History VideoGame / TheTowerOfDruaga

The game spawned an irregularly released series of games, known as the "Babylonian Castle Saga":

* ''The Return of Ishtar'' (1986), an ImmediateSequel where Gil and Ki team up
* ''VideoGame/{{The Quest of Ki}}'' (1988), a PuzzlePlatformer prequel starring Ki
* ''The Blue Crystal Rod'' (1994), sequel to ''The Return of Ishtar'' again starring Gil and Ki
* ''Seme COM Dungeon: Drururuaga'' (2000), DistantSequel with [[CardBattleGame card-based gameplay]]
* ''[[VideoGame/NightmareOfDruaga The Nightmare of Druaga]]'' (2004), part of Chunsoft's ''VideoGame/MysteryDungeon'' {{Roguelike}} franchise
* ''Druaga Online: The Story of Aon'' (2005), non-canonical four-player arcade game
* ''The Tower of Druaga: The Recovery of BABYLIM'' (2009), a [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPG]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, Ishtar was a {{Yandere}} who was willing to kill thousands with the Bull of Heaven if Gilgamesh didn't return her feelings. In this game, however, Ishtar is a [[GodIsGood benevolent goddess]] who merely aides Gilgamesh in his quest to defeat Druaga, and she doesn't even show signs of jealously toward the PseudoRomanticFriendship between Gil and Ki.

* ''The Nightmare of Druaga'' (2004), part of Chunsoft's ''VideoGame/MysteryDungeon'' {{Roguelike}} franchise

* GodGuise: Succubus on Floor 57 disguises herself as the goddess Ishtar. Killing her is one of the requirements for the Ruby Mace, which is required to fight Druaga in two more floors.

* AttractMode: This is one of the few arcade games to not have a gameplay demo sequence[[note]]Other games to not have one include ''VideoGame/SpyHunter II'' (the arcade game, not the later sequel to the UsefulNotes/Playstation2 game), and ''VideoGame/{{Xenophobe}}'', both by Creator/{{Midway}}.[[/note]]. When the machine is turned on, it starts with the title screen, the scrolls to the high score list, then back to the title screen, them it goes to the game's OpeningNarration, then back the title screen, and it keeps going like that from there.

* ContinuingIsPainful: Getting zapped to a lower floor destroys the highest-tier weapon and armor pieces, making the fight against Druaga unwinnable.

* ''The Nightmare of Druaga'' (2004), part of Chunsoft's ''Fushigi no Dungeon'' {{Roguelike}} franchise

* RefrainFromAssuming: That dragon who appears in the logo? That's not Druaga, it's Quox, who is pretty much the only other "boss" of this game.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, Ishtar was a {{Yandere}} who was willing to kill thousands with the Bull of Heaven if Gilgamesh didn't return her feelings. In this game, however, Ishtar is a [[GodIsGood benevolent goddess]] who merely aid Gilgamesh in his quest to defeat Druaga, and she doesn't even show signs of jealously toward the PseudoRomanticFriendship between Gil and Ki.

* BadassInDistress: Ki was able to hold her own throughout all of ''VideoGame/TheQuestOfKi'', but Gil needs to rescue her because she's TakenForGranite.

!! This video game series provides examples of:

* AntagonistTitle: It’s clear that both Druaga and his tower are going to give you a very hard time.
* AttractMode: This is one of the few arcade games to not have a gameplay demo sequence[[note]]Other games to not have one include VideoGame/SpyHunter II (the arcade game, not the later sequel to the UsefulNotes/Playstation2 game), and VideoGame/{{Xenophobe}}, both by Creator/{{Midway}}.[[/note]]. When the machine is turned on, it starts with the title screen, the scrolls to the high score list, then back to the title screen, them it goes to the game's OpeningNarration, then back the title screen, and it keeps going like that from there.

* BadassInDistress: Ki was able to hold her own throughout all of ''VideoGame/{{The Quest of Ki}}'', but Gil needs to rescue her because she's TakenForGranite.

* MacGuffin: The Blue Crystal Rod, an artifact that keeps Gil’s city safe from trouble. After a nearby empire invades and tries to get the Rod, they inadvertently free Druaga, who not only gets the Rod himself, but separates it into three when Ki tries to get it. You’ll need to get all three pieces or Druaga won’t show up to fight you.

