This review contains spoilers
I cannot stress enough just how charmingly goofy, weird, unhinged, and cartoony this game is. I've never really seen anything that feels like Pizza Tower in all the games I've played, despite the obvious inspiration it lifts from Wario Land in the gameplay and music. Something about it made it to where I could tell it was a passion project that took many years to create, even while only having heard of this game from people that rave about how good it is. I really couldn't come up with any major complaints, so this review won't be as nitpicky as some of my other reviews. I am legitimately considering grabbing that official Pizza Tower shirt just to represent how much I like this game.
When it comes to gameplay, like I mentioned earlier, it does feel a lot like Wario Land 4. The game is divided into separate levels (aside from the hub world), each of which have five collectibles you need to find most of to get access to the boss. The levels only end once you destroy an object (in WL4 you jump on the blue frog bomb and in this game you run into the Pillar John to destroy it), where you then have to make a mad dash back to the entrance to escape. The punishment here for failing these sequences, which the game calls Pizza Time, is much more severe than the "Hurry Up!" sections of Wario Land 4, since you just straight up die and have to start the level from the beginning. Another thing taken from Wario Land is the transformations, though they work quite a bit differently here since they can just be straight up weapons you use (like the face bullet pistol or the shotgun). Peppino is the main character and his moves feel pretty similar to Wario's. You got your dash to quickly build up speed, a ground pound, and a single short jump, for example. I noticed that he feels much smoother and more fluid to play than Wario, though, which seems to be because Peppino's move set is built to fit the sort of ridiculously speedy theme this whole game's design has. You can still go through the levels slowly, but just about everything in this game is encouraging you to run like a maniac, like how Peppino can run up walls or how he has to dash to break through certain blocks. When you build up speed, any enemy in your way dies (with only a few exceptions like the ghost enemies), although you have to be careful of hazards or you lose your momentum entirely. There's a combo system that this dashing plays directly into, so you're in a mad dash to keep your combo going as well as find any collectibles you may need. The gameplay loop is genuinely really fun, although it took a bit for me to get used to since I'm more accustomed to my platformers being on the slower side. I liked how some levels have you play as another character, the tag team duo of Gustavo and Brick. Gustavo is a pretty obvious Mario expy and Brick is a cute but weird fat rat that's like his Yoshi, except they're together at all times. It was a fun spin on the game, though I don't think you really get many opportunities to play as them. Oh, also Pizza Tower has a ranking system, but its only important if you're trying to 100% the game. I have to admit that it feels nice getting a good rank even in a casual playthrough, though it ultimately doesn't matter since all you really need to progress are the Toppins. The P Rank is the best, but its very difficult to get, so, naturally, I never managed to get one. Best one I got was A.
From what I could tell, there's barely any story here, so I'll take the usual dedicated story paragraph to instead talk about the other minor but charming aspects of the game, mainly soundtrack and visuals. The visuals are very colorful and strange, giving it a distinct style that almost looks like it was drawn in MS Paint to me if that makes any sense. It looks like a cartoon that you play, just in the form of pixel art. The levels tend to have unique aesthetics from each other, whether it be something more standard like Oregano Desert or something bizarre like Don't Make a Sound. There's a fun sense of parody in a lot of this game's designs, with an easy example to point to being how The Noise is a pretty obvious parody of The Noid, Dominos old mascot. The level Oh Shit -amusing name aside - has references to the Mario series, since you go through green pipes to traverse the level. There's actually a good number of Mario series references and parodies, which perhaps comes with the territory considering that Pizza Tower is inspired by Wario Land. The game also just straight up has a Five Nights at Freddy's inspired level, complete with its own animatronic jump-scares, which I was not expecting at all but found pretty amusing. At the end, you get a shotgun to destroy all the annoying animatronics with. It'd be a crime if I didn't at least bring up the soundtrack, so I'll shout that out here. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but man it manages to be so good. My favorites in the officially released soundtrack are Cold Spaghetti, Tropical Crust, and Tubular Trash Zone, but really all the songs are amazing in their own ways aside from maybe the songs made for the Fun Farm level (sorry just not a fan).
