pizza
ESports

2D Indie Platformer Review: Pizza Tower

Pizza Tower has arrived on PC. Tour De Pizza developed and released this fast-paced indie-platformer in which you play as Peppino Spaghetti as he tries his hardest to save his pizzeria from impending disaster. As you go higher and higher up the titular tower, you will encounter a slew of inventive and well constructed levels.

We accompany ageing pizza cook Peppino Spaghetti in his pizzeria, where he is concerned about producing enough to keep the lights on. Suddenly, he is visited by the villainous Pizza Face—a big floating pizza with a face, of course. Pizza Face warns him that his residence, the titular Pizza Tower, would shortly fire a massive laser at the eatery, quickly destroying it. So Peppino’s high-speed adventure to ascend the tower and stop his cheesy adversary starts.

Its 2D platforming rivals even the quickest Sonic games in terms of pace, its iconic graphic style exudes nostalgia for 90s Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network cartoons like Ren and Stimpy, and it’s ridiculously crammed with secrets and extra challenges. Then there’s the varied music, which masterfully captures the unique concept and mood of each of its stages, particularly the anxiety-inducing main theme that plays at the end of each stage as you sprint back to the beginning to escape being slain by an evil pizza face. Pizza Tower is not simply an adrenaline-pumping thrill journey from start to finish.

Pizza Tower includes 19 levels of platforming fun, each with its unique collection of hidden locations and riches. You must rescue the captured, intelligent pizza toppings across these stages. Each one rewards you with money, which you can then spend to unleash the boss of each of the game’s five hub locations. The toppings are typically easy to see, but the secret regions and riches will put your exploring skills to the test—though none are particularly difficult to discover.

There is no deeper subtextual significance to Pizza Tower. It’s just plain ol’ knockabout fun. It is incredibly cartoonish, with each level containing a comic aspect to liven things up beyond the normal ice world, fire world, and city world cliches. From a more practical standpoint, the text in the game is easy to understand. Even if it is stylized to look like it came from a Nickelodeon comic book from the 1990s. The lesson text is simple and easy to grasp. Granted, this is helped in part by how simple the controls may be.

The biggest gimmick Pizza Tower borrows from Mario Land is a countdown that begins as you reach the level’s ultimate goal, compelling you to sprint back to the entrance in a limited period of time. It’s not just retracing your steps; pathways that were previously closed will now be open, while the route you originally followed will frequently remain closed. This frenzied dash to the start is enhanced by an excellent anxiety-inducing soundtrack that begins like a warning siren and gradually grows before reaching an extreme fever pitch as the countdown approaches zero. It helps that the stakes are high during these closing minutes, since if you don’t get back to the start before time runs out, you have to restart the level.

Pizza Tower’s visual style isn’t the only thing that exudes sophistication. The music is fantastic. It has the vibe of the era it is reflecting while also having a current touch to it. True, some of this is due to the sound quality. While the game is reminiscent of the 1990s in many ways, the audio lacks the pseudo-retro distortion found in other comparable titles. While this is a title that wears its inspirations on its cuffs, it is also self-aware.

Pizza Tower is a superb platformer with fantastic levels, strong gameplay, an incredible music, and amazing animation.However, as wonderful as it is, it can be repetitious at times, and for some, it may be too challenging.

Priyadarshan G

Priyadarshan G

priyadarshan

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.