Summary
Although it seems impossible for any year tohave the same barrage of great games that 2023 did, this year has still beenfullof heavy hitters, fromFinal Fantasy 7 RebirthandLike A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, toAstro BotandDragon Ball: Sparking Zero. No matter what genre you’re into, there’s been something awesome released 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 the kind of smaller titles I simply didn’t have time for last yearin between the tidal wave of triple-As. I’ve already highlighted a few of these that I really hope more people check out, such asPenny’s Big Breakaway,Thank Goodness You’re Here, andPepper Grinder, but there’s one that towers (pun very much intended) over them all -Lucky Tower Ultimate.
For those that don’t have a little memory bell ringing in their ears,the Lucky Tower games used to be huge on Flashand 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 various 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 randomised. 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 of it at Gamescomand instantly clicked with its tongue-in-cheek attitude and ‘just one more go’ roguelite loop.
Since then,Lucky Tower Ultimate has launched in Early Access on Steamand 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 situations and dumb punny humour that, even when it’s not funny, is so sincere in its stupidity that I couldn’t help but 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 in 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 yourself 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 likeHadesorSpelunky. 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 stupid 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 actual 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, though.
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 Flash 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,despite the Steam reviews so far being absolutely glowingand 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.
