It is ugly, flabbergasting, devoid of many demands of the genre.. but it was also so very addictive. Enough to be fun.
Dying just throws you back out in town, as punishment any items you had in hand will be taken away. All money will be taken away. Also every time you exit the tower- whether or not it be triumphant, there is some silly unbreakable "curse" set on it the tower that makes you go back to level 1 every time. The game doesn't really let you know what loopholes you have to take advantage of in order to succeed, you must seek them out yourself and adjust your plans accordingly. The first adjustment is learning how not to rely on yourself. For once in a game you really do feel like a worthless brat. Like how a real fifteen year-old would be, if he entered a tower filled with monsters. He can't rely on his own strength. He has to rely on the strength of a beast he manages to somehow tame on his own, and hopefully he'll find useful items in the tower that he can use to make up for his weaknesses. The beast I mentioned.. you are kindly given one at the very beginning of the game. It's your responsibiltiy to try to level him up. Many an hour later, you'll come across some various eggs and be able to raise other monsters- you can analyze their skills and try to decide what would work best for you. There are at least 50 monsters to collect- but you can only ever really focus on one or two (the maximum you are allowed to carry.) There are many ways in which this game tries to hinder your success- you can only take 5 items into a dungeon at any time (and just rely on luck in finding any others you might have needed for the trip..) there are wonderously horrible traps set up all around the various rooms on any dungeon floor, one of my favorites is the "Monster Den" which fills up every inch of the screen with monsters and often promises a game over. It sounds hard, and by all means I expected it to be hard since there are a perposterous number of button commands that you have to keep note of in order to properly traverse each dungeon floor. But the game has a way of having you earn a little bit at a time and keeping your goals always in view. Kind of like dangling a bone in front of a dog to keep it running. But the sheer level of luck early on in the game is crazy- at one point we (me and my monster, actually they are called familiars in this game..) would enter a dungeon and be able to run up 22 floors of it before being forced to leave or die, and awhile later when we re-enter we would be promptly killed on the 9th floor. The game starts off quite hard but you can slowly but surely attain some things that will heighten your chance of success. Saving multiple wind crystals (the only thing to keep you from dying in this game, the sole object that lets you leave the tower) getting red and blue sands to increase the power of your sword and shield (the only way to permanently "level up" your character's attack and defense..) and of course, collecting familiars and just trying to drag yourself up one more floor.. The interesting thing was that it was always a test of survival- earlier I mentioned about "being forced to leave or die" why would we be forced to leave? Your monster has a limited number of attacks and moves they can make before they either A. Just sit down and pass out right there, becoming utterly useless or B. You administer an item for them, replenishing the points needed to operate. Also your health points are always at risk thanks to some heavy-hitting enemies. The vast portion of this game is spent struggling to live, failing (and being forced to use a wind crystal) and then trying again from scratch.. or with the slightest advantage, if you happened to have good luck (obtaining some new item) on your last venture. One thing I'm going to complain about (of all the many things I've complained about regarding this game..) is how things are a bit too particular. There are a plethora of different weapons and armor to collect, yet only a handful of them will really be worth using. You really have to dig deep (probably too deep) to find the ideal monsters and equipment that will ensure your victory. There are so many things about this game that made me mad. There is no real story, you have to start off from level one of the dungeon every single time (yes, I had to mention that more than once), despite the limited scope of the game it still takes at least 60 hours to beat unless you somehow manage to make a bunch of great decisions and have good luck, and yet also there is alot of good to take with the bad. The dungeon floors are randomized each time you enter them, so you never know when you might have some stroke of good luck. As much as this game constricts, it also allows alot of freedom- freedom in how you want to work your way to the top. You never know what kind of items might save your butt or what kind of monsters you'll have to rely on. Also there was a strange triumphant feeling upon getting all the people in town to acknowledge you, in getting to know the various girls (just a silly side game, but it greatly brought down a chance at tedium for me, as every time I left the dungeon I could always look forward to some new short scenes with the townspeople. It's the only hint at a story in this game. The translation isn't great, but that side endeavor as a whole was amusing enough to follow through to the end.) and just in somehow getting a bearable and fun time out of what was also such an irritating and punishing- but also unique experience. Now for the graphics. They are ugly. I liked the character designs (the main characters- for example the girls- have a wide range of expressions and a unique art style is used to depict them.) But the dungeon floors are all lacking in color, highly tacky, and a not-good kind of shiny. The sprites and environments are pixilated and plain, the monster designs are equal parts decent and plain- that could describe the graphical experience as a whole. The music is surprisingly diverse for a game with a limited amount of places to go. Each of the girls has her own musical theme, as you get higher in the dungeon the music changes, even the town theme changes as you start ascending higher floors of the tower- it gets more jubliant, as if congratulating you. A hope someday we'll see a sequel to this game. There are similar ones out there (the Dark Cloud series reminds me slightly of Azure Dreams. There was a largely disliked game called Tao's Adventure which was released for the DS, that seems to be slightly related (but not at all good.) It would be nice to see a real effortful sequel to Azure Dreams someday. If it remedied the problems of this game (the all-too annoying difficulty at the very beginning, threw in an actual storyline, made the dating system a bit deeper, didn't edit out "questionable" scripting and content*, let us keep and use a larger stable of creatures..) It could be great. But as for Azure Dreams- for me, it was both quite enjoyable and awful. Often dubbed as a love it or hate it game, I felt both ways and it all evens out to being a game I liked.
(Extra note - Reviewer's Tilt should actually be a 6. Maybe even a 5. But since the graphics and sound ratings have such a dramatic effect on the overall score, I notched it up a bit.
(* - One of the love interests is cut out of the english version of the game. To all game companies (because I'm sure they're reading this? ^^''), I beg, PLEASE NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN! I don't care how controversial a theme is, I'd rather see all of it or no release at all. Neutering games is a bad idea. Thanks.)
IMO, the difficulty level is hard for an rpg. But since this game can be either crazily hard and indirect or at times cheaply simple, I gave it a 'just right' and just ratcheted the learning curve up.)