Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom

About Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (1994) is Capcom's first D&D arcade game, a four-player beat 'em up with role-playing elements and branching paths, set in the Mystara campaign world.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom in Depth

Up to four players choose a cleric, dwarf, elf or fighter and fight classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters, with bosses including a troll that regenerates unless burned, a black dragon, a Shadow Elf, a beholder, the optional superboss Flamewing, a great wyrm red dragon, and the archlich Deimos. At several points the party chooses between paths leading to different areas, so not every area can be seen in one playthrough. Play is more technical than most beat 'em ups, with blocking, strong, turning and dashing attacks, crouching and evading, and it demands careful tactics, since most enemies share the heroes' abilities and outrange them. Daggers, hammers, arrows and burning oil can be thrown, and spells are cast through magic rings or by the two spellcasters.

The fighter is balanced, with great range and power and the most health. The elf has a short sword and less power but seven arcane spells, from Magic Missile and Fireball to Polymorph Others and Cloudkill. The cleric can turn undead, cast five divine spells such as Sticks to Snakes and Cure Serious Wounds, and block vertical attacks others cannot. The dwarf has short reach but quick combos. The Republic of Darokin is besieged by monsters, and the adventurers, sent by the merchant lord Corwyn Linton, trace the attacks to Deimos and destroy him in his Tower of Doom.

Making Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom

Capcom acquired the D&D licence in the early 1990s, but its Japanese branch struggled to get TSR's approval and turned to Capcom USA to negotiate. Capcom and TSR met in January 1992 and agreed to write the story first and build the game around it. Few Capcom USA staff knew D&D, so assistant James Goddard brought in Jimenez to create a concept that Japanese developers could understand, supply character concept art and test the game; he also settled a debate with SSI over whether it should be Asian- or Western-themed.

Game Machine listed it as Japan's second most successful table arcade unit in its 1 March 1994 issue, and RePlay reported it as North America's most popular arcade game. GamePro praised its length, complexity, non-linearity and faithfulness to D&D, and GameSpy later called it as good as, though less remembered than, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons. It was paired with its sequel on the Japan-only Saturn Dungeons & Dragons Collection in 1999, limited to two players, and in Chronicles of Mystara in 2013.