I’m sure this post will have nothing new to say about Pizza Tower. Everyone who has played this game knows what’s up. Everyone knows why this game quickly became a fan favorite, even netting titles like “the greatest platformer I’ve ever played.” I totally get it, but it’s not the best platformer I’ve played. This game is still SO GOOD, but I had a hard time with this game, as I will explain.
There’s not much story, but essentially you play as PEPPINO SPAGHETTI, whose pizzeria is going under. To save his establishment, he must climb the PIZZA TOWER and endure all of the hardships and challenges within! It’s a silly story for a silly game, and I love it.
Probably the first thing you’ll notice about this game is that it has a unique art style. This is reminiscent of 90s cartoons and that rubber hose animation we know and love. I don’t love it. Rubber hose animation always makes me feel weird, which might be the intention, but I’ve never cared for it. But this game? It’s not for me, but man I’ll give credit where credit is due, these artists are MAD talented. Everything is so smoothly animated, and so detailed down to each pixel. I’m not a fan myself, but I will give all the praise where I can to this game. It has its own beauty to it, and that’s pretty sweet.
Another part of this game that is just mind blowing on a design aspect is the gameplay. You have your basic run, jump and attack buttons, but you can do so many actions one after another, and some actions can lead to other actions as well. This game requires you to master the basics so you can run through every level and back (and back AGAIN for that P rank) as fast as you can. You also have combos to maintain to increase your score as well, and that further incentivises the player to just go go go. In addition to these base mechanics, every level needs to be learned down to each room if you want to go for gold. No one level is the same as the other. They all have their own mechanics. That is INSANE to do, when games like Mario Wonder don’t even do that. Yes one has over 100 levels, and one has 20, but the point still stands. Relearning each level to their expectations, all while keeping a combo going and collecting collectables too is my favorite part of this game. It’s nothing but applause from me.
Now you might be wondering what I meant earlier about me having a hard time with this game, when clearly I’ve enjoyed it so much and have been giving its praises. Well to put it bluntly, this game was SO HARD for me. I was so BAD. I understood the concept and the controls and the techniques, but I couldn’t get much out of it, and yes this is on me. I’m sure if I ran the game three times over, I could get a few P ranks, but man. Maybe the game is too fast for me, or I’m too slow to keep up, or anything, but my skills did not match this game! I’m not knocking the game or blaming it, just thought I should mention my skill issue LOL.
In the end, this game is just plain stupid fun. This honestly should be another example of how indies can just always stand out in the industry, right up there with Undertale and Five Nights at Freddy’s. We don’t need hyper realism, or millions of dollars poured into games. Sometimes we just need a silly Wario Land-esque platformer to give to the masses, and remind ourselves that indies are just as important as the triple AAA studios. I vote Pizza Tower should go into the indie hall of fame immediately.