My takeaway from this review: ToT incorporates a lot of mechanics that eliminate backtracking, grabs some gameplay bits from Darkest Dungeon, Diablo, and even Tower defense, and has an amazing story. Sign me up!
Ever since the gaming community has lost John 'Totalbiscuit' Bain, I've been looking for a reviewer similar if not better to his work. I appreciate this review. Thank you for completing the game before reviewing it.
oh man thats a name i havnt heard/seen in a long time. that was a sad day for me, chester and TB were like the 2 parasocial type losses i felt the worst
Your reviews are excellent because you explain your opinions and put them in context very well. I get a clear understanding of what the gameplay is like. People have different opinions of what make something a “spoiler” making it a challenging balance act to provide detailed gameplay explanations without spoilers. You balance it well. I think a few details on why the ‘Epic’ mode in this game is harder could have improved the review. Enemies are given more HP, do more damage, have additional abilities, etc. Someday it might mean a more challenging enemy AI (game learns to counter repetitious player strategy). With the majority of games it just turns enemies into damages sponges. Not harder battles, just longer ones. And if RNG is a factor that equates to more chance for a string of bad rolls. Or a game allows ‘epic’ difficulty enemies to have 2-shot player kills. Less forgiving of player mistakes is a harder difficulty. It is not the same as more challenging strategic gameplay. Everyone’s enjoyment is different so a variety in difficultly is always a good thing. How a game’s difficulty setting alters gameplay is often overlooked by other reviewers. Thank you for fully playing and experiencing the entire game before reviewing. First looks and impressions are informative and entertaining content to create and view. You make a definite distinction between them. Continue setting a high standard for review quality (in your case quality with quantity). It is much harder and more time consuming to do this kind of review. I appreciate the effort and enjoy the amazing content.
When I heard the studio name it immediately dragged me back to the 8th grade watching Event Horizon. I started it inside an empty house but when it ended my drawers were full.
if i'm not mistaken the game is often going on pretty big sales, like 75%+ in both steam and gog. also i think at some point gog or the epic store was giving it away for free. so for those who are hesitant, just add it in your wishlist, you will see it discounted soon enough.
I had fun with this and the art style appealed to me as well. I think it's worth mentioning again, I think you mentioned this in your first video, the combat is real-time with slow. You can't pause, but you can slow things down to get your act together, if necessary. Nice review.
I'm finally getting around to this on my backlog and the combat really feels reminiscent of mmo combat, just you're in control of the whole party. Looking forward to going deeper
This game is like $6 right now on the Steam summer sale. I've never heard a reviewer say to buy a dungeon crawler on sale just for the story, that's pretty cool. Looking forward to firing this up, but I'm up for the challenge of at least Normal difficulty :D
I really enjoyed this game when it released man. Glad to see you had some positive things to say about it and give it some more publicity. Gives me a little bit of internal hype for their next title.
So, the tower is build upside down. I think it could have been a cool design choise to take this litteraly by having the characters walk on what would normally be the ceiling.
Expectations or lack of them can have huge impact on how we perceive things. For example, you went basically blind and was positively surprised, while with some, though not too big, so let's hope the story is indeed good Also, knowing it's semi-dungeon crawler, I wouldn't call linear story as negative. For me it would be expected in such game and thus is neutral point.
You ever had a chance to try Hand of Fate or it's sequel? One of my favourite indie titles, the story instances and equipment are cards, you select your deck before starting, and chance is die roll based, but the actual combat is real time. As the playthrough progresses you unlock further story/equipment cards for future games. And the best part is after each game you retain all collected cards whether you succeed or not. It's difficult to explain how well this works, I've never been into card games, this is the one exception, was hooked after one try.
??? Somehow I saw that video before.... and have no memory of it. :( Am tempted to try it put. The hard part will be to decide.... what should I use to play it?? PS5 or PC?? We shall see. ;)
I noticed that you haven't covered Blackguards, so if you ever do, I think you'll have a very similar impression to your Tower of Time review. There are some encounters that elevate it beyond your standard CRPG or TRPG, but the majority outside of those are set it and forget it affairs as far as combat strategy goes. Character building is quite interesting, the party members are enjoyable and the story goes places you may not expect. Definitely worth a look if it happens to enter your queue.
I skipped this when I came out thinking it was a generic low budget port of a mobile game. Nice to hear I was wrong about that and I will have to grab it next time a sale rolls around.
