For DOOM the Bells Toll. Let's play... Deadly Towers!

Guys, be a little more understanding with Octoprime if he seems to be slow on the uptake from here on out. There's an excellent chance this game broke his brain.

I still maintain that this game is less frustrating than Legacy of the Wizard*


*if you cheat

I would almost like to see someone hack this game to make it playable.

I own Deadly Towers, but I haven't played it in years. I hope to keep that streak going.

You just lose your items when you die, right? The weapons at those shops do not need to be reacquired?

I wonder if anyone ever called the Better Business Bureau about this game?

If you die immediately, get a password, and then put in the password substituting EF or FE for the final two letters, you start the game with all the most powerful equipment.

This actually makes the game marginally enjoyable. Though mapping it (especially the dungeons) is still a bitch.

Correct.

That would have been helpful.
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Possessing a tremendous armory now, climbing that Tower (the Deadly one) is a fairly simple task.



It should be noted that outside the main entrance to the Deadly Tower is a locked gate. I’d place good odds that there’s some type of boss fight behind there, eventually.



Surprisingly, The Serpent is alive again. Good for him.



Curiously, another Heart Orb appeared as well. Hell, I’m not complaining. Being torn limb from limb by giant snake-men was the best decision I ever made!



And here it is, the Top of the Deadly Tower, guarded by a magic fire and a heap of monsters, and it holds the entrances to even more, somewhat smaller, no-less-deadly Towers.



These, significantly More Deadly Towers hold the games best equipment, but are full of the most dangerous enemies by far. Fortunately, my online cartography is generous enough to list what super item is found where. First Up: Finding the golden Hyper Armor.

This unassuming hole in the wall is the entrance to Tower designated “E”, in which we will find several exceedingly powerful items.



The interior of the Tower seems significantly more Tower-esque then the main Tower. Well, a tower designed by Escher in any case. It’s also got a Fire Demon, who is swiftly dispatched.

Fighting single enemies is quick and easy. I enjoy it.



Found another Heart Orb, looking good there, Myer.




On the far left side of the fifth set of stairs, or so, we find a secret room. The Secret Room is entrance to the INCREDIBLY deadly Parallel World. The Parallel World is absolutely swarming with deadly, deadly, deadly enemies, but is also where you find the most powerful items.



In this case, the World is full of a swarm of deadly bats. After innumerable restarts, I decide to leave that particular Parallel World for later, maybe after I have all the Hyper Equipment.




At the top of all these Flights of Stairs I find a door that leads to… the Tower. Cripes, there are a lot of Towers in this game.



The Bounders in the Tower-Tower follow a much different path then the ones in the Castle-Tower, and they deal a lot more damage. How unfortunate.

The left side of the Ladder on the sixth floor holds the entrance to another, significantly lighter, Parallel World. This one is full of ghosts which, due to a fortunate programming error, can not enter the lower corners of the floor, making them easy pickin’s.

The Ghosts also flicker like crazy, which is why you can't see any in this shot.



At the bottom of the Parallel Tower is the suit of Hyper Armor, the most powerful armor in the game. I’ll buy that for a Ludder!

Of course, absurdly powerful armor or no, Myer is still nearly dead from his trek, and the Blimes and Ghosts that inhabit the Parallel World are powerful. Myer perishes, but at least he got the Armor. Time to Re-Ascend that Tower from the ground floor.

Again.

What do you do for a follow up to this, Prime? An hour long video of you punching yourself in the face as you scream "I'm doing this for Talking Time"?

Still, saves me from playing the damn thing.

I can't believe how deadly these towers are.

Fun Fact: I thought that by playing Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom as a followup to this, I would get a nice, easy-breezy game that isn't horribly designed.

The Face-Punching thing would have been easier on me.

Well, it's a great Let's Play - I salute you. You and your masochism.

That's what I'm here for:
To suffer for your enjoyment.

No. He plays Hydlide... that's worse.

Um.

Prime, you have suffered a severe emotional shock. I will notify a video game crisis center.

OctoP, may I suggest your next Let's Play be God Hand?

Some of us are worried about your decision-making skills right now. It's time to stage an intervention.

