Towerfall Ascension is the best of indie gaming. Concerned not with making a grand narrative statement, emotional impact or declaration of art. Towerfall is concerned with only one thing. Fun. Oh boy, is it a great big overflowing bucket of it. Towerfall is both a throwback to games of old and a nod to current classics. But seriously, it’s so much fun.
Creator Matt Thorson has taken elements from Super Smash Bros., Castle Crashers, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Bomberman and even the Halfbrick developed Raskulls, put them all in a blender and come out with a delicious smoothie of gaming goodness. Essentially, Towerfall Ascension is an arena combat game. Two to four players face off on a 2D plane in an attempt to be the last man standing. What separates Towerfall is that the method of attacking isn’t melee based. In fact, there’s no melee at all. Instead, each of the players is an archer. With a limited number of arrows.
Characters can jump, move left and right, dodge and fire arrows and that’s it. It’s amazing how such a simple moveset can create such hectic, pulse pounding gameplay. Each and every round of Towerfall is a carefully calculated chess game. Not wanting to move to soon and be taken out by your opponents, you also don’t want to remain in one place lest they get the drop on you. There’s a razor-thin line to walk in each round, but since they never last longer than a few minutes, death is not such a burden.
Adding to the strategic way in which Towerfall must be played are some very clever mechanics. Each character only has a finite number of arrows and once they are spent more can only be acquired by collecting them from where they lay on the level. An indicator of the number of arrows is displayed above each characters head so everyone can see. When it comes down to one arrow vs four you know you have a good chance of coming out on top. When firing arrows your the characters are rooted to the spot and can no longer move. Standing still is a sure fire way to get killed so choosing shots wisely becomes second nature rather quickly. A shot can be cancelled by pressing the down button and faking out opponents is also a legitimate — not to mention fun/devious — way to secure precious kills.
The levels are all really cleverly designed and often ever changing during the match so as to prevent players from simply hiding in a corner. Also making escape all but impossible is the fact that each level — like Super Mario Bros. and Pac-Man — endlessly scroll. If you exit through a gap on the right side you’ll appear on the left. If you drop through the bottom you’ll come out at the top and so on. Failing to pay attention to your surroundings will end in your swift removal from the game. Death can and will come from every direction. Arrows will be the main cause for your death, but taking a cue from Mario, enemies can kill you by jumping on your head. Be careful not to let anyone get the drop on you.
Towerfall was originally released as an exclusive for the Ouya, but is now available on both PS4 and PC as Towerfall Ascension. New to Ascension is a quest mode for one to two players that is essentially a horde mode. While a decent addition, it’s no match for multiplayer and I found myself going back to multiplayer rather swiftly. While it’s a nice addition, more levels, characters and multiplayer modes would have been better.
If there’s a flaw with Towerfall Ascension it’s that for the price it’s a little light on content. With only a handful of levels (each with different power-ups to use) and a few characters the variety is limited. It doesn’t get any less fun and I’m still yet to be bored with it, but I can see it coming up on the horizon. Perhaps just in time for some DLC?
Towerfall Ascension is the advertisement for why couch co-op/mutiplayer is still just as relevant and fun as it has ever been. Playing with a group of friends, trash-talking and challenging each other to be the best simply wouldn’t work or feel the same over an internet connection. Do yourself a favour, download Towerfall Ascension, get a group of friends over and play into the wee hours of the morning. You won’t believe just how quickly time flies when you’re having this much fun.
