Moral Event Horizon: Neeba, either since his betrayal in season 1, or his killing Henaro at the end of season 2.
The game:
Americans Hate Tingle: While it has its fans outside Japan, especially with its inclusion in several Namco Museum compilations and more readily available guides, the original game did not enjoy much success for its Guide Dang It! nature and mandatory treasure chests needed to reach the game's ending — contrasting with most early 80s arcade titles that were easier to grasp and relied on high scores more than solving riddles and reaching a definitive end point. The series being exclusive to Japan for more than a decade didn't help, either.
Common Knowledge: 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.
Nintendo Hard: 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.
Scrappy Mechanic: The requirements for revealing most of the treasures are extremely vague or likely something a casual player would not consider doing. Most treasure chests are simply revealed by killing enough enemies, but then you get requirements that require killing enemies in a specific order, breaking down a random number of walls with the Pickaxe, walking over two specific parts of the map, or blocking a number of spells with your shield. Mess up and you must either suicide or continue on without the item, likely making the game unwinnable. More aggravatingly, certain treaures are, for all the trouble you have to go through for them, harmful instead, taking away much-needed upgrades. Several treasures are harmful by themselves, but required to beat the game nonetheless, and are only made useful if you possess another, completely different treasure! This game seems to have been built on the expectation that players will discover the game's secrets on their own and then share them with other players in some sort of community, like an arcade guestbook (online forums and guides weren't really a thing in the early 80s yet).
Quite possibly why the game is far more successful in Japan than everywhere else. Japanese gaming culture is more communal and more open to players sharing strategies at arcades, which was vital if players wanted to complete the original game, especially before the age of publicly-available, fast, and affordable internet coupled with sites like StrategyWiki and GameFAQs. In many western countries, mainly in the U.S. during the arcade era boom, the concept of arcades as social environments is generally lost on players, so players weren't as willing to collaborate to figure out how to find the next treasure. This is made worse today with the idea that using guides and asking other players for help makes you an idiot who shouldn't be playing the game, especially among American players.
That said, Namco Museum Volume 3 includes a hint booklet providing a general walkthrough, and Namco Museum DS can also display a hint guide for the current floor on the screen opposite of the screen being played on.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The game's Japanese flyer is very intricately-made, as the backgrounds are fully-scaled models of the titular tower, while Gil, Ki, and the enemies are drawings placed onto cardboard cutouts that are placed inside of the models, with some being suspended from ropes. The end result is an incredibly dynamic flyer that has a very distinct diorama aesthetic.
is very intricately-made, as the backgrounds are fully-scaled models of the titular tower, while Gil, Ki, and the enemies are drawings placed onto cardboard cutouts that are placed inside of the models, with some being suspended from ropes. The end result is an incredibly dynamic flyer that has a very distinct diorama aesthetic.