Pizza Tower has blown up in popularity since its release in the past few months. So of course, it was only a matter of time before I was finally able to get my hands on the game and play it, especially since I love playing 2D platformers. Pizza Tower has honestly done so many things well in a game of its genre and I will be talking about them all here in my review.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Fantastic gameplay, with interesting level design and references
- Fun abilities to use in the levels to progress
- Lots of collectibles in the levels that you play
- A catchy soundtrack that is well done
- Nice looking cartoonish art style
Cons
- You are required to collect specific items to progress which may turn some players off
Story
The story starts out with Peppino Spaghetti, who is a pizza chef and runs Peppino’s Pizza where his pizza probably tastes like Pizza Hut. He's trying to save his pizzeria from being destroyed by Pizzaface, who has a laser at the top of his tower. He is assisted by Gustavo, who is an adventurer, to help Peppino save his business.
That’s really it for the story of Pizza Tower, there isn’t a whole lot to really say on it. It’s to the point and simple. Which is not a terrible thing by any means, the world-building and characters' personalities are what make this game special.
Gameplay
Pizza Tower’s gameplay is inspired by the Wario Land series, it’s fast-paced with some very interesting level design. As a platformer, Peppino has a few things he can do like run super-fast, where he will crash into enemies, and he can stop to do a super jump, which is perfect for getting to hard-to-reach areas. Peppino can also ram himself into enemies by charging into them and if you keep doing it to multiple ones, you can start a combo which will add to your score. There are even some warp points that are just filled with pizza slices in a cardboard box. Quality food storage if I have ever seen it.
Sometimes you will be able to control Gustavo and his giant pet rat Brick, they can do a double jump, spin, Brick kick, and a few other things too. You can only play them in a few levels, but they work very well, and I enjoyed them.
You do have a few abilities that you can utilize at your disposal. Like one of them can turn you into a ghost, and another can turn you into a knight with a suit of armor and a sword. There are others and they are all unique, no power-up felt the same in a way. Except there is a small issue where you only get to use each of them for one level. Except for the shotgun powerup, that one is used in three levels.
You are ranked at the end of every level; ranks depend on what you do in that level and what your score is. You can get a higher score by collecting collectibles and finding hidden treasures that are scattered throughout the level. Pizza Tower isn’t a hard game by any means, but it can be difficult on what you choose to do. There is no time limit on the levels (well sort of but I will get into that in a bit) so you are free to find stuff and take your time. At the end of the level, you must attack this piller named Piller John, who will then go to Pizza Face to wake him up.
By doing this, you must hurry and exit the level and then you are under a timer. If you happen to visit any secret eye areas, the timer is paused but it will still go down if you are taunting or are in a cutscene. If the time runs out, Pizza Face will spawn and chase the player so then you really have to hurry up and exit the level. Or you can do something else - if you have completed the level once, you can replay it and do a lap two which will let you go through a pizza portal. This will bring you back to where Piller John was and by doing this, Pizza Face will most likely spawn. If Pizza Face touches you, it’s a game over and you have to redo the level all over again.
Now, the question you may be asking is why would you even want to do this? Well, remember when I said you are ranked at the end of each level? There is a certain rank you can get called the P Rank, to do this you have to do everything in the level, all secret eye portals, the Tower Secret Treasure, do lap two, and keep your combo from the start of the level until the end of it. Bosses are different as you can get that rank depending on how many times you have gotten hit by that boss.
You don’t need to collect all the toppings in the level to get the P Rank and certain levels may have certain gimmicks to them. So, getting the P Rank may require different requirements for those levels. However, because of all the things you can do in the levels this gives Pizza Tower a ton of replay value.
There is one thing that I do have to give a heads up on for those that do wish to purchase this game. Now I mentioned that you don’t have to collect the Toppings in the levels for a P Rank, however, you will need them to beat the game. This is not an issue for me because I am used to playing platformers. Although there may be some people out there who may not like this. There are a total of ninety-five toppings you can collect in the game, you can get five in each level, and you need eighty-six toppings to beat the game. The reason for this is because you get money for collecting them and you need that money to get access to the boss doors.
Soundtrack
Pizza Tower has a fantastic soundtrack that has references from other songs from other games. Yeehaw Delivery Boy has a reference to one of the songs from Jet Set Radio, while Tropical Crust has a reference to Sonic Rush.
I have to give major props to the developers for including these in their songs, there are many other references in the game as well and it’s amazing.
Graphics and Performance
Pizza Tower has a cartoonish-based art style that looks very nice, I loved how retro-based it looked in the game and in the levels. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I experienced no issues while I was playing the game and it ran well.
Final Verdict
I am not going to lie here, but I think Pizza Tower is honestly one of the best platformers I have played in a long time. The number of things that the game comes loaded with makes it worth playing. Especially if you are a fan of platformers, you will have a fantastic time playing this game.