Tokoyo: The Tower of Perpetuity

Tokoyo: The Tower of Perpetuity

released on Nov 07, 2020

Tokoyo: The Tower of Perpetuity

released on Nov 07, 2020

In this platform shooter, you find yourself trapped in a mysterious tower – one that transforms its very structure every 24 hours, where you must surpass countless poor fallen souls and make your way to the heretofore unseen top!


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not manic enough! much of it is good: mechanics are simple but malleable, powerups are helpful but not overbearing, the girls are cute. it’s just missing that third act— the final stretch into madness that would elevate a bullet hell roguelike like this into canon

The game has a good idea but its biggest sin is to keep 100% connected to the Internet, so if you play away from home you can not play the game. I feel like an idiot to pay in a game that makes me use 100% of the internet looking like a gacha, would easily give to be without having to use the Internet and this easily causes the game has a delay during the matches lock for light seconds even in bosses and u caught the game on Nintendo Switch at launch and had problems with the game where out of nowhere in the middle of a game gave an error making the console restart was the only game that did this on my console more than once, but about the gameplay it is interesting, the character illustrations are nice some i love the look of them but its so much wasted potential if this was a metroidvania style platformer it would be even more rewarding, the story of each character is individual but you can Zero them in just 30 minutes playing even less they are very short stories, it had no updates or anything to keep the game alive so i did everything it offered, its not a bad game just misused.

The 24 hour rotation thing is like the best and worst aspect of it. Best because it's really unique and cool, worst because if you get a bad tower rotation you're stuck that way for the next 24 hours.

Actually no, the worst aspect of it is the hitboxes. The Metroid-like final boss can go fuck itself.

But honestly this game is really fucking fun and I can see myself coming back to it a lot.

It's a bullet hell platformer roguelike, interesting concept but it sometimes makes for a frustrating experience. It's a fun game but damn does it get HARD at times. Cute pixel art and nice chiptune background music. Lots of room for improvement.

This game has promise, it really does, but in it's current state I can't strongly recommend it. Starting with the pros of this game: It's a very unique take on the Rogue(vania) genre: For one, you cannot just bullet your way to the top. The main gimmick is you only have your special attack, which regenerates every 30 seconds by default, those this changes based on items you pick up. Each character in the game has a different attack, some easier to control than others, which means there is varying difficulty for those who like a challenge.

Another interesting thing Tokoyo does is have a different layout for it's dungeon daily, and that means real world time. This can be both a bane and a boon is a given map on a day is particularly easy or particularly hard, but this style of randomization might not be for everyone. This does also give it an interesting scenario where if you don't like a certain map, you're almost stuck with it on a given day. This sort of lock-out is definitely not for everyone, especially those who like the chaos of a randomized map every time they start, so be warned.

Most of my issues with the game are from a technical standpoint. The biggest drawback of this game is the learning curve is a steep, steep cliff. You will be dying constantly in the first two, possibly three sections due to how much the difficult jacks up. The main gimmick of the game is also a serious bane to the other gimmick they decide to introduce after the first section, which is the 'Karma' meter.

You have a limited amount of time to completely each little 'floor' portion of a section, and that time will quickly be drained if you mess something up. This mechanic is incredibly unforgiving and essentially encourages speedrunning or death-candying (Dying then using 'Candies' to revive yourself) your way to the top, as your reward for not escaping a floor in time is a slow and inescapable death. This sort of rushed gameplay makes the earlier, timing and dodging-focused style of fighting much less valuable, though I partially understand why it was done. For one, just sitting in a corner waiting for your special to refresh would be easily abuseable-- but I feel giving a time limit of under a minute that gradually dissipates was far from the solution.

Another small gripe with the game is some enemies look like interactable items, and some interactable items look like enemies. When I first encountered a portal, I had no clue it wasn't an enemy until I finally took a chance and jumped on top of it. There's also another enemy that like an item... It doesn't look intentional after a second glance, but maybe it is? Regardless, I feel there should be better distinction between what things should be avoided and what things are useful to the player (Portals, Items, etc.) Especially given how valuable time and health is with it's current gameplay loop.

Overall, I think the issues with this game make it hard to enjoy as it's not a system that's very rewarding / allows one to power up readily at the very beginning. While most of the time the solution is just to keep dying until you get good, the gameplay of Tokoyo and how punishing it is for minor mistakes makes it discouraging to keep playing. My suggestion is the rework the Mana system (perhaps to regenerate based off collecting coins / defeating enemies) and to remove the time limit per floor, making the game more strategy based rather than rushing a player to the top. Some people may enjoy this style of game, but it isn't for me personally.

+5 for the cute maid boy
-1 for the fact that his sister wants to fuck him