It feels so gratifying to play a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve yet feels so confident with its own ideas and execution.

Pizza Tower offers some of the most mechanically dense platforming in its genre. Every level and move you can pull off is so perfectly calculated to encourage the act of speed. What's that? You're bumping into too many walls that make your speed come to a screeching halt? Well just run up them, doofus. You'd think the high you get from going at such blistering speeds would wear off eventually, but each level offers something so different and unique that they become endlessly exhilarating to master.

Combos feel so satisfying and invigorating to chain together with the barrage of moves you can pull off, combat quickly becoming a mad dash towards the next enemy to pulverize or the next batch of ingredients to grab. Bosses contrast the main gameplay by requiring the player to be calm and methodical in their methods to successfully dodge the attacks, yet bosses remain fast paced and never let up on their assaults.

Pizza Tower is practically everything I look for in a 2D platformer: extremely speedy platforming, borderline insane animation, engaging yet challenging bosses, and a well fleshed out moveset. However, that is not even mentioning how Pizza Tower practically begs the player to be replayed. With how every level feels so fun to blast through, having to do so while chaining a massive combo throughout the level, finding all the secrets and collectibles, and doing two consecutive laps on the big rush from the end of the level to the beginning asks the player to use all of their acquired skills. It's brutally challenging, yet unendingly rewarding to finally pull off the golden run.

If Pizza Tower taught me anything, it's that we need more games where you play as a fat greasy Italian man.