Game: Tower of Time
Genre: RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac)
Developer | Publisher: Event Horizon | Digerati
Age Rating: US: T | EU: 12+
Price: US $24.99 | UK £22.49|EU € 24,99
Release Date: June 25 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Digerati
Tower of Time is an RPG that focuses on exploration and smart combat, but it also offers an interesting narrative with decent characters.
Story
The story of Tower of Time is unlike any other I’ve come across in a game. Essentially, you must explore a mysterious and magical tower in pursuit of power, but you aren’t actually with your party members who do this: you manipulate them from a distance in a sort of telepathic manner. There is also an odd guardian that your party regularly deals with, and a vital history that has been forgotten by the people of the world.
While the characters can be a bit cliche, it still feels like the developers have put some thought into the way the characters talk and how they feel about things, especially when it comes to the two starting humans. I particularly like a mechanic where the characters will debate about tough decisions, and you can either let them resolve it themselves, or telepathically manipulate them to do as you wish. (This in turn will impact a sort of approval point system for the characters.) It’s a really neat feature.
The premise is good, and I liked the story up to the point that I reached. It has me curious to see how things develop.
Summon an Ent to Fight for You!
The visuals are sometimes a bit rough, but they’re not bad. There are some elements, like the way the tower guardian appears near your party, that actually look pretty cool. I also quite like the music, although I didn’t notice a great variety in tracks from the material that I played through.
The gameplay is enjoyable and has a lot of options for you to mess around with. You can train up your fighters, craft or enchant items, explore the tower, pursue secret/side areas, etc. Battles (even on the easier setting) require you to be calculated in regard to the terrain, the skills you use, your timing, and so on. There are also all sorts of fun skills you can use, like summoning an Ent to fight for you and setting traps and then luring your enemies into them.
Enter the Bugs
Unfortunately, the bugs came close to ruining my experience. The first one I ran into wasn’t quite as bad, but was still serious — cutscenes that dealt with narrative material would suddenly skip, meaning that you would miss the dialogue. It was a shame, but it didn’t stop me from continuing.
The biggest issue was a bug that actually kept crashing my Switch during combat. I reloaded this fight a couple of times but I simply kept crashing before I could win. After looking this up, it seems like this wasn’t just my problem, and it was a flaw with the Switch version that has only recently been patched. I delayed my review because of this, not willing to recommend it when it didn’t work properly.
Conclusion
I’m glad for the update, because I like the game and I think it’s enjoyable. Now that the bug I encountered appears to be fixed (and assuming that there aren’t more serious ones that I haven’t seen) I’m ready to give my verdict.
Final Verdict: I Like It.
