Game Review: Scarlet Tower

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC

It often feels like roguelike titles come out at such a rapid pace these days that it's often hard to tell one from another. That task is made all the more difficult when they look and play so much like other, more well-known, games in the genre. Scarlet Tower is exactly that game, as it bears more than a passing resemblance to 2021's Vampire Survivors. It's out now on the Nintendo Switch following an earlier PC release, and we're going to be taking a look at it today. There isn't more to say as far as intros go, so let's get right into it!

If Scarlet Tower has a story, I completely missed it during my time playing. There's no opening cutscene, no story sequences explaining who is doing what and why, and barely much more mentioned beyond simple names. I even checked the game's eShop description to see if there would be anything there, but there is not one sentence beyond promoting its "gothic horror" setting. I don't think games like this necessarily need to have an involved story to be good, but I do think that Scarlet Tower in particular needs every positive that it can get. This is a budget title that will instantly draw comparisons to other (honestly much better) games, and leaving anything undone like this just feels strange. I'm going to move on in a bit and discuss gameplay, but we all know what to expect right? This is a top-down roguelike game that mainly plays like an auto-fire shooter by default. You can turn off the auto-fire attacks, and indeed even pick a character whose focus is on close quarters combat instead of projectiles, but that's essentially what the game boils down to. I wish there were more positive things I could say about it early on in the review, but I guess one can at least appreciate that it's at least is a competent game that's available at a very reasonable price. Let's see how long that positivity stands up.

I'm just going to say it because there's no point hiding it anymore, Scarlet Tower plays a lot like Vampire Survivors. Now that may sound a little cheap since that game is so popular that it's hard for other games in the genre to escape its shadow, but Scarlet Tower honestly feels like it came into being specifically to emulate its success. That means that if you've played Vampire Survivors, you've played Scarlet Tower. I guess there is a bit more focus on stats and variety, but I'm not sure that these few changes are worth pointing out. Scarlet Tower is a roguelike, and that means you'll be making several runs into what are essentially large dungeon areas.

Each run of Scarlet Tower sees you pick a character who is more or less proficient in certain weapons and skills that you acquire and upgrade during said run. I personally went for the Elementalist, because I found the many melee fighters to be too against my particular play style. That is another positive that I want to point out now by the way, as the game does offer a little something for every play style out there. After selecting your character, you begin a run that sees you take on wave after wave of ever-stronger enemies. Each wave tends to feel more daunting, but you're able to keep up thanks to the constant level up system. Not only does levelling up increase your base stats, but it's also where you get new/more powerful weapons and abilities. These are given to you in groupings of three, and the game does a good job pointing out which might work best for your currently selected character. Some upgrades are passive skills, but others are additional attacks that take out even more enemies at a time, and both can be upgraded by picking them up again in subsequent level ups. You're only allowed a certain number of equipped skills and weapons, so it's best to choose carefully and accordingly. Taking out lots of enemies allows you to unleash a powerful attack that acts almost like a screen-clearer, and usually leaves behind a chest with multiple upgrades in it. Boss encounters eventually start to pop up over the course of the run, and defeating the boss of the current areas marks the run a success. Conversely, if you die before that you get to keep all the in-game currency you've acquired, but have to restart the run again from the beginning the next time.

Even though all equipment and levels reset to zero following a run, there are ways to permanently upgrade your characters. Stats and skills can be boosted across the entire roster, across specific races of characters, and within specific character's skill sets. It's up to the player to decide where to allocate the few upgrade points you get per run, but it's best to focus on the character you'll be playing with the most. Even though I liked the fact that you're able to beef up your characters quite a bit via this system, I didn't like that the limited amount of upgrade currency meant that changing to another character means that you might as well be starting the game all over again. This is made somewhat more annoying when you realize that most of the playable characters are unlocked over time, and some have requirements that mean you won't be getting them until you're well into the game. What could've been a rich upgrade system ends up punishing players who experiment too much with the game, at least that's the way it felt to me.

