Tower Toppler

The Good
The pseudo 3D effect of the tower looks very impressive, especially back then. In a way it is a precursor to the use of prerendered graphics. It was a clever new use of sprites and the Amiga and Atari ST versions look very colorful.

The levels have a couple of nice puzzle elements. For example, at some points you have to shoot the blue blocks around the corner to clear the way, or you have to jump against walls in order to fall straight down. The first two towers pose a fair challenge, and the bonus levels where you shoot fish for extra time add some variety to the game.

The Bad
Starting from about tower 3 or 4, the difficulty is just way too high. Jumping over enemies requires pixel perfect timing or you'll just fall into the water. Walk a few pixels too far and you've basically cornered yourself on the edge of a platform; turn around and you'll fall backwards, often to your death.

There are disappearing platforms and slippery platforms, but they are not visually different from regular platforms. There are doors leading to the opposite side of the tower, but often these are trap doors that lead to nowhere and make you fall down again. This turns the later levels into a game of finding and remembering all the booby traps.

The last tower in mission #1 even ends with 4 identical doors and you'll just have to try which one is the real exit, the others just send you falling down again. The mission #2 towers are even worse, the first tower is basically a series of "gotcha" doors and platforms.

On top of all of that you have limited time to complete each tower. It is far too common to slip up near the top and fall all the way down to the beginning. Often you simply won't have enough time left to make it back to the top again, so the best strategy is to jump into the water to lose a life to reset the timer. The timer is a form of artificial difficulty and it would be much better game without a time limit.

The Bottom Line
An interesting game which still looks great today. But the gameplay relies too much on memorizing booby traps and pixel perfect timing, a gameplay style that has not aged well.

The Good
The concept is delightfully original - it's very much a platform game with a difference, and the level arrangements mean that progress involves advance planning and timing, rather like Lemmings or Bombuzal. The time limits are well-judged, giving you a chance to recover from mistakes and plan your move.

The 3D routines used give the game a fresher feel

The Bad
The instructions this version comes with are thoroughly hopeless, completely failing to explain the use of moving ledges (and thus, the entire system of progress up the towers) and really needed visual representations of each of the game's features alongside the explanations. For my first few goes I got absolutely nowhere, and only got into it through much persistence.

The Bottom Line
The kind of game which was common in the 80s but unusual today - a simple idea (climbing to the top of a succession of towers before triggering a destruction sequence - the towers involve a complex of lifts, stairways and gaps, as well as various moving hazards that can or can't be shot) executed brilliantly.

Incidentally, the PC remake is pretty ugly, other than the bonus levels (the rendered graphics are samey and have no character) - you'd be better off to find this version and play it via an emulator.