The Tower of the Void

Intro

"The Tower of Void" is a short, turn-based RPG developed by AjXero using RPG Maker VX Ace. Unfortunately this game seems comprised of a lot of questionable design choices in my opinion that result in a game that isn't fun to play. So much so that I'm not even willing to go back and try and achieve the other endings. And it's not like it would probably take long to experience the other endings considering you can beat this game in under 15 minutes. Though those other endings might take a bit longer to achieve considering you'll need to fully explore a boring tower in order to get them.

Story

You play as a well known demon slayer whose been sent by the king of Exalis to conquer The Tower of Void that has mysteriously appeared. And by conquering the tower you can hopefully make it once again disappear to never be seen again and that's all there is to the narrative. To make matters worse the main character really doesn't talk much so he's got about as much personality as a wooden board. So much so that it makes me miss the characters from "The Tower of KYLE" since at least they sort of had a personality. Even if those personalities were largely defined by being adventures in search of valuable loot and a willingness to slaughter as many dragons as necessary to get it.

Gameplay

Instead of playing as group of demon slayers we only get access to a single character. This is a problem since certain enemies in this game can potentially spam status effects like paralysis and thus stun lock the player endlessly until they die. In my opinion if your going to go the route of your game only having a single player you basically have to abandon the idea of enemies having access to status conditions that prevent the player from performing actions since it's really frustrating to be forced to sit there and wait for a group of enemies to beat your character to death as they endless stun lock you.

Though the inclusion of status effects at all in this game seems especially bad since you don't have access to healing supplies of any kind in this game. And while enemies drop money when you kill them. There isn't any store in this game where you can spend your money to my knowledge. Though, I'll admit I might be mistaken on that point since I largely focused on getting to the top of the tower as quickly as possible in order to avoid getting into a lot of fights. Albeit you can run away from fights rather consistently in this game to my knowledge. So I probably could have spent more time on exploring if I truly wanted to.

To make matters worse the final boss is rather boring since your starting equipment has the ability to reflect spells. As such the final boss tends to get fragged by his own spells when he sends ice spikes or shoots bolts of lightning in your direction. As such it's pretty easy to stay healthy by constantly casting Life Drain on the final boss. Though, I'll admit I'm also still pissed that your ultimate skill in this game which costs 100 TP to use can miss.



I suppose some would argue it's only fair a one-shot move has low accuracy, but this skill requires a lot of TP to cast and the best method for getting TP in the final battle is attacking the final boss for five points and hoping the final boss scores a few hits themselves with their ability to attack twice which usually isn't the case since the final boss loves to spam spells that get reflected back by your equipment. So much so that the final boss basically defeats himself.

Graphics

Graphically the game largely relies on the RTP and a bunch of premade maps that were also used in "The Tower of KYLE". As such the game is pretty visually boring. I realize using the premade maps was part of a challenge, but like many self imposed challenges they can result in games or experiences that most would say are less than ideal like me trying to defeat "Moemon" without using any moves that deal direct damage. A run that has turned into an absolute drag where it's taken me over 8 hours to collect the Boulder, Cascade, and Thunder Badges.

Sound

As far as I'm aware the game relies entirely on the RTP for this aspect of the game. As such I really don't have a lot to say about it since there isn't anything particularly wrong with the RTP music and sound effects, but at the same time I've also heard about every piece of music and sound effect in that RTP dozens of times at this point. So it's also appreciated when something different is used.

Conclusion

"The Tower of the Void" feels like a first time project. So much so that I think the decision to rely on pre-made maps was done in order to make it easier to crank this game out in a short amount of time. Albeit it appears this is AjXero's second or third game. Regardless this has the hallmarks of game that was made early in someone's career so I'll try to be a bit nicer when assigning a score for this project, but this isn't a game I'd really recommend others play.