* OneHitKill: Ki in ''The Return of Ishtar.''

** If the player exits floor 59 without defeating Druaga, the level complete sequence will shown as normal, but only find out that upon completion, some of the player's items will be taken away and lost, and be zapped to a lower floor.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: You can attack Ishtar and Ki instead of rescuing them and exit floor 59 without defeating Druaga... if you don't mind being sent back almost to ''the beginning of the game.''

** The Famicom, Game Boy, and ''Namco Museum Vol. 3'' ([=PSOne=]) ports reveal a CheatCode after beating the game that unlocks a hidden "Another Tower", which is another 60-floor romp with even ''more'' difficult and convoluted treasure solutions. The ''Namco Museum Vol. 3'' port exclusively also contains the "Darkness Tower", which has you traversing Floors 61 to 120 with the difficulty cranked [[UpToEleven even higher than before]] (if the first two Towers weren't enough).

** On the other hand, continuing when you haven't made the game unwinnable is quite useful, since you get to keep all of your treasures (if the version you're playing supports continues). Not only that, as proof you weren't expected to beat it on one coin, when you beat the level you died on, you get *all of your points back* that you lost on continue.

* BigDamnKiss: The Game Boy port ends, if you completed the game with four continues or less (or if you beat the second game mode), with Ki kissing Gil on the cheek. Given all the trouble he went through to save her, he sure earned it.

* RefrainFromAssuming: That creature who appears in the logo? That's not Druaga, it's Quox, who is pretty much the only other "boss" of this game.

* BadassInDistress: Ki was able to hold her own throughout all of ''VideoGame/TheQuestOfKi'', but Gil needs to rescue her because she's TakenForGranite.

* BlobMonster: Slimes in several different colors, two years before [[VideoGame/DragonQuest those other slimes]]. In the original game, the green and black Slimes are effectively TheGoomba, but later on there exist Slimes that can cast spells and the Dark Yellow Slime verges on EliteMook.

* NintendoHard: Almost sadistically so for an arcade game, even by arcade game standards.. You have to make a cruel crawl through 60 floors all with monsters that can one-shot you and treasures that are mandatory for finishing the game.

** You have a HitPoints value, but you can't actually see it. It's also only used for fighting enemy Knights and Lizardmen; slimes, magic spells, and whisps all use OneHitPointWonder logic.
** It's even worse ''The Return of Ishtar'', where Ki herself only has one life, and will go down in one attack from anything. Gil has health that [[CastFromHitPoints drops]] each time he kills an enemy but like Ki, only has one life, and if he loses, so does Ki (and the player).

** The treasure in each level, which requires a unique an unguessable trial and error action.

* TakenForGranite: Ki is cursed by Druaga and turned into a stone- not a statue, but a simple stone with her circlet on it.
* TimedMission: Every floor has a 20,000 frame time limit, ontop of a 60-second time limit if you exhaust it.

** Since there was ''no guide'' when the game was released into arcades, people simply had to take it on blind faith that the game was winnable at all. Following from that, enough persistence and credits spent causes the game to cough up it's secrets.

* UndergroundMonkey In the original game:

** The Magician and Ghost enemies have Mage, Druid, and Wizard variants, with the Magicians having an extra Sorcerer class inbetween the Mage and the Druid.

** Will o'Wisps have two colors, Blue and Red, which indicate the path they take through the floors of the tower.

** Finally, after spending EleventyZillion quarters, you've reached the top of the tower and are ready to face Druaga in a climactic... Blue crystal rod? ''What'' blue crystal rod?!

** If you are playing on the [=PS1=] version's Another Tower, you have to ''press the Open button on your console'' in mid-game, something that you should never do in any other game.

Various {{Shout Out}}s and {{Bonus Dungeon}}s based on the game can be found in the VideoGame/TalesSeries and VideoGame/SoulSeries, and ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' has a {{Homage}} level that calls back to this game. Also, characters from the series appeared in ''VideoGame/NamcoXCapcom'', with Gil and Ki acting as a playable unit, and Druaga appearing as a boss.