Might try the sale and story mode suggestion. What's the playtime for story mode and does it take away from the exploration aspect? That's probably my favorite part of most games, assuming they reward said exploration with something like interesting/useful gear or story.
The UI in this game is near perfection, love it. Also this is what I want more of, very tight confined 20 hr dungeon crawl. Im kind of over these 100+ hr overly long titles.
The game is super cheap right now on Steam but I dont know the combat just looks very.... RTSie not CRPGish. Did you play it on the harder difficulties? Is it more tactical? Cause that's what I'm looking for now that I'm done with Baldur's Gate 3.
I am curious about this since you said that you always 100% games you review, but is there any noticeable difference in enjoyment if you 100% or not? Like did you had to try any different ways to play the game to 100% it? And was it easy to 100%? I think these points could distinguish your review more IMHO
10:08 "Shorter dungeon crawl" It's been years at this point, but I could have sworn the game dragged on for a looooong time. I got bored and never completed the last 2 or 3 floors.
Big problem with puzzles is that at some point you get tired and they become impossible/annoying to solve if not done simply enough lol I prefer the simplicity but still time consuming system of open lock from skyrim, still challenge but something even with your brain off you can master.
This and dark envoy both intrigued me but for me if it's party focused and not turn based then I'm out. I hate real time in these kind of games. Especially rtwp.
@@adrowsypoet yeah I don't know if that would be different enough for me to enjoy it. Anything real time just doesn't feel as strategic to me or as fun. I can see how it would be different but I really don't know if I can get over it being real time. I would like to enjoy them more because I know there's good games out there with rt but I always end up hating them.
@@MidnightHozz I still love bg2 but i haven't played it in probably 15 years and I think if I did I would not like it as much because of that. I'll let the nostalgia be lol
@@MidnightHozz yeah I think if I was honest about it most have surpassed it. I know bg3 at least is coming with updated sensibilities and will take its spot for me in my top games list
I played this during lockdown. For me it was a big miss, some great ideas but they didn't come together well. It's a very long game, repetitive and unbalanced. 90% of the time it was too easy, 10% of the time too hard. I found the story confusing and lacking and the ui and combat clunky.
I really enjoyed the game when I played it but I have to disagree with you in one regard. The combat, world design and characters were well done. But the story told in the cutscenes and especially the last twist were done so amateurishly in my opionion that I almost gave it a thumbsdown on steam. I still look forward to Dark Envoy but I really hope that they have the funds to hire a proper editor this time.
My takeaway from this review: ToT incorporates a lot of mechanics that eliminate backtracking, grabs some gameplay bits from Darkest Dungeon, Diablo, and even Tower defense, and has an amazing story. Sign me up!
Ever since the gaming community has lost John 'Totalbiscuit' Bain, I've been looking for a reviewer similar if not better to his work. I appreciate this review. Thank you for completing the game before reviewing it.
oh man thats a name i havnt heard/seen in a long time. that was a sad day for me, chester and TB were like the 2 parasocial type losses i felt the worst
Oh
May he captain the black fleets in paradise
Dude I love your videos. Always straight and to the point. Your recommendations are always great too. Appreciate everything you do for us!
I completed this a few years ago, I remember the Soundtrack having some really outstanding ambient pieces in it.
Your reviews are excellent because you explain your opinions and put them in context very well. I get a clear understanding of what the gameplay is like. People have different opinions of what make something a “spoiler” making it a challenging balance act to provide detailed gameplay explanations without spoilers. You balance it well.
I think a few details on why the ‘Epic’ mode in this game is harder could have improved the review. Enemies are given more HP, do more damage, have additional abilities, etc. Someday it might mean a more challenging enemy AI (game learns to counter repetitious player strategy). With the majority of games it just turns enemies into damages sponges. Not harder battles, just longer ones. And if RNG is a factor that equates to more chance for a string of bad rolls. Or a game allows ‘epic’ difficulty enemies to have 2-shot player kills. Less forgiving of player mistakes is a harder difficulty. It is not the same as more challenging strategic gameplay. Everyone’s enjoyment is different so a variety in difficultly is always a good thing. How a game’s difficulty setting alters gameplay is often overlooked by other reviewers.
Thank you for fully playing and experiencing the entire game before reviewing. First looks and impressions are informative and entertaining content to create and view. You make a definite distinction between them. Continue setting a high standard for review quality (in your case quality with quantity). It is much harder and more time consuming to do this kind of review. I appreciate the effort and enjoy the amazing content.