Well, it's a follow-up that goes in the wrong direction. I can still get behind that, since it doesn't translate to me having to play Hydlide again. Hydlide was the more enjoyable of the two games, incidentally.

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In my continuing quest for being able to have even a remote chance of surviving the enemy assaults, I decide to make the next piece of Hyper equipment the Helmet. Found here, in the illustrious Tower designated D.

]

Tower D is pretty… interestingly colored. I like how Rubas decided to make his entire castle painted in such bright colors. It’s a friendly looking death fortress.



Nothing particularly interesting outside the Tower, not even a single Heart Orb, but the Tower proper has something interesting inside it.




The far left side of one of the identical floors of Tower D leads to the Parallel Tower D.



This Parallel Zone is loaded with Ghosts, which, as previously noted, NEVER venture into the lower corners of the screen, which makes them really easy to dispatch. I wish more secret items were this easy to find.




And at the top is the Hyper Helmet. Another of the games strongest pieces of equipment found, another large step on my way to crushing Rubas’ dream for owning entirely too many Bells. Or creating buildings that fly in the face of OSHA compliance. Or whatever he was going to do with all these Bell Towers.



Since I was mostly dead anyway, a stray monster killed me and I had to reclimb the entire tower again. This time, we’re heading into Tower C, for it has two incredibly useful items. One is not even remotely useful, and makes the world a dim, sad place.



Tower C boats True Next-Gen Visuals, since it’s mostly brown. There’s not much to comment on about Tower C, it’s a path of twisting staircases that lead up to the actual Tower, just like every other Tower in the game. The only out of the ordinary monster is a very, very large ghost that, besides being strong, is no different from the usual small ghosts I’ve been busting.




Just to the right of the Tower Entrance, however, is a Parallel Zone. This Parallel Zone, however, flips everything all topsy-turvey and requires you to walk DOWN what appears to be the exact same path I just went up! Crazy!




The madness that is this Parallel Zone ends with the discovery of the Parallel Shot! With this doohickey, Myer fires 2 Parallel Swords at once, effectively doubling his firepower and making it harder for enemies to dodge! Unfortunately, you can still only fire one set of Swords at a time. Meaning that if one sword connects, but the other doesn’t (which is almost a certainty, considering how many tiny, fast enemies there are) you can’t attack again until the other sword is off the screen. So the ONLY advantage you had when fighting enemies (the fact that you could hit them again before they stopped being stunned form the first shot) is now gone.

There’s another treasure in Tower C, but I died on my way out of the Zone…

Honestly, this here is the point wherein my blooming love for the game died out completely. The Parallel Shot is JUST that crappy of a power up.


It was like Stolkholm Syndrome, but in reverse.

Our next objective is to replace that awful, awful, awful Parallel Shot. So we head off to the vaguely Decepticon-colored Tower A. Luckily, Tower A is full of large enemies so the Parallel Shot isn’t too much of a liability.



The Entrance to the Parallel World is on the Path to the Tower. I’d show which one, but, honestly, every path looks the exact same so I can’t be sure WHERE it was exactly. I know it was on the left side of the screen, for anyone playing alongside.




About midway down the Parallel Path we find the Double Shot. The Double Shot is similar to the Parallel Shot, except it lets you send out two swords in a row instead of at once. Consequently, it doubles the rate of fire, making dispatching enemies infinitely easier!

There’s another, even greater still treasure in Tower A, but it is too dangerous to get without all of the Hyper Armor. So we leave the Tower. By walking rather then by being torn apart by Rubas’ ravenous hoards, for once.



Back into the Minty-Chocolate Chip Tower C which was also restocked with another Heart Orb. The Fire Demons and Wall Fish prove to be little match to the furious assault of swords tossed into their faces.




On the Right side of one of the floors of the Towers is a Secret Room stuffed with small, weak enemies. More importantly it contains the Magic Mace. The Mace temporarily surrounds Myer is a shield of rapidly rotating flame capable of damaging enemies. It doesn’t last very long, and it doesn’t prevent all damage, but it has a place where it comes in handy.

Why… lets see if we can find that place right now.





