Who played Azure Dreams back then?

Around the time the first Pokemon games were released in the west, there also was another Monster collecting game for the PS1 "Azure Dreams"

It was very difficult and punishing and not very accessible and probably never became very popular for that reason. The whole game was one town (that you could evolve by creating new buildings) and a roguelike tower with 40 floors. When you died in the tower, you lost all your equipment and only kept your monster level progress.

I also remember struggling and get frustrated first and managed to climb all 40 floors only after years, but it was one of the most satisfied accomplishments i ever experienced. (similar experience with Dark souls lately)

I played the GBC version, To me, this game feels like Battle Pyramid of Emerald, It's hard, but it's rewarding as highter you climb in the tower, the gbc version however is easier than ps1 version, the designs of monsters are very similar to digimon monsters, but I think it's a good game overall, the only bad aspect is your character goes back to level 1 everytime you out the tower, this balances the game a bit, but the grinding becomes boring because you have to climb the tower again and having only strong monsters and a low leveled player is totally risky, I think it should have better ways to re-climb the tower without this boring aspect.

yeah the gbc version was really easy and i didn't quite like it. Also there was a spiritual successor on the DS that also wasn't as good as the PS1 original.

The aspect that your level was set back every time made it an Roguelike game that are quite popular nowadays.

I played the PS version of this. It's been long enough that I don't remember how far I got, though I definitely remember getting frustrated and maybe a little discouraged every time I died. It was definitely one of those games I rented only once ever as I didn't have the patience back then to deal with it.

I wonder how I much I would like it now.