Oh boy. Here I dredge up Konami's crap, even back in the day. Here we have Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal for the Nintendo DS. This is supposed to be a sequel to the Playstation 1 game, Azure Dreams. It's a dungeon crawler that allows you to journey through the Monster Tower in the town you're staying in.
However, this game has absolutely nothing to do with Azure Dreams or make any references so, whatever. Let's journey through this game and find out if it's good or not.
STORY
Our story begins in a town on an island far away where a Monster Tower is built to contain the strongest and terrifying beasts. One stormy night, a freak storm occurs and hits the tower, breaking the seal containing the monsters. Time has passed and on the Island of Bente, wakes up young Tao, an apprentice in the magic arts who's been taught by his father and mother. He goes to the temple to train but hears a strange cry.
Outside, a monster bird attacks and turns the residents outside and indoors to stone, and those inside the temple are protected by magic. Tao, is also one of the survivors. He has been tasked by the elders of Bente Island to go to the Monster Tower and find a cure, and even find information in the town he's going to stay in.
The magic they have, is not strong enough to break the bird's curse. So Tao set's off and saves a boy being attacked by monster after he makes it to shore. Also, it turns out that the people on the island really don't like the people of Bente because of what happened in the past. Tao journeys through the Tower's first couple of floors and meet's his new monster companion and suddenly this is turning into fucking Pokemon.
Anyways, this is basically the entire plot. You reach the top of the tower, fight a powerful... whatever the hell the demon's supposed to be and retrieve a Monster Egg. And from it, births a Phoenix that can cure any curse or spell in the world. Realizing this, he takes the Phoenix back to Bente Island and roll credits. We don't even see the fucking aftermath. Weak.
And that's it. There's no main villain or even some master plan to conjure that storm to break the Tower's seal. It just... happened. Lame story is lame.
GAMEPLAY
Oh boy. Gameplay is terrible. Tao is the only playable and controllable character and he excels in two weapons. Swords and staves. But the thing is, you need to equip a staff to use spells to attack and heal yourself. Making swords, worthless. Luckily, you can find items to upgrade your weapons to make it stronger.
What is stupid is your stuck with five important items that you can't get rid of, clogging up your inventory. Bente's Charm which does nothing. Tao's Father's Staff which you have to have using spells, a spell book to memorize spells and use them and many more. It's ridiculous.
All the spells can be conjured using touch screen with the stylus, but it seems... finicky for me. Most of the time it conjured up the wrong symbol for the wrong spell even though I drew it different. It's frustrating. Also, you have the control of Monsters on your side, but the A.I is really, really braindead.
They always use terrible abilities and go right in front of enemies and kill themselves due to stupidity. You also have to constantly exit the Tower of Monsters to heal and reorganize your shit. You'll be doing this a lot. Getting money is rather easy, getting out alive is tedious and frustrating. Thankfully you learn a teleport spell later on. But it's still tedious.
There's also a online, multiplayer mode in the coliseum where you pit Monsters against other players? But... no one got this game, so... Yeah. You have a restaurant that gives you food that does... pretty much nothing. You have the Monster House which you can choose to create monsters or sell the eggs for profit.
Then you have the Blacksmith that can upgrade your weapon of choice for a certain price. And the hospital... is pretty much just there for plot convenience. You also stay at the boy and father's place which is your base of operations to sort your items and stuff. Gameplay is boring, tedious and not fun. So much backtracking and organizing your supplies. It's so stupid.
SOUNDS
Sound effects are not that special and some are stock. Meh.
MUSIC
I don't remember much of the music because it sounds so generic. It's rather disappointing.
FUN FACTOR
There is none to be had.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND SCORE
This is a pretty bland, forgettable and generic game. I can't find anyone who likes this since this did poorly and had abysmal ratings and sales. Plus, this is Konami when they're starting to suck so that should have been a sign.
My final score is...
0/10
Yes. A zero. I had no fun or enjoyment here. The plot is so paper thin and basic even Fairy Tales have complexity and nuance to their stories. Tao's Adventure is pretty much: "The seal's broken, a stone curse turned people to stone, go and climb the tower. The end."
This game sucks ass and I can't believe they released this. Oh well, there are much better dungeon crawlers and RPG's out there. Just look at the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series or any Mystery Dungeon-esque game. Much better than Tao's Adventure. And that's it.
