Tower of Time

 PC
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 105 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 71 out of 105
  2. Mixed: 24 out of 105
  3. Negative: 10 out of 105

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  1. ZaPaAl
    Jun 22, 2018
    7
    Quite a good effort, visually attractive, passable story, big maps that are interesting to travel and with a lot of detail. It started engaging and interesting, but did quite drag from about half way through to close to the end. Dialog is not voiced, except of the rendered scenes.

    What mostly hurt is the combat, which pulls you out of exploration in a non immersive kind of way, with    Quite a good effort, visually attractive, passable story, big maps that are interesting to travel and with a lot of detail. It started engaging and interesting, but did quite drag from about half way through to close to the end. Dialog is not voiced, except of the rendered scenes.

    What mostly hurt is the combat, which pulls you out of exploration in a non immersive kind of way, with many combat maps recycled over again and again. Those combat situations have some tactical interesting approaches initially, but later on it all becomes a repetitive grind of dealing with damage sponges or hordes of minions, often taking huge amounts of time to actually even spawn on the battlefield. At this stage I only targeted the boss or the biggest group of enemies, paused and had everyone cast their 3/4 abilities in a general direction. Wait and Repeat. No tactic required. I switched to story difficult then, because battles just took to long, and were not much fun.

    Game has mountains of loot, which you can only wear or dismantle to craft items. This became a bit much and hardly necessary later on. Probably depends on difficulty and time investment.

    The affinity system does not really work, as it has hardly any impact.

    Around floor 6 I felt I should be close to the end, but it kept continuing on and on and did not really bring much of twists combatwise or storywise to the table. With this, reaching the final level was not easy. Ending is quite ok though.    … Expand
  2. marc5477
    Apr 17, 2018
    6
    A good effort and I would say its slightly above average (5 being average on Metacritic). Get boring about 10 hours in.

    Its a tactical RPG that uses slow time during combat to allow for player response. I believe it can also pause but I never had to do that. The way encounters work is you have to run into them in the normal view and then you are basically teleported to a MOBA-style    A good effort and I would say its slightly above average (5 being average on Metacritic). Get boring about 10 hours in.

    Its a tactical RPG that uses slow time during combat to allow for player response. I believe it can also pause but I never had to do that. The way encounters work is you have to run into them in the normal view and then you are basically teleported to a MOBA-style level where combat takes place. Combat is actually pretty fun. You have 4 characters active at a time and you choose from 7 people of differing classes with their own unique abilities. You can reassign skill points at will (like Diablo 3) and you assign stat points like many other RPG's. You get to choose up to 4 active skills at a time and you use those in battle. Nothing unique but and it plays alot like a DOTA or LoL. I think that combat is fine compared to console RPG's but is pretty boring compared to PC RPGs like Baldurs Gate or open world RPG's like Skyrim. A lot of people complain that Skyrim is a dumbed down Oblivion which is a dumbed down Morrowing (I am one of those people) but even Skyrim is leagues more advanced in terms of skills/spells, gear and general customizing your character. Again, this is about as deep as a MOBA in terms of character options.

    The bad in this game is exploration. It a total bore. All you do is run around and click something to see a wall of text about something you are not particularly interested in.

    The story is simply that your leader is compelled to explore a tower... thats it. You uncover the world history as you do so and frankly... I just didnt care. Characters do not have their own stories, they simply show up and join you. They may have some backstory but rather than letting you RPG the story, its basically compulsory and very linear. Perhaps this is why I did not care. We all know how the game will end from minute 1, so reading all the text on the way down feels unnecessary. In an open world style RPG, you usually impact the story. The main plot may not change much, but you can change the story of your companions and what happens to other NPC's depending on your actions. In this game, there does not seem to be any impact aside from not getting an extra 300 gold or a useless item.

    Again, this is not a bad game. Combat is ok but dont buy this looking for a deep RPG story. Its linear like traditional jRPG's. But as a 1st iteration, its actually pretty good. I hope to see more from this company in the future.    … Expand
  3. BlueBangkok
    Sep 22, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What an unbalanced, disjointed game this is. On one hand, the developers genuinely care about their players and did their best to create a good RPG experience. On the other hand, the game has most of its charm at the beginning and it only goes downhill from there. So how is it and should you play it? These have no easy answers and I will have to spoil the **** out of this game to explain the average 5/10 rating I gave it.

