Pizza Time! (Pizza Tower in review!)

     Back in the 90's and early 2000's, Wario was a huge character. He started as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins for the Game Boy Color before getting his own series of platformers, starting with Wario Land and later getting five more entries in the series, including one for the ill-fated Virtual Boy. While Wario is still a big character now, and has gotten two Warioware games on the Nintendo Switch, the Wario Land series has been dormant since Wario Land: Shake It! came out for the Wii 16 years ago. This series of 2D platformers was incredibly clever and creative, so it's such a shame that it doesn't get the love and respect of some of Nintendo's other titles. I'm happy to say that the spirit of Wario Land is still alive and well in the indie space, and leading that charge is a game called Pizza Tower. It's not a very long game, and seems to heavily encourage speed running, so I'll try my best to get my thoughts out in a similar manner, but it deserves talking about, especially now that I've been able to play it on the Switch. Today we're going to talk about the process one man goes through to save his little pizza restaurant when threatened by a giant flying pizza, so let's get to it!

Mama Mia!

    Pizza Tower is probably one of the wackiest games I've ever played. You play as Peppino Spaghetti, and the entire plot is that a giant pizza named Pizzaface threatens to destroy your restaurant with a giant laser, so you have to race through the titular Pizza Tower to stop him and save the restaurant. The gameplay is really what sets this game apart, which is not to say that the story is weak or anything. Peppino has a dash move, a jump, and a charge, which is most of what you'll use for this game, but there are also many other moves for the people willing to perfect the game and get speed runs on the different stages. Each level encourages you to gather the pizza toppings as well as the secret treasure (which may be a donut or a bowl of cereal), and then get out of the level as quickly as possible once you defeat the John Gutter Wall in the level. It's a wild formula that feels like the escape sequences in Metroid, or Wario Land 4 and Shake it!, which is a more obvious comparison. Once you get a certain amount of money (which you get by rescuing the ingredients), you can pay for a boss door which allows you to fight the boss of each floor of the tower. There are only 5 areas, so five boss fights, and each of them different mechanics and difficulty levels to them. Once you beat the boss, you move along to the next area and the process begins again.

    The stage mechanics were what surprised me the most in this game, since Peppino's base movement mechanics are so crazy, I didn't think there would be many gimmicks or power-ups to change the pace outside of using those to the greatest effect, but there certainly are! There are levels where Peppino turns into a knight and slides around off of slopes, there are levels where he dies and has to fly around as a ghost until a character that looks like the Pope revives you, there are levels where you play Golf, and there are some where I just don't want to say because the surprise is just really cool. There is so much creativity in the level designs here that I never knew what the next level was going to hold, and that's a great feeling in a 2D platformer, since some of those can feel a bit similar to what has already come before sometimes.

    I was really surprised at how quickly I was able to beat this game, though it makes sense that it isn't that long with the speed runs that I've followed. That isn't a mark against this game at all. There are so many fun and interesting mechanics in this game to master, I could definitely see myself playing through it again soon. This is a really wacky game that calls to mind the period of the 90's Saturday morning cartoons like Ren and Stimpy where anything could happen, and it was a delight to play from start to finish. It's hard to talk about it in a way that conveys just how weird and different it is, but to get a taste of it, you have to try it for yourself. I have to say that just watching gameplay of it, I thought I would be way too overwhelmed, but it definitely is a game that you get more used to as you play it more. I'm still waiting for Nintendo to make a new Wario Land game, but until then, I say keep working on more games like this one, Indie developers. We need these crazy new titles.

    Thanks so much for reading this short post, friends! Have you tried out Pizza Tower? I definitely recommend it, but I would recommend it mainly for people who are big fans of 2D momentum driven platformers, because it can definitely be tough to master this game at times. I did feel like it was worth the time it took to get through it, because it's a generally fun and funny time, not even to mention that you unlock a new character once you beat the game as Peppino for the first time! Thanks again for all of the support, friends, and I hope you have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed pizza connoisseur, and I'll talk to you again soon!