Towers: Lord Baniff's Revenge

I'll start with the good points. There are 15 levels, so it's not a game you will complete while stuck in traffic. It's in a 3D first-person perspective, none of that light-bulb's eye view of the tops of people's heads. There are four characters to choose from, choices being from high-brawn/low mana to kinda-weak/lotsa mana. Unfortunately, all four are male, which is something most of us females are already used to anyway. There are two slots for saving your game; this is like a godsend, one slot would be helpful enough but that second slot is handy when you realize you never should have pressed that button two levels ago! Your avatar is alive; you can't just bash and fireball your way through to the end, you need to make sure the avatar has enough food and water to make it. Sleep too is necessary, so remember those safe areas. The storyline is simple but fun enough to keep the gameplay exciting. The monsters are well designed, there is good variety there. There are lots of spells, but the spell preparation takes some getting used to.

On the downside, there were a couple of puzzles that did not have adequate hints (the savegame feature comes in very handy here when you realize you've opened the wrong door). There are many secret doors and hidden areas, this means after the first three levels you will have to basically walk into every blank wall you see to find these undetectable areas. It's time consuming and gets tiring fast, but worth the effort in the end. A knowledge of the game of chess is necessary later on in the game. The first time through, I played with Mr. Bulging Muscles Low IQ, and the game went along pretty well. He can pretty much carry everything he comes across, wear full plate armor and still bend over to pick up that Death Mace of Doom. When I played round two with Superwizard, I found that he can't wear light armor, carry a pouch of food and water, wield a little dagger, and still expect to pick up that scroll the giant cobra dropped. Character advancement is unimpressive; gaining a level seemed to have more to do with stumbling up a flight of stairs than with solving puzzles or exterminating monsters. Also, the character maxes out rather quickly.

There is an automap feature, which is handy when you want to see if there's enough space for the area to contain one of those secret rooms. It's too bad this automap feature is not always accurate; if you're near the bottom of a square, the surrounding areas change shape and those corridors stretch out.

This is a fun GameBoy Color game for those who like fantasy RPG, though there are many less fancy games that are at least as enjoyable.

Note: The software designers were very good about e-mailing a map and a list of hints when I got stuck on one of the levels.

If RPGs is your game, I can't recommend Towers enough.