    You are strangely personified as a player in this game. The main protagonist, a non-combatant, sits on a magical throne in a mystical tower and his "champions" (yes, that's right... be prepared for more popular game / culture cringey references in this so-called "deep" and "serious" game) are exploring the tower in his stead. He can influence them telepathically, slightly nudging them in the chosen direction when there's a moral dilemma to solve. That's an interesting twist to the alignment system, however, in the end all it amounts to are minuscule bonuses (if the champion agrees with you) or penalties (if s/he disagrees) in combat. There is absolutely no story or character development branching, or something like multiple ends, etc. All alignment does is give mild bonuses/penalties and that's literally it. What a completely wasted opportunity.

    The game is on rails for 99% of the time. The only freedom of exploration you have is whether or not to go into a tiny secret area. Otherwise you just complete quests on each floor in linear fashion and continue on to the next one and repeat that. Sounds repetitive and boring? Yes, that's about right. Exploration and "questing" (if you can call it that) in this game is a boring chore. You will spend about 75% of the game running from A to B and backtracking from B back to A. Thankfully there are teleports at least.

    So what saves this game, you ask? Is it the story? Combat? Sadly, no and no. The developers obviously wanted to do "something else", so they went for the oldest and cheapest trick in the book - mixing fantasy and sci-fi genres. The game takes place in a post-apo world and initially presents itself as a classic save-the-world fantasy troupe. However, soon you find out that in the ancient times, people had trains, planes, and planned to go to the outer space, but then a race of omnipotent beings from another universe, who devour all matter and energy and are powerful enough to extract energy from supermassive black holes by going below their event horizon (I am not making this up...) opened up a small wormhole, scattered some energy crystals on the planet's surface, hoping that people would absorb them and use their power to perform magic, and each such use would make the wormhole a little bit larger so the bad ones could enter our world to consume it, too. If you think this is far-fetched, then know that all of this is dumped onto the player in the first 25% of the game and the rest only gets more ridiculous. Also, there are major plot holes and inconsistencies later in the story, only showing that devs just wanted to have their super epic sci-fi drama and didn't think this through (or did any sort of astrophysical research beyond PBS Spacetime playlist). It's a "different" story that is different only for the sake of being different. If this was a classic fantasy cliche instead, it would have been much more playable.

    So what about combat? Well, it starts OK but quickly becomes boring and repetitive. It's like a MOBA, each character has Q, W, E, R skills s/he can use in battle and the only tactics this has is keeping you squishies in the back and tanks at the front. Otherwise there is no tactics - every fight is the same, it's a gear & level check every time. Either you are sufficiently powerful and win, or you aren't, in which case you lose, reload, and grind some more levels. Each character can choose between two trees for each skill which offers some variety, but even so every character is locked in their respective role. You cannot make a ranged DPS char into a healer or dagger user, for example, if you wanted - you can only adjust the details, otherwise the RPG system is set in stone, just like a JRPG. Enemies are very boring below floor 3 or so, being mostly reskins of earlier enemy types.

    I suspect that most 10/10 reviewers didn't play this past the first few floors, because at floor 5 or so you will begin questioning yourself why you're playing this at all. Quality of the environment, level design, and attention to detail goes downhill the lower you go. This is a game which gives good initial experience but lets you down more and more the further you go.

    The devs knew that they wanted an unconventional, gloomy experience as a sort of anti-thesis to the clichéd fantasy CRPG hero genre. But they didn't know how to do it properly and what we ended up with is a half-baked, disjointed game that doesn't know what to do, often contradicts itself, and leaves absolutely no satisfaction in the player.    … Expand
  4. keltari
    Feb 14, 2020
    7
    I am 33 hours into my initial playthrough of Tower of Time. It has a lot of good things going for it. However, it is not perfect. There definitely are some negatives that work against it, both large and small. Overall, the game has been enjoyable and I would recommend it. However, if you are looking for a challenging cRPG, this is not it. Other reviews cover pretty much everythingI am 33 hours into my initial playthrough of Tower of Time. It has a lot of good things going for it. However, it is not perfect. There definitely are some negatives that work against it, both large and small. Overall, the game has been enjoyable and I would recommend it. However, if you are looking for a challenging cRPG, this is not it. Other reviews cover pretty much everything good and bad. I will just point out the two biggest flaws I found in this game:

    First, is combat. Combat is completely underwhelming. Normal difficulty is ridiculously easy. I can see what the developers were going for. They wanted players to combine character abilities in combat to maximize damage and control the battlefield. Then wanted you to use the environment and crowd-control to your advantage. They wanted you to selectively use your abilities and conserve mana. They wanted you to pause/slow the game to position your characters and decide what to do next. They wanted you to inspect the enemies to see their strengths and weaknesses. I can see these strategies being important if combat was more difficult. However, normal mode is so easy, that none of this is necessary. Combat requires little micromanagement or thought. Perhaps I would have found a harder mode more challenging and engaging. However, harder difficulties are only available after you complete the game. Unfortunately, once I complete the game I will be moving onto another game, so I will never know.

