Tower of Heaven Review
So, Tower of Heaven is a platformer game. With rules.
Not simply the tried and true "touch the spikes/saws and you die" sort of rules we have grown accustomed to, but laws, laid down by the deity of the eponymous tower, to test (read: hinder) you.
They start off fairly easy. Don't touch gold blocks. Then the deity adds another rule, don't touch the sides of any blocks or walls. Suddenly the innocuous mistake of a missed jump is fatal. When the deity adds the third rule, and you see the room you're in, any pretense of the deity being a fair tester is quickly dismissed.
The game is short, there's no question about that. In a sense, it's like a short parable that requires some polished platforming skills and memorization of the deity's increasingly insane laws. Done in a gameboy green-tint format, the game deliberately invokes the old time "Nintendo Hard" viciousness of some platforming games, along with adding the flavor of that one sadistic teacher who wanted you to fail.
The ending is worth the finger numbing effort, beautiful and hard to describe in simple words. One really does need to see it after playing through the game to understand it...
[But it left me with a horrifying feeling.]
You see, after making it to the top of the tower, the deity admits that the whole exercise was worthless. You've evaded his traps, and found his treasures most likely. Then he gives you his personal reward.
He collapses the tower.
Speculation by fans ranges from the hero ascending to Heaven, or being given a life free of laws, but the commonly accepted belief is that the hero dies.
Your reward for fighting your way through an unfair challenge in which your god outright attempts to kill you is to die.
As someone who was raised Christian, the parallels to life are fucking horrifying.
Not simply the tried and true "touch the spikes/saws and you die" sort of rules we have grown accustomed to, but laws, laid down by the deity of the eponymous tower, to test (read: hinder) you.
They start off fairly easy. Don't touch gold blocks. Then the deity adds another rule, don't touch the sides of any blocks or walls. Suddenly the innocuous mistake of a missed jump is fatal. When the deity adds the third rule, and you see the room you're in, any pretense of the deity being a fair tester is quickly dismissed.
The game is short, there's no question about that. In a sense, it's like a short parable that requires some polished platforming skills and memorization of the deity's increasingly insane laws. Done in a gameboy green-tint format, the game deliberately invokes the old time "Nintendo Hard" viciousness of some platforming games, along with adding the flavor of that one sadistic teacher who wanted you to fail.
The ending is worth the finger numbing effort, beautiful and hard to describe in simple words. One really does need to see it after playing through the game to understand it...
[But it left me with a horrifying feeling.]
You see, after making it to the top of the tower, the deity admits that the whole exercise was worthless. You've evaded his traps, and found his treasures most likely. Then he gives you his personal reward.
He collapses the tower.
Speculation by fans ranges from the hero ascending to Heaven, or being given a life free of laws, but the commonly accepted belief is that the hero dies.
Your reward for fighting your way through an unfair challenge in which your god outright attempts to kill you is to die.
As someone who was raised Christian, the parallels to life are fucking horrifying.