There aren’t a whole lot of games where you can play a badass archer that takes out your foes exclusively with arrows. Enter Towerfall, an indie game that’s now officially on every current-gen console, where it’s just you and your trusty bow against other archers and/or enemies.
Regardless of what game mode you play, your goal is the same: take out your enemies with your bow, limited number of arrows, and the ability to pick up spent arrows. There are two primary game modes – Versus and Co-op – as well as trials to undertake. Trials are a great starting point, putting you up against stationary dummies and tasking you with taking them all out with a limited number of shots. These introduce you to all of the game’s powerups and obstacles, such as arrows that explode or drill through walls, and platforms that do their very best to squish you into nothingness. Each trial has three levels of difficulty, each of which saves your best time.
I wasn’t personally able to experience the game with any other players (there’s no online mode), but I did have a heck of a time solo with the Co-op mode, a game mode for 1-4 players. Co-op has two modes of its own – Quest (a set number of levels for 1-2 players) and Dark World (where 1-4 players face levels that “shift into unique layouts every time you play”). Both allow you to collect skulls in levels based on the difficulty you choose, and both get ridiculously difficult if you choose the harder difficulties! Dark World also allows you to choose as many curses (bad things) as well as a number of powerups, although different difficulties limit you to certain numbers of powerups: 3 for normal, 1 for hardcore, and 0 for legendary. Dark World pits you against a number of waves of enemies with three extra lives, giving you a portal to jump into after each. This portal also gives you a place to come back to life if you die, so that you aren’t forced to tackle all of the waves at once. At the end of the waves is a boss fight, each wildly unique, such as a rotating blob with an eye that has a spiky shield or a beast that moves giant platforms around to smash you. On the other hand, Quest mode gives you five extra lives to tackle smaller waves of enemies, but if you run out of lives you have to start all over again.
Both Co-op modes are rather fun, even if I do stare at the screen and laugh when facing off against the harder difficulty modes half of the time. But I definitely preferred Dark World since there’s a lot less pressure – nothing stinks more than defeating five waves of enemies only to die on the sixth and have to restart in Quest mode. The added stress does add some greater value to success, though, and since Quest mode uses the same enemies each time you can learn the spawns and practice until you nail it.
Most importantly, the shooting mechanics are terrific and soooooooo satisfying! Enemies crumple or get pinned to things when they die, or can even deflect arrows with their own blades and projectiles. Arrows can only be fired in all four cardinal directions and all four diagonals, but they arch a bit to seek out enemies that you’re very close to hitting. Shooting above you is as dangerous as it is in real life as your arrow eventually falls back at you, and when things get especially chaotic you can easily kill yourself by mistake. Pressing the fire button rapidly allows you to fire several arrows per second if you have them in your quiver, but keep in mind that you’ll have to go and retrieve them or you’ll be helpless. In multiplayer you can even end up with your enemies or allies holding all of their own arrows and yours if you’re not too careful!
But even when you’re unarmed, you still have a chance. You can kill any type of enemy by landing on their head, although it’s very risky against enemies who fire projectiles as they can just aim up and shoot you before you stomp them. If you have great timing you can even try to catch arrows!
Finally, as I said before I was unable to test the Versus mode, which is a shame as the developers clearly have the ability to make some very solid AI enemies. I would’ve been more than happy to face off against several other AI archers in the Versus mode, and I feel like they’d make a fun optional addition for two or three players as well.
Towerfall on Nintendo Switch includes the Dark World DLC content, as well as adding two slots to the Versus modes, allowing up to six people to battle one another. There’s also the addition of Madeline from Celeste, and while I haven’t had the pleasure to play Celeste myself, she’s a cool addition to the game!
Towerfall is available for Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Steam (Windows, Mac, and Linux), but keep in mind that versions on consoles aside from Nintendo Switch require the Dark World DLC content to get everything described in this review.
I received a free copy of this game in exchange for an honest review.