    Second, is items. Items in this game are an absolute mess. If combat wasnt so easy, this would make the game very frustrating. The biggest issue is that other than a few preset items, all the items have randomly generated statistics and attributes. These stats and attributes can be both positive and negative. This makes comparing items difficult, even ones that are several levels apart. There are a large number of stats and attributes, as well. Fortunately (or unfortunately), it would seem most of the stats and and attributes are largely meaningless, as shown by how easy combat is. I could actually go into a LOT more detail on how poorly designed the item system is. However, lets just leave it as saying it is very bad.

    Again, I think overall the game is good. With a little more polish it could have been excellent.    … Expand
  5. QweSteR
    Aug 14, 2018
    7
    Механика боя и исследование карты напоминают King’s Bounty (2007), ролевой отыгрыш и визуализация близка к Sword Coast Legends. Если вам понравились эти игры, то и Tower of Time придётся по душе. Геймплей медлительный и непринуждённый, прохождение линейное. Казалось бы богатый бестиарий, но сам по себе ИИ и бои на аренах быстро приедаются. Мир игры ограничен исследованием многочисленныхМеханика боя и исследование карты напоминают King’s Bounty (2007), ролевой отыгрыш и визуализация близка к Sword Coast Legends. Если вам понравились эти игры, то и Tower of Time придётся по душе. Геймплей медлительный и непринуждённый, прохождение линейное. Казалось бы богатый бестиарий, но сам по себе ИИ и бои на аренах быстро приедаются. Мир игры ограничен исследованием многочисленных этажей гигантской башни. Я игру счёл скучной, есть значительно интереснее для прохождения RPG в 2018 году.… Expand
  6. MR67
    Nov 30, 2018
    5
    I bought this game based on the good reviews, and while it has some nice ideas, I gave up playing it out of sheer frustration and uninstalled it from my PC.

    - Interesting story, but the writing could be better, even for an indie title. A lot of the in-game lore can be really dull to read. Setting and characters are very generic. - Very linear gameplay. You play a party of specific    I bought this game based on the good reviews, and while it has some nice ideas, I gave up playing it out of sheer frustration and uninstalled it from my PC.

    - Interesting story, but the writing could be better, even for an indie title. A lot of the in-game lore can be really dull to read. Setting and characters are very generic.
    - Very linear gameplay. You play a party of specific characters, with your main character (simply referred to as "You") having a telepathic link with them. You start off with 2 characters and can find up to 5 more. Basically, you start at the top of a gigantic upside down ancient tower and have to find your way to the bottom, where some supposed solution to your world's environmental problems awaits. No grinding for extra loot as all encounters are set. Skill trees for characters are also limited. Hence, this game would not have much, if any, replayability.
    - Random loot and crafted items mean it can be difficult to get the type of gear you need. There are no merchants to buy gear from, so you have to find it or else craft it.
    - Difficulty of encounters is quite unbalanced. When you walk up to a bunch of hostiles on the exploration screen, an info screen shows their stats but not really their numbers. Your characters can waltz through a number of combats, then have their butts suddenly handed to them when they end up fighting a lot more enemies than they had anticipated.
    - Music is very limited and repetitive.

    On the plus side, the combat system is quite original with its slow motion option (though I don't like the fact you fight in a predetermined arena) and the storyline is somewhat intriguing.

    I would not buy this game if you are like me and don't like to have to constantly reload from earlier saves if you end up losing your entire party in a battle. In this case, rather wait for a sale. I think the game does have potential though so it will be interesting to see what the developer can do for a sequel with a bigger budget.    … Expand
  7. Lasius-Niger
    Dec 17, 2020
    7
    Decent graphics animations and story (8 out of 10) but tedious and repetitive combat (total turn-off, 2 out of 10). Loot system is not bad, though by the time you're able to craft proper gear most loot you find will be under-leveled so there's that.

