TowerFall Ascension

Stellar game with impecable pixelgraphics and precise and fun to learn movement. Coop is fun, but Versus is where the meat of the game is. I mainly write this review now, because the person i shared those 40 hours i played this game recently decided to leave this world behind and that brought me down the memory lane. There were many hours spent in my 20s just playin with them through the whole night and havin a great time. Honestly without their friendship I probably wouldn't be here. Sad i couldn't give that back. So thank you devs for a great game i have fond memories of sharing with a friend.

Towerfall Ascension is a 2d archery-platforming game taking place in one-screen "arenas" with enemies coming by waves. To win, you must defeat all enemies in all waves. The originality here is that you have a very limited number of starting arrows, and it's not easy to get more, so you're constantly scrambling to get them back through agile platforming. Plus the arrows don't fly straight but in arcs for a certain distance. Not short range but not the whole screen either. The controls are very tight with gamepad and there are subtleties that are not immediately obvious, especially with the dash. Easy to play, hard to master indeed. I wish the campaign progression was better too as it forces to replay stages at hardcore difficulty to unlock new ones at normal, something that was not obvious. As a coop game, this is great fun in the campaign. I often swore as enemies came out of nowhere or a lost arrow struck me. Plus, even if a wave is difficult, you're not alone so your partner (or yourself) might pull through. I also loved how you could bump on an enemy head like Mario, while falling. As a Versus party game, this is very good but limited in terms of time you can play at a time without getting tired of it because the matches are so quick. The more players you have, probably the more fun it would be. As a solo game, actually "coop" as one player, it is good but very challenging, perhaps too difficult. I could only reach level 7 out of 13 at normal. In singleplayer, depending on your skill and patience, your journey might be over fairly quickly, less than 45 minutes, so less of a recommendation there. Towerfall seems a bit expensive at regular price, but at $5 or less it would hit the sweet spot.

I'm surprised I've never left a review for Towerfall because it is probably my favorite game of all time. It has been the go to party game for my family and the one I reach for often to play with friends. I'm always taken aback when people say they haven't heard of Towerfall because it is genuinely so good and absolutely timeless. One of the unsung strengths of Towerfall is the variants. Lots of party games have variants or modifiers but very few allow you to choose them per player. This allows me to play with anyone of almost any skill level because you can keep adding more and more buffs to new players to make them stronger or give yourself variants that make the game harder for you which will balance the playing field and still leave the game enjoyable. Once the new players start getting the hang of it and win a round, the house rule is to choose one buff to remove. If you've never played Towerfall and you have a few controllers and some family or friends you want play with, you truly cannot pass this game up!