Even though there's a lot of gameplay variety to be had in Scarlet Tower, I couldn't help but feel that everything felt far more repetitive than other games in the genre. I don't know how else to describe it, but the game just feels like it lacks a "soul" so to speak. There are some presentation issues I'm going to get to later, but I found that most runs were a chore to get through. This isn't a bad game though, I just always felt like it wasn't worth my time. There is no spark that draws one in and keeps them playing, it just feels like gameplay for gameplay's sake. I know for a fact that I would've given the game far less time if I hadn't been writing this review, and that's not a good thing. I'll circle back to this later, but that hard to describe feeling isn't the only problem I had with Scarlet Tower's gameplay. Helping out potential allies, or completing in-run quests, never felt very fun, and I very rarely bothered with them. They mostly felt like pointless additions, as do other parts of the game that I'm sure the developers added to make things unique. For example there is a day/night cycle, and there are even weather events, but none of them add anything particular interesting to the gameplay loop. It also takes a very long time to see anything beyond the game's first area. This could've obviously been a skill issue on my part, but that drab first area doesn't exactly draw in new players and it takes several 20-ish minute successful runs to move past it. There are more things I could point out that I didn't like, such as the confusing types of upgrade currencies, but I'll leave my disappointment with the gameplay there.

Graphically, the game has a retro-inspired look to it, but the character and monster designs feel like the epitome of the term "generic". They're not bad, but they come off as uninspired. I found myself more often wondering what they were supposed to be instead of enjoying how they looked. What you get in the game's key art is far better than what you get in-game, and that's never a good sign. Then there's the text-heavy nature of the game, and the fact that the font used is rather small. I played this in Docked Mode, but I still had a hard time reading some of the descriptions of skills and upgrades. Seeing as the game is pretty much entirely made up of mostly-text menus outside of the gameplay runs, and you can understand why this became rather annoying fast. I can at least say that it ran perfectly on the Switch, and there was never any sort of performance hiccups that I noticed. I'm just not sure if the bar should be set that low. I mean, how many times can I say "It's not bad, but..." before it gets old?

The single most disappointing aspect of Scarlet Tower has to be its sound. If I had to describe the music in one word, I would say that it's "boring". The fact that you have to listen to some of the most generic video game music I've ever heard for 15-20+ minutes on end is just excruciating. I don't think I've ever turned down music in a game so fast before, but it really detracted from the overall experience to the point where I felt that I had to. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the game's repetitious nature, along with its generic music, actually managed to put me to sleep a couple times while I was playing. Nothing about the game's presentation felt like it was included to keep players invested, and I can't help but wonder how this game got past testing. The sound effects aren't too much better either, and I'm sure that I don't have to say that the game features no voice acting at all. Just disappointment all around once again.

Obviously fans of the genre will find something to enjoy here, but I just don't see myself playing it much more than I already have. This isn't a bad game at all, and it's $4.99 price tag means that fans of the genre can grab it without much worry, but I'd much rather pick up Vampire Survivors instead. And that's basically it. If you're looking for a game of this type to sink your teeth into, get Vampire Survivors instead. This is basically a soul-less, less fun version of that game anyway. I guess if you've beaten it and are looking for another game to try out, Scarlet Tower might not be too bad, but I'd suggest you value your time a bit more. That's all for now, see you in the next one.

Check Out Scarlet Tower on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/scarlet-tower-switch/

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Story: N/A (Is there one?)
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B-
Music/Sound: C
Value: A

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ A decent alternative for those who've already 100% Vampire Survivors.
+ Features surprisingly deep weapon and skill upgrade systems.
+ Lots of gameplay variety, and it can take quite a while to see everything the game has to offer.
+ At just $4.99, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Cons:
- If there's a story here I must've completely missed it.
- Progression feels very slow early on. It takes several hours to see anything beyond the starting area.
- Music is very mediocre, which can make the frequent 20 minute long runs feel like a chore.
- Is missing that "spark" that makes games stand above others in their genre.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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At least the Shopkeeper is a frog. That's pretty cool!

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