Azure Dreams (Playstation 1)

[WulfeLuer]

As things start to wind down with yet another RPG playthrough, I'm starting to think about adding some not-so-fresh blood to the Backlog of Glory.

Some half-awake internet wanderings over the past few weeks have resulted in Azure Dreams for the PS1 coming across my radar a few times and my interest was piqued. Would anybody around here happen to have opinions/recommendations/frothing rants about this game? I'm not picking this up for serious campaigning, just considering it for some dungeon crawling to keep things fresh in between.

[celerystalker]

It's a high quality Rogue-like with some dating, monster raising, and world building thrown in. Another one my brother played the hell out of. flyingomelette.com had some detailed articles about it back in its day, as she was a huge fan of it and its GBC port. It also has a poorly regarded sequel on DS called Tao's Adventure.

Basically, you have one town and one tower like similar titles such as Izuna. You climb the randomly generated tower, finding items, leveling, and collecting monster eggs. Upon returning to town, you revert back to level one, but can hatchg/raise/breed monsters, which aid you like familiars in the tower, and retain their experience upon exiting. You also retain items, and these combined are your keys to progress.

Also in town, you can court the various gals and spend your money on building the place up, adding buildings and attractions. It provides a nice respite from the massive dungeon crawl, and has a lot of freedom and personality.

As rogue-likes go, it's one of the best in my book.