Tower of Time (PC) Review

While this is a 40-something-hour romp, the very first hour or so makes it pretty clear that this isn't really the RPG it claims to be. Yes, it has you control a team of adventurers, fight baddies, solve puzzles, gather loot, upgrade your gear, and so on, but don't come in expecting some heavy role-playing... as in 'none.' Tower of Time is basically an RPG-ish dungeon crawler, with an extremely linear structure that never, ever lets players feel as if they are in control of the situation.

The story revolves around a magical spire; a place of great power, which can, supposedly, be used to save the land from starvation, or something. Unfortunately, everything is presented through the use of boring, and badly-written, exposition. Moreover, the characters themselves are forgettable to the point of admiration, with each one basically having one trait and nothing more - the paladin is all about honour, the rogue is greedy and cynical, the elf is mysterious and stuff, and so on.

As for the main character, it's 'You,' but the most mediocre 'You' that has ever appeared in a game. Instead of being another member of the party, the hero of the story, who is actually named "You," is mentally guiding his teammates from a magical throne inside this tower. If the developer avoided giving him a name in order to make things more immersive, it failed, mostly because, rather than allowing for a custom character to be created, instead it is limited to the blandest male in existence.

In conclusion, Tower of Time won't really win any awards for its world-building or storytelling; therefore, the party is basically fighting its way towards the bottom of this bizarre tower, without the player really caring why. As for the battles, rather than doing them on the spot, similar to most CRPGs, meeting with an enemy teleports the team into a somewhat simplistic arena, with enemies coming in waves through a bunch of portals.

This makes most fights soon end up feeling quite samey and repetitive, but, fortunately, the battle mechanics themselves are quite good and, undoubtedly, the best thing on offer. The classes are built in a way that requires focusing wholly on the things they do best - the rogue, for example, must do anything possible to avoid damage, whether through laying traps or by letting the warrior classes tackle the foes instead of her.

This demands a tactical way of thinking, and that's great, but things aren't perfect. For starters, while the abilities of the heroes are quite interesting, some neat ideas were thrown into the bin. Draw skills, for instance, which let you draw a line and, say, create a blocking wall, are extremely uncommon, as most spells and powers are just simplistic, AoE abilities. Oh, and the skill trees can be described as subpar at best, there is basically little choice between class builds... if any.

However, battles will soon end up feeling identical, first due to their structure, and lack of substantially different scenarios, and, secondly because the enemies themselves are boring mobs that just walk towards the group like zombies, with some being simple warriors, while others (usually the most dangerous ones) are mages with AoE magic. Couple all this with some average visuals, and music that feels as if it plays somewhere in the distance, and this is bound to make gamers fall asleep at the wheel.

The only thing that's left to say about Tower of Time is the subject of its loot system. The resources that can be found throughout this quest are finite, but the game has made it so that the number of things that can be found or crafted is... surprisingly high. The problem is that the vast majority of the time items just tend to be marginally different in stats, so, while the combination number hits six digits, the gear itself doesn't really get a chance to shine and make the player feel the difference.