"I Hate This Game"

Deadly Towers....as if the title itself wasn't bad enough, the gameplay is nothing short of a swirling vortex of evil that will rob your mind of all that is virtuous.

Well, maybe not THAT bad, but it's close enough.

Graphics: Poor. Poor by NES standards. Now, I like the NES...and I've tried to like this game. No go. At first glance, one may think that this game is actually black and white...but there is actually some color. Blue beachballs and red (I think) ball/centipede/thing monsters, and the occasional spout of red fire that comes from nowhere. What a game. The only thing I can really give even quasi-good marks for is the cover art. Although the guy doesn't look much like a knight...more like a barbarian coming to pillage your village.

Gameplay: Gah! Get it away! When you're not throwing daggers at beachballs and puddles of water, you're abusing the ability to go into a room with a max life up icon, leave, and get it again, over and over again. You run around throwing these daggers at these inane little monsters all the while running through these ''Deadly Towers'' that must have been designed by an army of addled preschoolers with too much chalk. Chances are you'll get lost in your first five minutes of playing this game. There is a status screen though, so I think you might get items sometime in the game...else I don't know what you'll be doing with all that ''Ludder'' (the traditional money that the beachballs and puddles leave behind in these Deadly Towers). There are bosses too, which have a bit more...reality thrown into them. They're actually monsters, unlike most of the ''enemies'' you have encountered up to this point.

Sound: Repetitive, at best. The tune will go on for about ten, maybe twenty seconds, and repeat itself. There may have been a sound when you hit an enemy...though I'm not sure. There is a game over theme though, which you will hear often. We all know how much damage a beachball can do to a knight in full armor.

Story: There's a story!? Well, this isn't the official story...but here's what I can manage: A poorly equipped knight, Prince Myer, stumbles into this madhouse armed with throwing knives in order to retrieve ludder, to show his friends that even beachballs, puddles, and random fireballs need to hit the vending machine up every so often.

Fun Factor: You'll have more fun throwing this in the trash can than playing it. From the moment you hear that annoying gameplay music to the point where you see Game Over across your screen, you'll swear you were being run over by a thresher (actual painful killing machine may vary).

Replayability: None. After the first ten rooms, you'll be done with the game. If by some unholy chance you finish the game, you won't want to play it again...I assure you of this. Go play something else. ANYTHING else. Save yourself the pain.

Buy or Rent? Burn. You're better off ridding our world of one more of this pestilent spawn than giving it a home next to games that are actually worth playing. You can buy the game for $3 or so, and if you can still find a store that rents out NES games, I'm sure they have much finer things to get than Deadly Towers.

In closing, I think I have gotten my terrible hatred for this game across, and hopefully spared many a mind from the agony that this cartridge of plastic can cause. You can burn in the hell of your own creation, Prince Myer, along with your seven Deadly Towers.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/03