Aleesha's Tower

Short, miserable, basic platformer. Don't waste your time with it.

Not to be too harsh on a game made by just one guy, but this one is too simplistic for seasoned gamers of action RPGs and too boring for new players who may want to try the genre out. That's not to say it isn't hard at times, as this game has one fatal flaw that makes it more irritating than anything in the world: when you're on a rope and enemies hit you, you fly into a pit and die instantly. There are no checkpoints and this happens constantly, so expect to restart over and over due to bad level design. Beyond that this game is actually very easy, being a mock Castlevania clone with overly simplistic graphics and a guy with a sword and a shield that can actually be used to block. The levels are pretty dull, but the boss fights are pretty varied. The only really hard one is the final boss. The bosses take 60-70 hits to kill but you don't see their health bar so expect to get frustrated either wondering when the battle is going to end or keeping count in your head. With that said, the game might have been a lot of effort for one person but compared to games like the original NES, SNES and Gameboy Advance Castlevanias it's just not very good. I never used the special items because …

Decent game that definitely feels like a call back to the Arcade days, but heck it even has DNA of a SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis or even Commodore Amiga title. Controls are tight, the pixel art graphics are very good, story is nice and simple and the music fits the mood of the stages. My main criticism though is the frustration of the egregious knock-back into instant death pits which is primarily how I died rather than my health being drained from not learning enemy patterns. If you do give this game a go, be aware of that, but was still a nice quick playthrough.

"Aleesha's Tower" is a decent 2D retro action-platformer with a basic, but solid sword-and-sorcery-/fantasy-setting, where you play a brawny warrior traversing six levels and slaying their respective bosses. The pixel art and animation is okay and the sound gets the job done. The movement and combat is a little stiff, but this is intended, for it mimics the classics of the genre. Also many situations are quite challenging: there are some tight attack patterns and really nasty enemy positioning, resulting in some instant deaths which may be offputting for some, but scratches the itch of unfiltered nostalgia for others (seriously, the hit-knockback of the MC is right out of Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden, but "Aleesha's Tower" is definetly more forgiving than these two). Give it a try for around 2 hours, it is no masterpiece by any means, but solid throughout.

Short, simple platformer game. Feels similar to Castlevania except you got a sword and shield. The game is also pretty linear.

[h2]This one you probably also got this in the Pixel vs Pixel Adventure Bundle[/h2] [h3]Original Review[/h3] Whereas ORCS was an uncomplicated but fun little side scroller with a bit of strategic depth, this one fully commits to being old school... and ends up being a much worse game in the process. The game takes after Rastan Saga and you might recognize some shared elements with another game inspired by it: Volgarr the Viking. I didn't particularly like Volgarr the Viking, but I can recognize the tight level design in it which lead to most of the stages being "masterable" after finding the right strategy. None of that is here The sluggish movement and combat (one pathetically underpowered sword swing and a bunch of subweapons which you barely get any ammo to use [b]and[/b] both ammo and weapon get lost upon death) only makes each stage feel needlessly long and filled with tons of "screw you" moments. Enemies have too much health and are inconsitent in how they react to your attacks: sometimes they get properly stunlocked, other times they just throw their attack in. Some you can run past, but more often than not you end up taking damage in the process. Timings are inconsistent…