

Retrogames.co.uk sadly do not stock this title, so we quickly move on to eStarland.com who do have two copies currently available. Both copies available at eStarland are incomplete, the first is missing its case, this copy is priced up at a quite steep $43.60. The second copy is a disc only copy of the game and will still set you back $29.98, eStarland also offer a trade in with up to $28 for a complete copy of the game, down to $9.80 for a disc only copy.

Finally we head over to Amazon where the disc only disease for used copies has hit this game hard, hell one copy on the market is just the cover, manual and case for some one looking to make a complete copy. For a fully complete used copy the cheapest you are looking at is $54.99.

From here used priced continue to rise with the next guarantied complete used copy coming in at $103.98 once shipping has been added in, a couple of like new copies are available but these take another jump in price coming in at $126.99 and $143.98.

These higher priced used copies at the moment of writing can be ignored as one single new copy of the game is priced significantly cheaper than the other new copies on the market coming in at $94.49. This is significantly cheaper than the usual new copy price which starts at $178.98, and reach a high of $206.08.

  

Written by

P J Gibbon