I just found your channel last week, super well done on the reviews!
When I heard the studio name it immediately dragged me back to the 8th grade watching Event Horizon. I started it inside an empty house but when it ended my drawers were full.
if i'm not mistaken the game is often going on pretty big sales, like 75%+ in both steam and gog.
also i think at some point gog or the epic store was giving it away for free.
so for those who are hesitant, just add it in your wishlist, you will see it discounted soon enough.
I had fun with this and the art style appealed to me as well.
I think it's worth mentioning again, I think you mentioned this in your first video, the combat is real-time with slow. You can't pause, but you can slow things down to get your act together, if necessary.
Nice review.
Weird. The store page specifically says you can both pause and slow time
@@joearnold6881 Well, it's been a long time since I played; maybe so, but that's not what I remember.
Thanks! there is actually an option in the settings to change the slow to a complete pause
Thanks for adding timestamps to the video :)
I played this game a couple years ago and loved it. I'm surprised it isn't more well-known. It really deserves to be.
I'm finally getting around to this on my backlog and the combat really feels reminiscent of mmo combat, just you're in control of the whole party. Looking forward to going deeper
This is one of the few games I've got 100% on I love this game the story with lore and game play. I really hope we get more in this world.
This game is like $6 right now on the Steam summer sale. I've never heard a reviewer say to buy a dungeon crawler on sale just for the story, that's pretty cool. Looking forward to firing this up, but I'm up for the challenge of at least Normal difficulty :D
I simply have to wait for your reviews after 100% before buying a game now. Great video once again. Thanks. Stay awesome.
I really enjoyed this game when it released man. Glad to see you had some positive things to say about it and give it some more publicity. Gives me a little bit of internal hype for their next title.
So, the tower is build upside down. I think it could have been a cool design choise to take this litteraly by having the characters walk on what would normally be the ceiling.
I've been playing Tower of time for the last week or so, it's fantastic, well worth the look
Stumbled on this review and purchased the game thanks to it. It’s a ton of fun.
I watched this vid yesterday, got intrigued and added Tower of Time to my Steam wish list. Next day its 90% off. Nice.
thanks for the video. Really like being to like your channel alot!
Good review, thanks for your work.👍
This one's been in my backlog since I got it for free on GoG.
The sound track has been the only thing I've touched so far; and I've liked it.
When do you sleep? 😅 Must be up so late making all this content! Appreciate your efforts :)
Expectations or lack of them can have huge impact on how we perceive things. For example, you went basically blind and was positively surprised, while with some, though not too big, so let's hope the story is indeed good
Also, knowing it's semi-dungeon crawler, I wouldn't call linear story as negative. For me it would be expected in such game and thus is neutral point.
Wonder how many new views this video will get with your demo preview for the new game.
I personally loved their OST as well.
This is a very satisfying game with a very good story that will keep you playing!
The ending of the game also is quite interesting. Not going to spoil anything of course, but the storytelling in general is a strongpoint of ToT.
I love how this weird dungeon crawl action RPGs thingy main draw is the story and interesting setting. I too did not expect that, but it's TRUE.
Got that years ago (many, I believe) and never got to play it. Guess I'll give it a shot. thanks for the review
I bet the voice told him ''Leave and come back as an adult, this is but the prologue''
Dang. I had this game in my library for ages. Time to play it. I guess.
You ever had a chance to try Hand of Fate or it's sequel? One of my favourite indie titles, the story instances and equipment are cards, you select your deck before starting, and chance is die roll based, but the actual combat is real time. As the playthrough progresses you unlock further story/equipment cards for future games. And the best part is after each game you retain all collected cards whether you succeed or not. It's difficult to explain how well this works, I've never been into card games, this is the one exception, was hooked after one try.
This game is currently on sale on Steam for $7.24 CAD until November 18th.
Thanks for review, hadn't heard of it... Just in time to pick it up in Winter sale, haven't played a decent party dungeon crawler in nearly forever.
You convinced me to try this game out sir.
??? Somehow I saw that video before.... and have no memory of it. :(
Am tempted to try it put.
The hard part will be to decide.... what should I use to play it??
PS5 or PC??
We shall see. ;)
If you go up in the tower your ascending ^^.
Nice review think im gonna put this one on my to do list
I noticed that you haven't covered Blackguards, so if you ever do, I think you'll have a very similar impression to your Tower of Time review.
