Azure Dreams is one of those weird little GBC gems that mixes dungeon crawling with town-building and monster taming—like if Pokémon had a baby with Rogue and Harvest Moon. You start off as this kid trying to rebuild your dad’s ruined town, but the real meat of the game is climbing this massive, ever-changing tower full of traps and monsters. Every run feels different, and if you die (which you will), you lose everything except your monsters and a few key items.

Oh, and about those monsters—you can hatch eggs to recruit them, then train them up like weird little battle pets. Some are useless, some are OP, and half the fun is figuring out which ones actually help. The town-building part is chill but weirdly satisfying—you slowly fix up shops and houses, and even romance one of the villagers if you’re into that. Just don’t expect the tower to go easy on you. It’s brutal, but in that "one more try" kind of way.

Also, the music slaps way harder than it has any right to on a Game Boy Color.