Overall, this was a really fun experience and I love so much about this game. Insanely charming characters and visuals, great soundtrack, speedy thrilling gameplay...it lives up to the hype in my opinion. I give this game a solid 4.5 stars; I have just barely enough problems to not put it at a full on 5 stars, but I was very close to putting it there.
When it comes to gameplay, like I mentioned earlier, it does feel a lot like Wario Land 4. The game is divided into separate levels (aside from the hub world), each of which have five collectibles you need to find most of to get access to the boss. The levels only end once you destroy an object (in WL4 you jump on the blue frog bomb and in this game you run into the Pillar John to destroy it), where you then have to make a mad dash back to the entrance to escape. The punishment here for failing these sequences, which the game calls Pizza Time, is much more severe than the "Hurry Up!" sections of Wario Land 4, since you just straight up die and have to start the level from the beginning. Another thing taken from Wario Land is the transformations, though they work quite a bit differently here since they can just be straight up weapons you use (like the face bullet pistol or the shotgun). Peppino is the main character and his moves feel pretty similar to Wario's. You got your dash to quickly build up speed, a ground pound, and a single short jump, for example. I noticed that he feels much smoother and more fluid to play than Wario, though, which seems to be because Peppino's move set is built to fit the sort of ridiculously speedy theme this whole game's design has. You can still go through the levels slowly, but just about everything in this game is encouraging you to run like a maniac, like how Peppino can run up walls or how he has to dash to break through certain blocks. When you build up speed, any enemy in your way dies (with only a few exceptions like the ghost enemies), although you have to be careful of hazards or you lose your momentum entirely. There's a combo system that this dashing plays directly into, so you're in a mad dash to keep your combo going as well as find any collectibles you may need. The gameplay loop is genuinely really fun, although it took a bit for me to get used to since I'm more accustomed to my platformers being on the slower side. I liked how some levels have you play as another character, the tag team duo of Gustavo and Brick. Gustavo is a pretty obvious Mario expy and Brick is a cute but weird fat rat that's like his Yoshi, except they're together at all times. It was a fun spin on the game, though I don't think you really get many opportunities to play as them. Oh, also Pizza Tower has a ranking system, but its only important if you're trying to 100% the game. I have to admit that it feels nice getting a good rank even in a casual playthrough, though it ultimately doesn't matter since all you really need to progress are the Toppins. The P Rank is the best, but its very difficult to get, so, naturally, I never managed to get one. Best one I got was A.
From what I could tell, there's barely any story here, so I'll take the usual dedicated story paragraph to instead talk about the other minor but charming aspects of the game, mainly soundtrack and visuals. The visuals are very colorful and strange, giving it a distinct style that almost looks like it was drawn in MS Paint to me if that makes any sense. It looks like a cartoon that you play, just in the form of pixel art. The levels tend to have unique aesthetics from each other, whether it be something more standard like Oregano Desert or something bizarre like Don't Make a Sound. There's a fun sense of parody in a lot of this game's designs, with an easy example to point to being how The Noise is a pretty obvious parody of The Noid, Dominos old mascot. The level Oh Shit -amusing name aside - has references to the Mario series, since you go through green pipes to traverse the level. There's actually a good number of Mario series references and parodies, which perhaps comes with the territory considering that Pizza Tower is inspired by Wario Land. The game also just straight up has a Five Nights at Freddy's inspired level, complete with its own animatronic jump-scares, which I was not expecting at all but found pretty amusing. At the end, you get a shotgun to destroy all the annoying animatronics with. It'd be a crime if I didn't at least bring up the soundtrack, so I'll shout that out here. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but man it manages to be so good. My favorites in the officially released soundtrack are Cold Spaghetti, Tropical Crust, and Tubular Trash Zone, but really all the songs are amazing in their own ways aside from maybe the songs made for the Fun Farm level (sorry just not a fan).
Overall, this was a really fun experience and I love so much about this game. Insanely charming characters and visuals, great soundtrack, speedy thrilling gameplay...it lives up to the hype in my opinion. I give this game a solid 4.5 stars; I have just barely enough problems to not put it at a full on 5 stars, but I was very close to putting it there.