Game: Dark Tower: RPG Dungeon Puzzle
Genre: Action, Puzzle, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, IOS)
Developer|Publisher: PrimeBit Games
Age Rating: EU 7+|US 10+
Price: UK £4.49|EU € 5,00|US $ 5.00|AU $ 7.50 |CA $ 6.62
Release Date: 21st February 2020
How to even begin with Dark Tower? This title is a a puzzle, top down dungeon crawler RPG – I think. Apparently this type of game exists in a very niche genre according to the internet. But despite the confusion it may cause I’m going to do my best to review this rather unique indie title.
Strap on your best cloak because its time to head into a dark dungeon.
Battle your typical rats, goblins and golems
When I first booted up Dark Tower I was greeted by a basic main menu which allowed for touch controls. This game appears to have started out as an IOS title (which is free to download today). However, that version does contain micro-transactions. The Switch version has none of this but requires a fee to download the experience.
Once you start the game you get to name your character. I decided to go with Arietty since I recently watched the cute and cuddly film of the same name by Studio Gibli. My Arietty in this game was not a charming miniature girl though but a knight heading into the ‘Dark Tower.’ With the main aim to basically get to the top and stop the evil sorceress. From there you’re dropped straight into the dungeon. The game gives you some very basic tutorial instructions and sorta just lets you get on with things really.
Graphically everything’s very 2D looking and kinda bland. The level structure is just a basic castle design really lacking in any unique personality. The enemies themselves are your typical rats, goblins, golems things you would expect to find in any typical dungeon crawler video game ( as well as in dark and abandoned castles in the UK. I don’t know if that’s a fact I’m just going by what my grandfather told me when I was little.)
The enemy designs as well as your characters design look like paper cut outs but they do have some basic pulsing movement animations just to reassure you that they’re alive and well. There’s also music but it’s a single track which loops over and over, which is rubbish. Instead I just put my headphones in and listened to Ori and The Blind Forest which weirdly fitted the experience.
Wander the corridors of Dark Tower
So how does Dark Tower play? The controls are pretty simple, you go bump into things (a bit like old school dungeon crawler rogue like games) only this requires much more effort and brain power. As well as enemies, keys and potions which are dotted everywhere to increase your stats. You can also spend money with a merchant on some floors in exchange for any of the goodies mentioned above.
The dungeons or floors in this game are fixed and not randomly generated keep this in mind as you’ll be seeing the same floors over and over in this game. If you bump into an enemy you’ll automatically attack it. Provided you have enough attack points you’ll be presented with a cool little sword and shield animation indicating your attack. You’ll then receive some gold, some stars (which acts as experience points in this game) and health damage. You then keep wandering around bumping into things until you run out of keys to open doors or you’re not appropriately leveled to take down the enemy.
And thus this was how the story of the brave knight Arietty came to a quick end. Since the game doesn’t really give you much instruction I just spent my first playthrough bumping into things until I got to a powerful enemy I literally could not kill. The game just came up with the message ‘too weak to attack.’ Arietty didn’t die, she was just doomed to wander the corridors of Dark Tower for what seemed an eternity until I quit back to the main menu and started the adventures with my new knight Bob. Why the game could not just indicate I had expired all possible moves I don’t know.
Bob and the Zombie came to an understanding
Bob seemed wiser than Arietty. Less impulsive more calm, collected. He took in his surroundings more. Didn’t just go bumping into everything. By this point in the game I had figured out the leveling up system. You can level up 3 stats: attack, defence and health. Well, health isn’t really leveled up, you can just trade experience stars in exchange for more health. Whereas putting points into attack and defense are permanent.
The trouble Bob had is he was attack-focused, because that’s how I often play dungeon crawler action games. Sink tons of points into attack and kill the big bad monsters. And so the quest of Bob came to abrupt end. While he had got 3 or 4 floors past Arietty he still found a Zombie that he was just too weak to defeat. The zombie didn’t kill him. I like to think Bob and the Zombie came to a understanding and sorta shared a picnic in the corner of the Dark Tower. Unfortunately this doesn’t actually happen in the game but its my imagination so I’ll let it run wild.
Credits for perseverance
No fear because Raggy the third knight would take up the mantle. By this point it was getting rather annoying that I had to repeat the same floors over and over again. Dark Tower has no checkpoints. When you start a new game you have one chance to win and that’s it. You can of course close the game and continue later where you left off, but if you get to floor 10 like Raggy and run out of blue keys because you used too many earlier you have to start a new run again and repeat those prior 10 floors yet again. Only this time trying to play more sensibly.
I should mention at this point after progressing just a little further I found Dark Tower much more digestible in bite sized playthroughs. As opposed to long gaming sessions. I also pretty much only played this game in handheld mode. Though when I played on the TV to capture screenshots the looked significantly uglier.
The forth knight I didn’t give a name so he/she ended up being called Knight 4 by the save file created. By this point I’d started to get to grips with how this game worked. Your attack stats tell you if you’re strong enough to defeat a monster. What’s far more sensible and important is your defense stats. This dictates how much damage you will receive from enemies. If it’s high enough you’ll receive no damage from certain enemies. It is however, impossible to play through Dark Tower without taking some damage. This is sort of where the puzzle element comes in. You don’t have enough keys to open every door, you need to discover the most efficient route through the game. So while I thought sinking all points into defense was sensible it meant Knight 4 was just too weak to take down a stone Golem. So he was also left in the dungeon to take up his real passion – life painting.
Knights continued to try, some would run out of keys, but most often they were just “too weak to attack” as I hadn’t balanced the stats correctly. One of the most important player references is the Bestiary. This is a book you can bring up in the menu which informs you of the stats of the monsters you have encountered in the dungeon. Including their health, attack and defense power. So by looking at this constantly I was able to plan better and get further through the game a bit at a time. Since the bestiary only shows you the stats of enemies you defeated, it became a game of chance whenever you faced a new monster. It was this unknown element which would dictate weather I progressed or failed another run. The latter often making me take a long break from the game to try again another time.
It was brave Knight 12 who conquered the Dark Tower in the end. He drove his sword into the enchantress and ended the evil. Knight 12 then freed Arietty, Bob, Raggy and Knights 5-11 who were doomed to wander the corridors forever. Knight 4 however, stayed behind to paint as his career was really taking off and he needed somewhere to store all his art work. Of course none of this really happened but then who’s to say in this world?
Conclusion
So should you buy Dark Tower? Probably not. I’d say download the free mobile version to see if it appeals that or pick it up on the cheap. Or wait till you find it in the sales in the Switch’s eShop. It’s frustrating and difficult and requires you to learn a lot of the mechanics yourself.
Did I like it? Well, I did, in the end. I started out disliking the experience but I was driven to keep trying and see the game to its fruition. The game has many problems absolutely, but I kept being called back to it to try get a bit further. When I did finally conquer it, it was quite a good feeling.
Final Verdict: I like it