Just inside the entrance to the Orange Tower is a secret room that has the awesomely powerful Shield of Kings, guarded by a swarm of bats. I failed to get a picture of said room, since I was focusing more on using the Mace and mashing on the B button then taking screen shots. Anyhow, with the Shield of Kings, Myers defense is at its maximum, meaning that all but the very most powerful enemies are capable of dealing any noticeable amount of damage. I’m sure there’s another piece of equipment that’s too well guarded to have gotten without the rest of the Golden Armor.



First, back to Decepticon Tower.



A ways up the Tower Proper is an entrance to a Secret Room. And what is in this room?




The Dragon Slayer Sword! Initially guarded by a flock of bats (which, without the full armor, would have torn Myer apart in seconds, instead of knocking off a mere 50-ish HP total), the Sword causes a dramatic spike in Myers attack power.

Despite how preposterously powerful it is, the Dragon Slayer is, in fact, merely the second most powerful sword.

On that note, the only remaining treasures, are being saved for the final boss. Except for one…

All right, this here is the Blue, kind of spooky tower. Nothing particularly exciting on the Tower Path since the next treasure is inside the Tower.




There’s the next and final piece of Golden Equipment: The Gauntlet. And the Gauntlet is being protected by an enormous swarm of Ghosts. Luckily, despite the name, the Dragon Slayer works just as well on Ghosts.



The Gauntlet causes the firing rate of Swords to hit its maximum. I would compare the speed now to the default gun from Contra, instead of the original, Gemini Beam kind of acceleration. This is good news indeed!

There are only two Treasures left, but one can only be found outside of the final boss’s room, and the other is best saved until the last possible moment. So it’s finally time to walk up those Bell Towers and kill the holy crap out of whatever is living in there.

We’re healing the country by killing monsters!

These towers are getting less deadly with each post. I liked you better before you sold out, Myer.

OctoPrime... While your LP of this game is amusing, it's giving me 'Nam-esque flashbacks of the time I rented this game in my childhood. It's scarred me so badly.

I feel your pain... But it also makes me laugh.

I am greatly enjoying watching your suffering, Mr. Prime.

Well, we’re in this Tower anyway, might as well start with this one. At the top of the Tower is the boss monster. And just what is the number one threat to the kingdom?




BEARS!

Death Bear was arbitrarily chosen as the first “For Reals!” boss fight. He doesn’t move, but he does bombard you with a preposterous number of fireballs. To his credit, unlike every other enemy (and like every other boss), Death Bear isn’t stunned when you hit him.

So, if I had anything BUT the Dragon Slayer, I would be in danger.



Of course, I DO have the Dragon Slayer Sword, so Natures Greatest Killing Machine dies within seconds.




With Death Bear having gone back to Teddy Bear Hell, from whence he came, the first of the Bells that haven’t been mentioned since the intro-crawl shows up. Neat.

Incidentally, you know how in most Action/RPGs how you’re automatically teleported out of the area when you get the plot-relevant MacGuffin? Deadly Towers doesn’t do that. I have to walk back out of the Tower and down the Path to get back to the Castle.



Back outside the Tower, we find that the entrance to that particular tower has been walled up. Luckily there’s nothing else in there.



This Entrance seems like a good place to trek into next.



It’s the Purple Tower again! The trek up it is an endless cycle of repeating textures to such a degree that if I had managed to take screens of my quest up each tower, all but the most careful viewer would have accused me of just posting the same picture time and again.



The Tower itself has another Heart Orb, though. Which is nice.




The boss of this tower is the Centipede. As its name implies, it’s a giant centipede. Creative, I know. Despite the games faults, I will give them this credit: They designed this boss with the Squared Cube law in mind; it’s exactly as powerful as a 20-foot centipede should be.

Which is to say it dies with a single blow.




WOO!



Back outside, and the entrance has disappeared as well. Whereto next, you ask?

This tower was giving me the stink-eye earlier, so I guess that we’ll waltz on up it and kill whatever lives in there.




The Tower boss is the guy who had the Fire Ring from Captain Planet.

Wheeler has a pretty simple pattern. He hovers left and right, barraging you with fire. Of course, he’s still very weak and I don’t need to change my strategy of standing perfectly still while shooting him.




This strategy proves quite successful.




Next up: The Leafy Tower




Great Burn, as his name suggests, is a giant fire monster. He is also the single most dangerous monster in the game due to his huge amount of health and the raw power of the fire he’s pelting you with.

