Summary
In a genre as notoriously difficult as roguelites(and roguelikes, for that matter) dying is the absolute worst thing that can happen to you. After spending a whole run battling RNG and trying your hardest to get the best loot, gear, and equipment, there’s nothing worse than tripping at the last hurdle and having to start all over again.
That constant uphill battle isone of the defining characteristics of roguelites and part of what makes them special, but that never stops it from stinging when the Game Over screen pops up.Spelunky,Hades, andRogue Legacy 2are all legendary games, but they can sometimes feel like smashing your head against an unrelenting brick wall over and over again.
Roguelites do make things a bit easier by having permanent upgrades, but that really just speeds the grind up a bit.
Constant deaths and depression aside, I’m still a big fan of the genre and race to check out anything new that’s happening in it. That led me to playLucky Tower UltimateatGamescom 2024, which ended up being one of my biggest surprises of the show because of how it takes the worst part of roguelites and turns it into something you look forward to.
What The Heck Is Lucky Tower?
For those that don’t know,Lucky Tower started its life as a series of Flash gamesstarring a boisterous and dimwitted knight called Von Wanst who constantly finds himself in ironically named “lucky” towers. In those games, players make their way down the tower and choose which path to take, which often leads to them being killed in horrible ways.
I remember messing around with the original Lucky Tower at school and, like every Flash game ever, found it to be a good distraction from the work I was supposed to be doing. My time with the series was very short-lived, though, as I’d basically forgotten about it until doing my research for Lucky Tower Ultimate.
While the name might make it seem like Ultimate is a remake of the original Flash game,it’s actually more of a spiritual sequel that takes the same concept of making your way down a tower and turns it into a rougeliteby adding randomised rooms, loot, encounters, and more, which is a brilliant way of adapting the series.
Von Wanst In His Underpants
Every playthrough starts out the same, with Von Wanst spawning at the top of the tower with nothing but his pants (although he does get a stylish new haircut each time) and an endless supply of quips. As I made my way down the first time and chose the door on the left (left isalwaysright), I suddenly heard screaming coming from the walls, before a giant purple man squished me into red goo with a hammer.
Not the best start to my adventure, but I couldn’t help myself from laughing out loud from the demo station I was at and getting some funny looks in the process. Everyone around me must have gotten used to it fast, though, as I lost count of how many times I died in weird ways and ended up giggling to myself.
That first death was a little unfair and out of nowhere (and something that I fell for multiple times), but that feels like half the point of Lucky Tower Ultimate. One of my runs saw me opening a door to find an angry goblin on the toilet, who retaliated and killed me after I sheepishly took another peek, while another had me plummeting to my death after cartoonishly slipping on a banana peel.
Slashy Slashy!
Sure, youcanmake it through by finding enough good loot lying around and learning how to get past the tricks and traps, but don’t you want to find out what happens if you drink the strange potion that witch gave you? Don’t you want to pick up the horn to doot goblins instead of the powerful, actually helpful sword?
While a lot of my time in Lucky Tower Ultimate felt like the joke was on me, it was a gag I was constantly delighted to be a part of. When I eventually got more serious and decided to properly make my way through the tower, I was happily reminded of Spelunky and the constant lessons it teaches you about how items interact with each other and their many different properties.
The difference here is that everything you do is incredibly silly, with Von Wanst having a surprising amount of comments, jokes, and quips for pretty much every situation he finds himself in. I only got to play around 30 minutes, but I was a bit gobsmacked at just how funny the jokes are here, even if every laugh from me was usually met with Wanst’s unfortunate end.
My time with Lucky Tower Ultimate was nowhere near enough to get a good idea of its endgame, progression systems, or even just how much is stuffed into its namesake tower, but I laughed more than I expected and there was a surprising amount of depth for such a comedy-focused game. I feel like I barely scratched the surface of Von Wanst’s hellish Groundhog Day, but what I scratched left a big impression.
