One of the better Virtual Console games we have downloaded for the Wii is Double Dungeons, which was first released for the TG-16 back in the early 90’s. It’s a very simplistic dungeon hack viewed from a first person perspective. Think a simple version of the original Wizardry or Bard’s Tale. But it’s a lot of fun!
< Screenshots
Anyway, the dungeons are surprisingly large for a game of it's type and era, and the final level - level 22 - is a particular doozy. Here's the map:
< level 22
Yesterday I decided to beat this level. The game has no save facility so I had no idea how long it would take, but anyone with any experience at this sort of game should recognize the above map as the first step toward madness.
My intention was to beat it without using a map, but about an hour into it, while I was still in the outer ‘ring’ of the labyrinth, I caved and powered up the laptop to display the map. Even then it took me nearly another two full hours to finish the level!
I can’t imagine how long this would have taken a player back when the game came out, especially since there was no way to simply find the map online. Furthermore, the dimensions of the map are so large that any piece of graph paper used to make your own map would quickly be exhausted! How I would have loved to face that challenge back in the day!
So I finally beat it, facing off against all manner of foul fiend such as ‘Amadeus’ (obvious mistranslation of Asmodeus) and ‘Glay Golem’ and defeating the final boss Vaness in what proved to be a very one-sided fight (he had no chance). And what was my reward for such an achievement you ask? Well I can show you…