LUCKILY this is a poorly made game, and as such, Great Burns attacks can’t hit you if you stand in the corner. And if you shoot at a diagonal, you can still hit him pretty easily.

Guess what I did?



Yeah, I’m cheap. I don’t care, the game started it.

Tomorrow: Even more Boss Monster Killing!

Prince Meyer is like, "I'm gettin' the Christ outta here."

Oh man...Prince Meyer is the star of the shittiest game in history, and Stephenie Meyer is the author of history's shittiest book series.

Someone gather the Priests of the world and start training them in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. There's an ancient evil slithering among us and it's getting more powerful.

I lol'd. Fuckin' Wheeler.

I didn't even know you could fire diagonally in this game. If twelve-year-old me had known that, would he have been able to conquer the Deadly Towers? Probably not by a long shot.

Next Up: This lovely tower full of sentient fire.




Logically the boss of a tower full of flame is a giant plant, a giant plant that looks rather like a demonic version of one of the Muppa-Phone heads. A Muppa-Phone Head that grew eternally dissatisfied with his place in life and rose to join Rubas in his quest to conquer all the lands!

Beat Plant is exactly like pretty much every other boss and requires absolutely no strategy besides “Hit him a whole lot”.





Making a slight detour here, since my life hit a critically low level. When you drop one of the Tower Bells into the flame that’s in the middle of the Castle Tower/Bell Tower junction your life is totally refilled and the bell utterly destroyed. All the Bells need to burn before the final tower (yes, there’s another one) can be accessed.

Burning the Bells also causes a number of other changes. Some monsters get upgraded to more powerful forms as you burn more bells, shops inventory improves and some invisible entrances lead to different places, which is Super-Awesome when there’s an invisible shop you were relying on for cheap potions, that now leads to the middle of some Kahn-Forsaken dungeon.



Up next is the Teal/Pink Tower entrance. This tower is ugly, so I don’t mind killing its guardian and knocking it down. Presumably.




He’s a stone cold killa, yo. You be messed up good.

As you can see, the Cold Killer is a giant blue ape. He uses a fairly unique strategy for bosses in this game, in that he hovers, left and right, shooting me with fire.

Consequently, I have to change my tried and true strategy of “Stand still and shoot him a whole bunch” with the rather unpredictable “Remain motionless, firing a lot” technique.




The Winged Ice Monkey falls like a… winged ice monkey would be expected to. Six Bells found, two destroyed, one more boss to kill.

Rock!




Incidentally, you remember how I mentioned that there was one Tower Treasure I was saving for the last moment? It’s in here.

A short ways into the path is an entrance to a Secret Room. An empty Secret Room full of ravenous bats! Luckily, all the Gold Armor and the Dragon Slayer make this room infinitely less lethal then when I went in here before. But, of course, this leaves the question of why would I go into such a dangerous room that is totally empty…




The answer, of course is because there is another Secret Room inside the previous Secret Room. This one only has a single Puddle in it, which is so pitiful I had to break down and laugh at the game when I saw it.

Also in the room, but very hard to see, is the Blue Necklace.



The Blue Necklace makes Myer completely invincible for a while. It can only used once, and there is only the one in the game. I was saving it since it comes in handy during the final battle, and if I died before then, I would have lost it, along with every other consumable item in my inventory.





Meanwhile, back in the tower, Great Wing isn’t getting any deader, so we best head off and duel him to the death!

Great Wing is an owl. There is nothing else that separates him from every other boss in the game.



And so, all the Bells have been collected. Now to simply incinerate them and traipse into Hells Maw!




Like so.

Had I been thinking ahead, I would have bought one of the Green Scrolls earlier, since it could automatically send me back the Castle Entrance, which is where the Final Tower is. As such, I have to hike back through the castle. Again. But backwards this time! And walking down the Castle is much harder then climbing it, since enemies usually spawn in very… inconvenient locations when going backwards.

Long story short is that I had more hilarious pratfalls then every one of Andy Dicks characters put together.



So here we are, back where it all began, except further to the right. The previously barred entrance is now opened. Ahead lies DESTINY!

And a Boss Rush.

Destiny and a Boss Rush.