The Deadly Tower of Monsters Review

I was not a fan of B-Movies from the 50’s and 60’s but as I got older I learned to appreciate them for what they were, the ideas they had put into those type of movies without any of today’s tech was masterful which is where The Deadly Tower of Monsters comes in. It is the new game from the guys over at ACE Team in Chile which also have done Zeno Clash, Rock of Ages (no not the movie) and Abyss Odyssey.

It is a top-down shooter which starts with our unfaltering hero Dick Starspeed. He crash lands on a interesting planet called Gravoria. Without his ship or his trusty robot not anywhere to be found he has to search his new surroundings and inhabitants to escape the planet. After a chance encounter he crosses paths with the beautiful blond haired Scarlett Nova and finds his trusty robot though this being a B-Movie how can he not help the beautiful lady. Both of these chance encounters become playable characters each with their own abilities.

“Never the one to turn down a fight or a beautiful lady”

The reason for the B-Movie introduction is because that’s the main focus around this game. It’s shot in the 70’s like a B-Movie. With over the top commentary from the director as you are playing and the option to play in ‘DVD’ or ‘VHS’ quality gives you that very same impression. The graphics are very clean and very colourful which does pay homage to the styles of film techniques used in B-Movies. The controls are easy to get used to very quickly, although they can be clunky at times. My favourite part about this game is there are no loading screens, which is a welcome surprise in the current gen of games. Just continuous gameplay from start to finish. Which is where the tower part comes in. The idea is to climb the tower to the top to stop the evil emperor from completing his plan. Every enemy transmutes into gold when killed. This is the precious stuff he wants for his empire. He uses the inhabitants for labour till death then receives the gold. Our spritely trio just can’t let that happen.

You can play the game from start to finish in 5-6 hours depending and how you play and probably a few extra hours due to the side missions you can complete, they do not impact the story just a little bit more fun and exploration for you to do. You have an array of weapons and abilities at your disposal and you can change characters to what the situation fits. All three characters can use all weapons and each have a jetpack for those hard to reach places, but some abilities are only accessible by a particular character.

You can upgrade each character and weapons as you move further up the tower, you upgrade the weapons by collecting cogs and characters as you reach certain upgrade points. There is a good number of regular checkpoints or if you fancy going back you can either teleport back from the menu or just jump from a ledge, go on try it it’s fun. If you fail or die it does correspond to a deleted scene from the movie.