There are some encounters that elevate it beyond your standard CRPG or TRPG, but the majority outside of those are set it and forget it affairs as far as combat strategy goes.
Character building is quite interesting, the party members are enjoyable and the story goes places you may not expect.
Definitely worth a look if it happens to enter your queue.
Props to you for 100%ing games, I barely finish any 😅😅
Mortismal saying "incredibly hard" is something. Epic difficulty must require reloading many times!
I enjoyed this game a lot! :) fair review
I've got this game but never put any real time into it. Definitely gonna reinstall and play it (after pathfinder lmao). Thanks Mortim!
I skipped this when I came out thinking it was a generic low budget port of a mobile game. Nice to hear I was wrong about that and I will have to grab it next time a sale rolls around.
Might try the sale and story mode suggestion. What's the playtime for story mode and does it take away from the exploration aspect?
That's probably my favorite part of most games, assuming they reward said exploration with something like interesting/useful gear or story.
exploration is pretty separate from the combat so not really, as for hours probably 10-15 on story
GOG gave it away for free last year!
When do you think that this game will be released on console like Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox?
Dark Envoy demo is out
It is, I made a video on it a few days ago
I might have to reinstall it, I played a bunch in ea and 1.0 and it wasn't quite there, but it sounds like they listened to feedback.
Great review! Anybody know if this runs well on Steam Deck? It's currently untested status on the store!
Just bought this for $2.49!
I just picked this up on Steam for $2.49, Can't go wrong for that price.
The UI in this game is near perfection, love it. Also this is what I want more of, very tight confined 20 hr dungeon crawl. Im kind of over these 100+ hr overly long titles.
Good game... I need to finish it :)
Cool
The game is super cheap right now on Steam but I dont know the combat just looks very.... RTSie not CRPGish. Did you play it on the harder difficulties? Is it more tactical? Cause that's what I'm looking for now that I'm done with Baldur's Gate 3.
I am curious about this since you said that you always 100% games you review, but is there any noticeable difference in enjoyment if you 100% or not? Like did you had to try any different ways to play the game to 100% it? And was it easy to 100%? I think these points could distinguish your review more IMHO
A bit
10:08 "Shorter dungeon crawl"
It's been years at this point, but I could have sworn the game dragged on for a looooong time. I got bored and never completed the last 2 or 3 floors.
Big problem with puzzles is that at some point you get tired and they become impossible/annoying to solve if not done simply enough lol
I prefer the simplicity but still time consuming system of open lock from skyrim, still challenge but something even with your brain off you can master.
Still curious why while the game states that the tower is upside down - the levels aren't. But otherwise - a solid game.
Could be a translation issue since i think it was made by a Polish developer.
Thanks for the recommendation, bought it on sale.
This and dark envoy both intrigued me but for me if it's party focused and not turn based then I'm out. I hate real time in these kind of games. Especially rtwp.
It's more like league of legends or DOTA combat
@@adrowsypoet yeah I don't know if that would be different enough for me to enjoy it. Anything real time just doesn't feel as strategic to me or as fun. I can see how it would be different but I really don't know if I can get over it being real time. I would like to enjoy them more because I know there's good games out there with rt but I always end up hating them.
@@MidnightHozz I still love bg2 but i haven't played it in probably 15 years and I think if I did I would not like it as much because of that. I'll let the nostalgia be lol
@@MidnightHozz yeah I think if I was honest about it most have surpassed it. I know bg3 at least is coming with updated sensibilities and will take its spot for me in my top games list
Seems a little unpolished? I'm more excited for the developer's next game now though!
Pretty standard indie level of quality I'd say
I loved this right up until the ending then they lost me but I just dislike a non happy ending option lol. Blame Disney.
I played this during lockdown. For me it was a big miss, some great ideas but they didn't come together well. It's a very long game, repetitive and unbalanced. 90% of the time it was too easy, 10% of the time too hard. I found the story confusing and lacking and the ui and combat clunky.
I really enjoyed the game when I played it but I have to disagree with you in one regard. The combat, world design and characters were well done. But the story told in the cutscenes and especially the last twist were done so amateurishly in my opionion that I almost gave it a thumbsdown on steam. I still look forward to Dark Envoy but I really hope that they have the funds to hire a proper editor this time.
free comment.
Wow, Im early :D
If your looking for a good TRPG to try Gears tactics is really fun
@@puppy3908 Thanks stranger! I didn't know they made a Gears TRPG, I'm going to check it out.
@@JL-rj9fl You'll love it