Virtually Overlooked: Deadly Towers
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.Deadly Towers is the most frustrating game on the NES. It may be the most frustrating game of all time, although we're sure that there's some Koei number-crunching Chinese war game out there or realistic PC submarine simulator that's much, much harder. You go into those things expecting a convoluted mess; you go into an NES action-RPG expecting at least to understand where you are or what you're supposed to be doing before you die. Deadly Towers doesn't afford you the luxury. Why do we suggest that others should play it, then? Because we had to.
Why the game hasn't been announced for Virtual Console yet:
Presumably, a tester must go through the entire game before it is certified for Wii release. Since this is impossible, Deadly Towers can never be released on the Virtual Console. That begs the question of how it was released the first time. We have a theory that it gained sentience through force of will, burst out of the developers' computers and demanded to be pressed onto cartridges.

Like Athena, Deadly Towers is a case study of what should be a great NES game turned into something more suitable to warn children about the dangers of playing video games. As bad game connoisseurs, we find this game (#1 on Seanbaby's list of worst Nintendo games-- Athena was #20) fascinating, since it's just so potentially okay and so wrong in execution. Here are a few of the great ideas in this game, and how they're used for great evil.

- A variety of enemies: on the surface, this is a sign of a good NES game, but Deadly Towers puts them all on the screen at once. At any given moment, you've got bouncy-ball things, animated Slinkys, bats, fireballs, walking fireballs, and these little dragon things that appear behind you, all swarming you and poking away at your lifebar. Oh, and your sword is about 3 pixels long and doesn't knock anything back.

- Eight-way motion and firing: We're impressed that developer Lenar actually drew the hero sprite from six different perspectives in order to enable eight-way movement: it must have taken minutes to render the doughy, featureless Prince Myer facing so many different directions. But remember the bouncy-ball things? They bounce straight up and down from our perspective, not from the game's-- meaning that when they should be several feet to one side of Prince Myer, they're actually directly in his face. It's pretty much impossible to cross these things, and they require about 20 hits to kill.

- Expansive, non-linear world design: it's pretty easy to imagine how this can go awry in the hands of a bad game. To put it bluntly, you never know where the hell you're supposed to go, the environments all look exactly alike (especially in the dungeons, which consist entirely of featureless square rooms), and you die before you can figure it out. If you've ever wanted to feel completely hopeless, this game will enable it.

- Hidden passageways: It's cool to have lots of secrets in the game, except when you already don't know where you are or what you're supposed to be doing. In that case, walking near a wall and being warped into a shop selling items whose purpose you don't know just induces panic.










Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 2nd 2007 6:16PM
Another interesting piece. I can't wait till I can say the VC can play Doom.
Mr Khan @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:26PM
It seems that this is one of the games that would benefit perfectly from VC Save States
Or did it already feature save files?
Semler @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:54PM
I had this game as a kid when I was 11. I beat it. It isn't all that hard. You just have to play it long enough to get used to it. As you get further, it gets more fun. It just sucks in the beginning.
Shadow31 @ Aug 3rd 2007 12:06AM
Sounds horribly frustrating... I want it. Curious now. The fun things about horrible games are trying to play them with friends and getting so confused. Especially since one of my male friends screams higher pitched than any girl I know (though he has a very low voice).
Oneiromancer @ Aug 3rd 2007 12:13AM
Like #3, I had this game as a kid. I can't recall if I actually beat it, but I do know for sure that I reached the final tower. I probably died on the way up to the final boss, or perhaps on the boss himself. I had a similar experience with Blaster Master--I got to the end boss maybe 3 or 4 times, but always had so few lives and no continues, that I never beat that game. The difference being, I kept trying in Blaster Master but one failure was enough for Deadly Towers. When Blaster Master gets on the VC...it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.
Alisha Karabinus @ Aug 3rd 2007 3:17AM
I'm with JC here -- I had this, because I read about it in one of Jeff Rovin's books (I read them allllll), and it sounded fun! But like JC, I was goggle-eyed and confused and frustrated, and being a kid, didn't have the attention span to dedicate to it.
Jmlars @ Aug 3rd 2007 9:49AM
I actually was just talking about how i wish this game would come to VC...I LOVED THIS GAME growing up. Totally saving 500 points just to blow on this title when it comes out...can't wait.
dtfan @ Aug 3rd 2007 4:18PM
I had this game as a kid.
Probably the most underrated NES game of all time.
QuantumMischief @ Aug 3rd 2007 6:49PM
Ha! I just borrowed this game from my brother, I look forward to such pain!!!
Half Ninja @ Aug 9th 2007 11:21AM
Haha. I got this as a birthday present one year. It was the worst game I ever played, and I played Gotcha way past level 99. I played it until the score broke somewhere around 9, 999,963. Deadly Towers was a game I would play if my friends were taking a dump. It was only good for five minutes, and at the end of those five minutes, you were a 10 year old with the attitude of Lewis Black after 15 cups of coffee.. IT was awful.
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