I played this game because, as a fan of cheesy sci-fi B-movies, it boasted an aesthetic that I've never seen a game explore before. Visually, The Deadly Tower of Monsters does a wonderful job of recreating the feel of an Ed Wood-style production because it's full of enemies in terrible costumes, enemies who fly onto the screen aided by some easy-to-spot string and enemies who move in stop motion. Some of the visuals really hit the spot and the game hits a homerun when it comes to emulating that low budget movie feel.

The central conceit of The Deadly Tower of Monsters is that you're watching a director provide a DVD commentary over his own movie and, it has to be said, the writing is actually quite funny. The fact that the voiceover DOESN'T get annoying is a welcome surprise, it's fun.

Beyond all of that window dressing though, there's not much more to it. This is a game that nails it in terms of the art directions but falls flat in terms of the gameplay. It's a basic Diablo clone with extremely repetitive combat and no other game mechanics to speak of. The combat isn't particularly impactful and gets pretty boring, which is a shame because the style alone screams potential. It's a nice looking game but it needed a bit of extra spice in the gameplay department.