End of a Quest

Today, a special package arrived in the mail from far away. It is a small, unassuming device in a plain FedEx shipping envelope. But it contains the culmination of a personal quest started many, many years ago. What is this quest, you may ask? To play Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom, the Capcom arcade game.

Growing up in the western suburbs of Minneapolis, MN, I never truly go into arcade games. Part of that reason was the nearest arcade was all the way over in Ridgedale (Picadilly Circus), far too long a distance for just arcades. I've always enjoyed playing arcade games, just never on the level of obsession that many of my other hobbies possess. Once AD&D came into my life that became the major obsession. And then I found the Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom arcade game. I honestly can't recall where the first machine was that I played - perhaps St. Cloud, perhaps the Denver International Airport, perhaps Crystal Cave in southern Minnesota. These are all places that had the elusive arcade game and I enjoyed playing it every time.

Over the past few years this game became a small obsession. I would look occasionally on eBay for the arcade machine, because, c'mon, how cool would it be to have a full coin-op machine in your living room? Real cool, that's how. But cost and availability always kept me from obtaining the arcade machine. That left only two options - find a ROM of the game or search out the only console port ever made.

One would think that finding a working ROM of the game wouldn't be that difficult, but whether through bad luck or just sheer ineptitude I never got any of them to work. But I was always aware of the only console port ever of the game, called the Dungeons & Dragons Collections for the Sega Saturn. Do you remember the Saturn? Not a terrible console, all things considered, but it was going up against the Sony PlayStation. The Saturn enjoyed a short active life cycle (but not nearly as short as the Sega CD or the Neo Geo), during which it garnered a loyal fanbase of primarily 2D fighting fans and Japanese RPG lovers. But in Japan, they got the Dungeons & Dragons Collection, which included both Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara (which I had never even HEARD of before).

This Christmas, I did a lot of shopping online, and specifically on eBay. There are a few things I always check when I'm on eBay as force of habit. One is the Walker in the Wastes Call of Cthulhu campaign from Pagan Publishing and the other is Tower of Doom. This year, I don't know what it was, but I got a wild hair up my ass that sent my quest for Tower of Doom into overtime. I had a little extra money and was determined to get the game regardless of the cost.

Step one - get a Sega Saturn. No problem, found one for about $40 that came with two games (Virtua Fighter 2 and NHL '98, neither terribly great games). Arrived from Texas in a timely manner a few weeks before Christmas.

Step two - get the Dungeons & Dragons Collection. The game is somewhat rare, so I figured this would be the costly option. The first auction I bid on I lost to a last-second sniper - that one went for $60. I said "screw this" and went for the cheapest But It Now option I found, which was a mere $100. Add $10 for shipping from Hong Kong and I was so far into this endeavor about $150. But gosh darn it if the game wasn't on its way. Now to play the waiting game, I thought to myself.

The game arrived in short order and I was ecstatic. But something a friend of mine said caused doubt to eat at my enthusiasm. If this was a Japanese only release, will it work on my US-produced Sega Saturn? The short is: no, no it won't.

Got the game, rushed home, and discovered that the game was an NTSC-J region while the console only supported NTSC regions. I was this far into it, I wasn't backing out at this point. Doing a little research I found that there is a small item called an Action Replay cartridge that allows one to play imported games. I called every vintage video game retailer in the metro area and came up empty handed. I resigned myself to ordering it through eBay, found one for $30, and ordered with with the fastest shipping available from Michigan. This was the week before Christmas.

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. The seller I bought the replay cartridge from had very good feedback, but the most recent one indicated that the buyer had waited for more than three weeks and still hadn't received the merchandise. I contacted the seller to ask when it would ship, since PayPal indicated that my successful payment had not been claimed. No response. No response continued to be the only response I got for two weeks.

Then, last Sunday, I said "screw this" and ordered a new Action Replay cartridge from a site called Play-Asia.com. The cartridge was $30 and shipping from Hong Kong was $20. I sighed and completed the sale, contacting the original seller from eBay asking to cancel my order. Another round of waiting was in store.

But fate luckily smiled on me this time, and I got to work Monday morning to find an email waiting. The email said my order had been shipped via FedEx and the tracking number said to expect it by 1/8/08 by 10:30 am. I checked my watch - Monday was the 7th, which meant Tuesday was the 8th. Whaaa ... ? A fluke, I said to myself, unwilling to believe it. It must be a fluke. Monday passed but anticipation was growing in my belly. At the end of the day I checked the tracking again. It was in Anchorage, Alaska. Holy crap.

I let excitement get the best me and had trouble sleeping Monday night. Visions of fighters and troglodytes and manticores danced in my head. Tuesday arose, I went to work, and saw that the tracking results put my shipment in the Eden Prairie facility already. It was out for delivery. It was a slow day, so I resolved to take off early if my package arrived.

I got home at 2:30 pm (normally I work until 4 pm) and was playing Tower of Doom within moments of getting home. It was everything I remembered, except everything was in Japanese. But I knew that, so it was no surprise. I'm taking a break right now, because I realized something very important. The Dungeons & Dragons experience is but a fraction of itself when enjoyed alone. Sadly, the console only supports two players instead of the arcade's four, but still.

I relax in the knowledge that my quest has reached a successful conclusion. And only $230 sunk ($30 of which I should be getting back from that seller on eBay). A job well done, I guess.