Sixty hidden treasures. No instructions. Before the internet, finding them all meant trusting the stranger next to you.
Players at game centres started writing what they found on paper, then trading the paper near the cabinets. Regulars came back to compare floor notes, check rumours and hand over what they had proved.
— inspired by Masanobu Endo
About this game
Namco put The Tower of Druaga on the Famicom on August 6, 1985. The tower has sixty floors, and on each floor exactly one hidden action — standing in one particular corner, killing the enemies in one particular order, walking over one invisible tile — makes a treasure chest appear. Several of those treasures are needed to survive higher up, so a player who missed one on floor twelve could climb another twenty before the game quietly became unwinnable. Masanobu Endo, who had designed Xevious two years earlier, left all sixty conditions undocumented.
Gallery
The Story Behind
In April 1983, a group of high-school players self-published Xevious 10,000,000-ten e no Kaihou, a strategy fanzine for Endo's earlier game that appeared three months after it reached arcades. Druaga no Tou no Subete ga Wakaru Hon was published by ASCII, edited by the staff of its magazine Monthly Login, with editorial help from a young Satoshi Tajiri, who went on to create Pokémon.
Tricks & Tales
Many of the conditions have no visible connection to the reward: jumping in a specific corner, entering the floor with a particular item equipped, killing every enemy inside a time limit no player was told about.
Collector's Guide
Region & Compatibility
Released only in Japan for the Famicom, which was sold abroad as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The 1984 arcade original was not exported either. North America did not receive the game in any form until Namco Museum Vol. 3 on the PlayStation, and did not get a standalone release until the Wii Virtual Console in 2009. No official English version of the Famicom game was ever produced.
Maintenance Tips
The gold-plated edge connectors on Famicom and NES cartridges pick up skin oils and oxidation over decades — a gentle wipe with a cotton swab dampened in 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol, stroking along the length of the pins rather than across them, is the accepted standard. Let the alcohol fully evaporate before reinserting. The old habit of blowing into a cartridge is folklore: the moisture in breath causes slow corrosion of the contacts over time, and any improvement you felt came from the act of re-seating the cart, not from the breath itself. Nintendo eventually updated its own troubleshooting guidance to say explicitly: do not blow into your Game Paks.
Going deeper
Explore the machine this game ran on, and what to check before you buy or care for one:
What to Watch Out For
Before buying, these are the points worth knowing — from someone who handles original Japanese The Tower of Druaga copies regularly.
Will this Japanese Famicom cartridge work on a North American NES?
No, not without an adapter. The Famicom uses a 60-pin edge connector; the NES uses a 72-pin connector with a different physical form. Third-party adapters exist that bridge the pin difference and allow Famicom cartridges to run in a NES. On a Japanese Famicom, NES cartridges face the same incompatibility in reverse. To play Tower of Druaga, you need a Japanese Famicom, a compatible clone console, or a NES with an appropriate adapter.
Is there any English-language version of this game I should know about?
No. Neither the 1984 arcade original nor the Famicom version was ever released outside Japan. The game first reached North America decades later, bundled inside Namco Museum Vol. 3 on the PlayStation, with a standalone Western release only arriving on the Wii Virtual Console in 2009. Fan-translated ROM patches exist for emulation, but no licensed English cartridge version exists.
Before You Buy
Things worth knowing before you buy The Tower of Druaga
A short checklist for buying a used Famicom cartridge wisely — useful with any seller, anywhere.
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Choose a seller who tests it before shipping
A copy that has actually been powered on and checked is a known quantity. An untested one is a gamble you only settle after it arrives.
Look for a seller who states it was function-tested and says what they confirmed. A serious seller can tell you exactly what was checked.
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Make sure it fits your console
This is a Japanese Famicom cartridge with a 60-pin connector; a North American NES uses a 72-pin slot, so it will not fit directly.
Play it on a matching Japanese console or a region-free system, and confirm the listing states the region.
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If this title saves your progress, check the battery
Cartridges that save use a small coin-cell battery that fades over decades — a dead one wipes your save without warning.
Ask the seller whether the save function was tested. Replacing the battery is possible, but doing so erases any existing save.
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Check that the contacts are clean
Dirty edge contacts are the most common cause of startup and sound trouble in cartridges of this age.
Choose a seller who cleans the contacts before shipping. A note that it was tested and cleaned means the basics were handled.
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Confirm it is genuine, not a reproduction
Sought-after titles are targets for reproduction boards with replacement labels.
Ask for a photo of the circuit board and look for factory markings. Favour a shop with a licensed second-hand dealer permit (古物商) — by law its stock has a traceable origin, your simplest guard against fakes.
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Read the seller's reviews and return policy
A 100% positive record across thousands of sales is close to a guarantee — packing, communication and problem-solving all work for everyone. A return policy protects you if something is off.
Read the feedback and confirm a clear return window before you buy.
The last step before buying anywhere is knowing what it's worth.
See what we have in stock →Unexpected Discoveries
Games you weren't looking for — but might be glad you found.
Rooms this game lives in
Wander deeper — explore the themed rooms where The Tower of Druaga sits alongside its kin.
Memories from around the world
This is a young museum, and this page is still waiting for its first voices. The memories people send reach Taisei personally, and the ones that move him find a home here over time — always with the writer's blessing. Yours could be the very first for this game.
Share your memory ↑From the Museum's Screening Room
Tower Of Druaga — Max Explains