Multifaceted tower. Archtower review
Dungeon Crawler with an unexpected variety of content, including story content. Early access.
The game is announced for the Windows platform.
There is a tower in which evil lurks. But it’s not that simple. Our hero is a representative of one of the warring clans who want to learn the secrets of the tower. As it turns out later, there are several more factions and they all have tasks, dialogues, notes scattered throughout the levels.
The gameplay is a Dungeon Crawler with action combat.
While passing the first (actually training) level, we receive hints about controls and begin to delve into the plots.
Additionally, a detailed description of stats and game mechanics for different classes can be studied in a detailed reference book. If it gets touched somewhere, you can get a new copy in the camp from one of the NPCs.
When, according to the plot, our fighter finally gets to the coveted tower, it turns out that the hostile clan is already in place.
A representative of the forces of evil (the tower) suggests not to quarrel, saying that everyone will put their heads together anyway, and suggests that both clans explore the dungeons together.
This is how the first hub in the game is formed – Camp. At the entrance to the tower there are strongholds of both clans. The camp is full of NPCs and, accordingly, tasks. Moreover, what’s interesting is that the quests are not repetitive, not about grinding, but help to reveal the plot. Quests are given as you level up or after meeting key characters (sometimes in unexpected places).
The second hub is formed as you progress through the story. This is the residence of our clan. The estate has merchants and key characters. The residence can be expanded by constructing extremely useful additional buildings, for example, a tavern will allow you to play characters of several classes at the same time (we defeat one, the rest in the tavern).
Before entering the tower for the first time, you are asked to create a hero. This is quite an important point, since not all classes carry the same weapons and equipment. You should choose taking into account what class you generally like to play, archetypes: warrior, mage, shooter and their hybrids. The stats and description of the fighter will help you calculate what you want.
Initially, from the camp we can only go to the tower to explore it. But very quickly the geography of adventures will expand. NPCs will direct the hero to different locations to complete quests. Available destinations appear at the camp exit, which is opposite the tower entrance.
The main time of the game is https://rocketpotcasino.co.uk/ spent exploring levels, including towers and battles with hostile enemies.
There are a large number of enemy types. They attack in a variety of ways, actively evade our attacks and use their skills. Enemies are quite capable of presenting surprises in the form of powerful magic or, for example, invisibility.
The levels are full of rather unpleasant traps. Enemies also take damage if they fall under their influence. It even seemed that the opponents had friendly fire (but this is not certain).
Our hero is also no mistake. Depending on the class chosen, he has an innate skill. In addition, there are special stones that can be placed in equipment slots, which will allow you to cast active spells.
For killing enemies, the hero gains levels, for them we receive the corresponding development points and pump up the necessary skills and stats. A detailed description of the characteristics of our fighter can be found in the inventory window.
For gold and upon reaching a certain character level, leveling up from a tower representative becomes available. He suggests buying health potions (not right away) or learning passive enhancements.
In addition, there is a clan leveling system. It is built on the fame that the hero has gained. The clan provides small but permanent bonuses.
There are not many types of loot, but at the same time, not every item will be worn by every hero. For example, the arsonist (local magician) will not put on a heavy breastplate and will not grab a two-handed ax.
Even items of the same type can have different passive enhancements.
Items of equipment can be bought from merchants, we also sell them something unnecessary.
There are two types of currencies produced in the game – gold and dark crystals. Gold is spent on almost all purchases, and dark crystals drop from strong enemies and are a key resource for the improvement (construction of functional buildings) of the estate-residence.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of the game and summarize.
+ Good music and sound.
+ The plot is simple in principle, but it fits well into this game specifically.
+ Many character classes. To open some you will have to complete quests.
+ Many types of loot. There is a division of equipment according to suitability for classes.
+ Russian text language.
THINGS THAT CAN BE BOTH A PLUS AND A MINUS:
± Graphics (by the way, there is a first or third person view) may cause different assessments. Personally, I really liked this style of drawing, I got used to it almost instantly. There’s even character customization depending on what he’s wearing. But I can understand the opposite point of view.
– There are grammatical errors in the text.
CONCLUSIONS OBJECTIVE
Dungeon Crawler, to which it was very successfully possible to add a plot and interesting quests. Also included are leveling up, dynamic battles, traps and a large amount of loot. Early access is done well – even if you do nothing in the game, it is still interesting in its current form.
CONCLUSIONS ARE SUBJECTIVE
The game managed to surprise. I was preparing to play a standard Dungeon Crawler with floors, action combat and simple graphics, but in reality it turned out that there is a decent amount of content, and even more announced for release. I would like to wish the developer that all plans were implemented and that the quality bar was not lowered. The backlog is very good. In my opinion, the game can be classified as one of the hidden gems of the gaming industry.
PS: I probably didn’t cover all the aspects, I might have missed something. I will be glad to add/correct the review or answer questions along the way in the comments.