    I ended up switching to the easy mode just to get through the boring fights, still couldn't complete the game. It's not that game mechanics    Decent graphics animations and story (8 out of 10) but tedious and repetitive combat (total turn-off, 2 out of 10). Loot system is not bad, though by the time you're able to craft proper gear most loot you find will be under-leveled so there's that.

    I ended up switching to the easy mode just to get through the boring fights, still couldn't complete the game. It's not that game mechanics are bad per se, it's just that fights were tedious and it felt more like a chore.    … Expand
  8. Prometheus1241
    Feb 3, 2021
    5
    Pros:
    -Nice plot

    Cons:
    -Bad characters( read also as " bad dialogues")
    -Poor combat, yet has cool ideas.
    -Poor graphics&design
    -Has some narrative mistakes, like side characters not supporting main characters and etc.
    -Poor writing
    -And others, minor ones.

    Totally not recommended.
  9. Jajooka
    Jul 16, 2021
    7
    All in all: its overall a decent enjoyable game, that gets a bit boring and repetative towards the end but I would recommend it if you like the combat style.

    - I played my playthrough on the highest difficulty, and I would strongly recommend this for everyone who plays XCOM on legends, or Darkest Dungeon on stygian and the like. At the start it was really truly challenging, there were    All in all: its overall a decent enjoyable game, that gets a bit boring and repetative towards the end but I would recommend it if you like the combat style.

    - I played my playthrough on the highest difficulty, and I would strongly recommend this for everyone who plays XCOM on legends, or Darkest Dungeon on stygian and the like. At the start it was really truly challenging, there were some fights that even felt kinda impossable and you had to play around a while with positioning, skills, stats, and team setup. The game was a '9' for me for the first half while I was keep getting new skills and new chars to toy with. The mob fights got repetative after like 30% of the game, and often felt like simple reskinning the prevoiously encountered enemys with low variety. Howewer there are a lots of boss fights on every level and those always had some uniqe(ish) mechanichs and challenge, that could keep me interested for a decent time. The exploration vibe also works well for a long time. But sadly after around 50% of the game things slowly gets worse. Nothing horrible of any kind, buts fights get progressively more easy (if you are good at min-maxing, balancing skills, and roles and staff like that). Still there are some difficulty spikes at some bosses, but far less challenging then the first fights. Also fewer and fewer new things both in terms of enemys and abilities. Eventually the last few hours were really uninteresting and I just wanted to go through with it. All in all as I stated before a decent, though not perfet, and I would recommend it.

    Special mentions:
    - music: it was just realy interesting to have relaxing and chill music during the whole game, even in battles, an unusual choice for sure but I liked it.
    - decision making: this aspect was a f*ckin joke for sure. Meaningless situationes, with forced, unreal choices, while on the other hand, when it could matter, you can only go one way without any decision points. It should have been better just to simply leave this whole part out. (not especially annoying, just isn't working at all)
    - story: It was ok. Some twists maybe felt a bit cheap, the whole main protagonist thing was also a bit awkward to me, but all in all, its kinda interesting, and uniqeish enough.    … Expand
  10. PenetratorGod
    Aug 24, 2023
    7
    Not a bad game. It's been a long time since I played it but the only negative thing I remember is that it repeats itself a lot after a point but it's a cheap game, give it a chance.

Awards & Rankings

87
#87 Best PC Game of 2018
100
#100 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. MMORPG.com
    Jul 26, 2018
    85
    Tower of Time takes a compelling narrative and blends it with fun role-playing and deep satisfying tactical combat. Event Horizon, the studio behind Tower of Time, has the pulse of their players. They have been patching and balancing continually, taking feedback, and explaining balance adjustments. It’s refreshing to see an earnest desire by an indie studio to improve and polish a game post-launch. This has been one of the most enjoyable indie RPG experiences for me so far this year. This is a game I’d at least like to see on a list of contenders for “Indie RPG of the Year”.
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  2. Meristation
    Jun 27, 2018
    80
    With a wonderfully complex combat system Tower of Time manages to clutch your attention and never lets go. Increasingly complex and varied, this is a wonderful little (but also quite massive) title that is worthy of your attention.
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  3. Cubed3
    May 30, 2018
    50
    Both in terms of storytelling, as well as gameplay, Tower of Time sits right there in the middle of the quality scale. A handful of interesting ideas do exist, and, as a whole, this isn't bad or broken, but, from the first to the fortieth hour, nothing in this dungeon crawling RPG will turn out to be exciting, either.
    Read full review
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