Re-releases and remakes are all the rage again and many classic RPGs have been given the treatment. Recently, we’ve seen Final Fantasy VII remade and reworked for modern times. Old skool D&D crawlers such as Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment went the other way and gave us upscaled graphics but kept the gameplay the same. Tower of Time for Nintendo Switch falls into the latter category with varying degrees of success.
Here, we follow a party of explorers investigating the appearance of a strange upturned tower that’s been driven into the earth. Originally discovered by a young boy years ago, he left for the military and promised to return and uncover the secrets it holds. Taking his place on a mysterious throne, he commands his party of heroes and narrates the adventure.
Gameplay
Tower of Time is an odd mash of gameplay systems. We are presented something that looks like it’s going to play like an ARPG, but weirdly it isn’t. You’ll explore large maze-like levels from an isometric perspective. Branches hide a variety of side quests, NPC’s and loot as well as simple puzzles. It’s fun and examining the environment adds a lot of flavour to the world that it’s trying to build. It’s during these moments that the characters personalities also come to the fore as they banter back and forth.
When the time comes to battle, Tower of Time gets eh, interesting. Most encounters are signposted with enemies sitting there doing nothing until you approach them. Even the ambushes are telegraphed. It’s at this point the game loads you into a combat arena and things play out in real-time. However, it also gives players the option to slow time or pause the action. This system breaks up the flow of the game as the load times can be painful.
Method in the AI
Each party member is controlled manually with the player directing their movement, skills and nominating which enemies they should engage with. Enemies enter from the side of each screen in waves. They’ll focus on whichever character has been dealing the most damage or will attempt to pick off the weakest. The challenge in each fight is juggling character positioning, avoiding high damage area of effect attacks and ensuring everyone is engaging in combat. Ranged characters generally look after themselves with only their skills requiring player input. The melee characters on the other hand, become a pain.
These characters are meant to be the tanks who absorb the damage and draw the aggro. The issue is that unless an enemy is within their attack range, they stand there like dumplings doing nothing. Enemies can be a fraction outside this range and they will ignore them even if they are taking damage. This means they’ll consume most of your attention otherwise they are useless. Higher difficulty levels require an even more granular focus on the melee characters. The systems at play forces the combat to slow to a crawl as you reach for the pause button again and again.
The main issue regarding the combat stages is that the system is clearly built to be used with a mouse. Movement with the left stick works perfectly well, but targeting enemies and using skills employs a mouse pointer. It’s slow and occasionally inaccurate. This seems to be a theme that runs through most of this game – its pacing is poor and this leads to boredom.
Upgrade and levelling mechanics run counter to established RPG systems and take a little getting used to. Unlike almost every other RPG in existence, XP isn’t doled out for defeating enemies. In its place, each character must be trained in advanced fighting techniques which are hidden in each level. Finding one allows characters to progress to higher levels and in turn, learn new skills. All of this is done in a town area which is similar to Darkest Dungeon. Things are a bit more convoluted but it’s nice to see the team try something different.
Audio/Visual
Graphically it’s a bit of a mixed bag as well. So many of the textures are muddy and the characters get lost in the scenery. But there is a great deal of detail that they really tried to cram in to make each place look a little unique. In fact this is probably the main area where things are done well. Whether this is library’s filled with stacks of books and scattered with detritus, or caves filled with skeletal remains, environmental details help give the space a lived in feeling. However with it being set in a tower, what we have here are mainly generic looking dungeons.
Things clear up a bit when in the combat areas and everything looks more defined. The character models get the chance to shine a little more here. It also makes things a bit easier to read.
One issue that should be addressed is font size. With accessibility being something that is receiving a lot of focus these days, and rightly so, it’s disappointing to see the text is on the small side.
Not a Beacon of Excellence
As someone who has a hit or miss relationship with RPGs, Tower of Time falls into the miss camp. What initially starts as an interesting take on the genre, quickly descends into repetitiveness as the combat becomes easier and you steamroll everything.
The broken game flow and long load times for combat arenas becomes frustrating and as time went on I felt less inclined to pick the game up. The story is engaging but ultimately it won’t be enough to drag most people through the rote gameplay. There are much better RPGs out there, especially on Switch.