Tower of Guns is a roguelike FPS. You spawn in the first of five levels in the titular Tower of Guns, and must fight your way through it until you reach the top – and victory. Along the way, you will fight numerous automated gun turrets – both fixed and floating – along with various other mechanical enemies which will attack you in hopes of killing you and forcing you to start over. EveryTower of Guns is a roguelike FPS. You spawn in the first of five levels in the titular Tower of Guns, and must fight your way through it until you reach the top – and victory. Along the way, you will fight numerous automated gun turrets – both fixed and floating – along with various other mechanical enemies which will attack you in hopes of killing you and forcing you to start over. Every level ends with a boss fight in some sort of arena, with a variety of bosses (and indeed, of possible levels) trying to keep things fresh.
That being said, this game is not actually that diverse in terms of gameplay. You only play through five levels (or six, if you go on to fight the optional final boss) in any particular playthrough. The levels are quite short, and can be beaten in just a few minutes, though you might spend 10+ minutes trying to find all the secrets in them (to no success; this is nearly impossible to do). You upgrade yourself by finding various random pickups, as well as collecting coins and using them on random vending machines which contain said pickups. Rarely, you will find a new gun. Enemies drop health (for healing) as well as xp (for levelling up your gun to shoot better shots and deal more damage).
But while all of this is well and good, and you can start the game with your choice of a weapon and a powerup (and unlock more of these by doing various tasks in-game), the sad reality is that there just isn’t that much to this game. The enemies end up being very samey after a while, and the room layouts become very familiar. The secrets are kind of obnoxious to find – some of them can only be found if you have the right items/pickups, which are random, while others are actually hidden behind invisible walls which give no hint to their existence. As the secrets are the primary gameplay extender here, and they’re kind of lame in many cases, this kind of hurts the game’s replayability even more than it already was, and a lot of the time you spend in-game is spent hunting for the secrets rather than fighting. If you just fight your way through the levels, most can be beaten quite easily within five minutes, and indeed, there are unlocks for doing so.
The game isn’t very difficult either; after my first three playthroughs ended at the first boss, I nearly beat the game on my next two playthroughs, and then successfully did so on my sixth, only four hours into the game, at which point the game held little new for me. Sure, there were various secrets that I hadn’t found, but what’s the point in hunting those out when so many of them are arbitrary? Moreover, what’s the point when you have already beaten the game – what challenge is there left for you? Is endless mode really that much of an attraction?
The answer to all this is “not so much”, meaning that this is more or less a game that you’ll play for an afternoon, beat, and unless you’re a hyper completionist, never bother with again. While the alternate text at the start of every level giving a bit of randomized backstory to why you are in the tower is mildly clever, it was simply not amusing enough to make me want to keep playing the game over and over again until I saw them all.
The game isn’t bad, and running through it until you beat it is decent enough, but it is very lightweight and doesn’t really have a whole lot to really recommend it. It is adequate, but is mere adequacy what you really want?… Expand
Tower of GunsYour Score0 out of 10User Score
