Summary
- Lucky Tower Ultimate wasn't on my radar until I played a quick demo at Gamescom a few months ago.
- I've been playing the early access launch since then and have been having a total blast.
- Some repitition aside, Lucky Tower Ultimate is one of the most unique roguelites I've played in some time.
Although it seems impossible for any year to have the same bar🅷rage of great games that 2023 did, this year has still been full of heavy hitters, from ඣ and , to and . No matter what genre you’re into, there’s been something awesome r𝓀eleased in the last year for you.
2024 being the tiniest bit slimmer than last year does have a big upside to it, though - the chance to check out th💦e kind of smaller titles I simply didn꧑’t have time for last year in between the tidal wave of triple-As. I’ve already highlighꦑted a few of these that I really hope more people check out, such as , and , but there’s one that towers (pun very much intended) over them all - .
Lucky Tower Ultimate ✨Is The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had Dying In A Roguelite
I never thought I'd be happy to have a big purple man turn me into street pizza, but that's 🍷the magic of Lucky Tower Ultimate.
For those that don’t have a little memory bell ringin⭕g in their ears, and featured a doofus knight with gorgeous hair called Von Wanst making his way through a tower that almost always killed him. The first two games were fairly linear and more about laughing at the variou🔥s ways Von Wanst could be killed, but Ultimate takes the series in an obvious yet perfect direction by making it a roguelike.
Slashy Slashy!
While the original game had you making your way through a tower that had a surefire direction you had to memorise or face an embarrassing end, Lucky Tower Ultimate is completely ꦓrandomised. Now when you spawn in the tower in nothing but your skivvies, each run will be different depending on which door you choose, how you treat your allies, and even just pure, dumb luck.
Despite having played the original games long ago and apparently burying those memories deep within my brain, Von Wanst’s latest outing wasn’t on my radar at all throughout most of 2024. That changed when I played half an hour o✤f it at Gamescom and instantly clicked with its tongue-꧟in-cheek attitude and ‘just one more go’ roguelite loop.
Since then, and I’ve been having an absolute blast being killed over and over again, just like I thought I would from my short demo. Ultimate’s biggest strength is its comedy, which is a wonderful hybrid of strange slapstick situati♔ons and dumb punny humour that, even when it’s not funny, is so sincere in its stupidity that I couldn’t help but𒁃 laugh.
One of my favourite parts of Lucky Tower Ultimate is when you have to solve a riddle or respond to a question, which leads to ꧂you controlling a monkey to find the answer i𓂃n Von Wanst’s brain. It almost always goes wrong and I love it.
Depth And Giggles In Death
Try as you might, you’ll find yourself dying over and over in Lucky Tower Ultimate. Sometimes it’ll be because the only weapon you’ve gotten to defend yꩲourself against a room of goblins is a horn that makes a tooting noise when you use it. Other times it’ll be because you didn’t react fast enough to a trap floor that fell out under you before 🍌you could hold up a sign saying ‘uh-oh’.
And then there are occasions where the game just messes with you for seemingly no reason at all. Despite how annoying that might sound, dying is almost always funny and never feels as frustrating as it does in games like or . That was easy for ⛄me to say after my short Gamescom demo, but it holds up after hours of play and makes Lucky Tower unique ♚among roguelites.
Being able to make death nothing more than a giggle and a click to retry is a feat in itself, but Lucky Tower Ultimate also has a surprising amount of depth. That stup🐽id horn I mentioned earlier actually has a purpose and scares off bees so you can get past them easily. Pretty much everything you run into or use has another layer to it, to the point where, even in its early access state, there’s a lot going on and a bunch of tricks to learn throughout each run.
Lucky Tower Ultimate also has actuaౠl progression systems once you’ve made it out of the tower, so it’s not all just about dying over and over again. It’ll take you a long time (and lots of luck) to get there, thougꦉh.
In a lot of ways — the number of items with multiple uses, enemies that can be dealt with in different ways, and the variety of strange situations you have to learn from and keep track of — it reminds me of the very first time I played Spelunky, my all-time favourite roguelite. It’s not quite on the same level and the repetition sets in a lot faster in this early access state, but it’s 🐟clear from what I’ve played and will continue to play that there’s something special for the genre here.
Lucky Tower Ultimate Needs To Be Talked About More
What surprises me most about Lucky Tower Ultimate, though, is how little I’ve seen anyone talk about it. Roguelites are more popular than ever and the original series is a Flash𒆙 icon, so mixing those two together with endless humor and surprisingly in-depth interactions seems like a sure-fire win. It is for me, anyway, as I’ve been plugging away at it whenever I’m at my PC.
For whatever reason, though, that hasn’t been the case, and everyone who has played it seemingly having nothing but good things to say. I’m not sure if this is✅ a sign of how packed the year actually is, whether roguelites have burned out a bit, or just the same bad luck that Von Wanst is struck with, but it’s a massive shame.
I’m hopeful that Lucky Tower Ultimate will get the time in the spotlight it deserves when more content is added and it launches for real in the future, but even in its early state, it’s become one of my favourite hidden gems of 2024 and one I look forward to spending even💧 more time and deaths on.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s Story Mode Almost Made Me Go Super Sai𝄹yan
Even if you’ve played the original Budokai Tenkaichi games🌟, you aren’t prepared for how tough Sparking Zero’s story mode is.
