E3 2015: Atlus – The Deadly Tower of Monsters

The Deadly Tower of Monsters was probably the most North American feeling game at the Atlus booth. The rest of the games were very Japanese manga/anime inspired and then there was Deadly Tower. The game is a 3-D action adventure in which you hack and slash your way through the game and story playing as three different characters. The charm is that you’re climbing a tower and at any given point you can fall (and may need to at times) all the way back down or just a level or two. The lower levels are also visible at times which shows how connect the platforming world it.

The other bit of charm is that it’s filmed like a 1950’s sci-fi movie with bad special effects intentionally included. For instance, a giant gorilla shows up at one point and he looks normal from the front, but then there’s a cut scene and you can see the hands are just on some sticks and you can actually see human hands holding the sticks. It’s basically Plan 9 From Outer Space as a video game. And it’s pretty damn great because of it.

The humor is cheesy, but in a good way. Sure a younger audience may not get the jokes or care that the main character’s name is Dick Starspeed, but they’ll still enjoy an action adventure game that’s put together very well. But if you get the references then you’ll really, really enjoy playing through the game and fighting waxy looking dinosaurs and men in ape costumes.

The game is coming this fall and will be out on the PS4 and the PC. I don’t know if it’s going to be full retail or not as it kind of had a downloadable only vibe to it, but either way it’ll be worth checking out.