Well, it is currently 10:17 am, July 31, 2024 as I am writing this intro. I was called a slacker, and hey slackur's not me, it's my dad! So I need to finish this article that I have been slacking on to prove that I am not slacking. That'll show those internet randos!

...right?

Anyway... here's your monthly selection of words, four months late, this time including the words "Pizza", "Tower", and "metroidvania" more often than usual. Enjoy.

Hey all. As mentioned in my previous article, I have been playing waaay too much Pizza Tower. Like, an astronomical amount. I have beaten the game three times back-to-back, (and am currently considering starting a fourth playthrough!) without it feeling monotonous at all. I absolutely love this game, and I think it is probably my new favorite. There are countless reasons why I just adore this piece of pi media, but for the sake of brevity, I'd like to boil it down to just a couple: the game's controls, gameplay and feel, pacing, humor, and soundtrack.

First of all, let's talk about Pizza Tower's controls, gameplay, and feel.. Pizza Tower feels perfectly suited to its controls (at least on a gamepad). With the decently lengthy tutorial for a 2D game, I came off at first thinking that the controls were a bit clunky, and while they do take some getting used to, after only the first one or two levels I was already praising the game's controls and feel. The decision to map the run button to the right trigger at first feels a bit off, yet if you look at other games, especially first-person shooters, you'll find that a lot of the time, the button you'll press most of the time is the right trigger, which makes sense, as that's the button your pointer finger goes on. Most of the time, we use our pointer fingers the most; when I say that, it might make you question the fact that you're running more than jumping in a platformer game, which as is the case with many other platformers, is the case for Pizza Tower, although in its case you are basically running the entire time unless you are specifically looking for something, which is something I really enjoy about the way the game plays. Speaking of which...

Finally, a paragraph break! I can actually talk about the gameplay! First of all, I'd like to clear up one thing: Pizza Tower is not really a metroidvania, and (in my opinion) isn't really like Wario Land as a lot of people seem to make it out to be. I know this because I don't really enjoy either. Both have some design choices and just generally things about them that I don't really hate, but just don't really like. A common design choice in a lot of metroidvanias would be to have a main attack that stops your movement for a second or so. I bet that if you think about it, you can easily come up with a few examples of what I'm talking about: in the original Castlevania, the attack that slows you down would be the whip that everyone is familiar with. I really dislike the whip in the Castlevania series, mostly for the fact that it just slows down the gameplay and forces you to stop focusing on the platforming just to knock out a few enemies and then just get back to regular platforming, which I feel just kind of slows the game down. I get that the levels are built around it, and I definitely feel the quality of the games; they're just not really my thing. The same thing applies with games I've tried in the vain of the Castlevania series, like Hollow Knight' they just don't really have the type of gameplay I'm looking for in a 2D action game. 3D games with this gameplay though, can be really well made, and I have tried a couple and enjoyed them. I'm not trying to be overly critical of the Castlevania-esque games, but hopefully you can see my reasoning here. There's also a type of game where the main attack doesn't slow down the game, but rather speeds it up, which is also not really a decision I like. I'll go more in-depth about that later.

Metroid, the other half of the term "metroidvania", does this a bit better: instead of stopping or slowing down the gameplay with the whip, now you have a blaster, that allows you to shoot enemies that may be coming at you from any location one of the specifically eight cardinal directions. However, even with Metroid's (and games similar to it, like Gato Roboto's) setup, I still dislike this gameplay style. It makes you have to stop paying attention to platforming and pay more attention to gunning down enemies, shmup style; which yes, I know this is a crime worthy of the unspeakable here, but I don't like shmups, and thus, by proxy, I dislike these Metroid-styled games.

In terms of gameplay, my last compare-and-contrast victim is Wario Land. I have tried a bit of both of the Super Mario Land games and have enjoyed what I have played. I have never stuck to one because at the times I tried them, I had some other game that I wanted to play. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3's claim to be a Super Mario Land game is unreasonable, as the two series do not play like each other at all. Wario Land's gameplay boils down to spamming a button that allows you to do a short sprint, during which you can start ramming into things, running them over, hurting enemies, and other such silly shenanigans.

It is this short boost that is what I hate about most action-based platformers. It completely changes your momentum, and often makes the game feel less focused on the actual moment-moment platforming as opposed to combat. I often find myself falling off of platforms simply because I tried to attack an enemy, upset ant the fact that I can't do any other actions while attacking, and generally just hating the gameplay that many other people will call some of the best in gaming.

I do believe that most of this is just me. A lot of people get a lot of enjoyment out of these games, and I respect that, and my thoughts here are not even universally true; a game that does the shoot-and-move problem I find with the Metroid series well is Cuphead. My only issues with that game are skill issues.

So what does Pizza Tower the subject of this article, do differently? What sets it apart?

The gameplay and feel of Pizza Tower are both silky smooth. In Pizza Tower, the levels are primarily speed and skill based, with an emphasis on platforming. If you want to play for all of the P ranks, you will find yourself speeding through the levels, having fun platforming and absolutely knocking all of the enemies out of your way as you race at Mach 4 against the combo timer.

This is similar to how I would usually play Mario games, which is probably where I find my enjoyment out of both games: speeding through the levels and trying to find secrets along the way.

Let's address the context I just spent like 4 paragraphs building up and then immediately seemingly discarded. Why is Pizza Tower's combat system any different from the Wario Land games'? What about Metroid?

Pizza Tower prioritizes platforming first. Above all else, it is a platformer, and a quite fast-paced one at that. It never claims to be a metroidvania or anything similar. The gameplay shows it too: although the game does have the normal speed-changing attack, it also has options like their equivalent of Ground Pounds and the main thing that you see people doing in this game: running.

Pizza Tower's running it what sets it apart from all those other games. It adds to the controls, because the way they were done, it really does feel like you're operating a "fat balding italian" running at Mach 4. it adds to the overall gameplay, because blasting through the levels at 2,964 mph absolutely feels amazing. The levels are perfectly designed against the running speed to the point where each level still feels linear, but also very open with lots of exploration, creating a balance that gets very, very addicting.

ohright this article wasnt just about the controls and gameplay

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Pizza Tower's pacing also feels amazing. My first playthrough, I was a bit disappointed at its apparently short length, but if I can't accurately describe how packed full of content and extra challenges this game is, look at the development timeline for a bit and you'll see just how much content is in this game from how long it took to develop, even with... checks notes the help of 2,532 patrons each paying $10 a month.

This game seriously is packed full of content and challenges to go through. Even if at first it seems small, (the game only has five worlds), there are loads of achievements, clothes, and higher and higher ranks and FINAL JUDGMENTs to get. With the pacing of five worlds, and each level only taking about 10 minutes to beat (if you're an explorer like me), you will find yourself replaying through the game multiple times to try and see every bit of content the game has to offer. The game is perfectly set up for this, and even gives you rewards for getting faster times than in your previous save files.

Additionally, the humor in this game is exceptionally executed and several sequences had me laughing my butt off before realizing that I was still in control and then dying. This game's artstyle meshes perfectly with over-the-top drawings, something which it takes full advantage of, and so oftentimes I'll be guffawing at some of the choices of humor in this game. Unfortunately, it uses profanity for humor sometimes, which I am wholeheartedly against. I intend to make a mod to completely remove profanity from the game, considering my familiarity with GameMaker. (I have used it for a commercial game, and am currently building a second with it.)

Lastly, the soundtrack in this game is legitimately the best one that I have ever heard. Pizza Tower gets this a lot, but it's true. I listen to the songs from the soundtrack significantly more than other game's, because they are that much better than other games' songs. I like it even more than Toby Fox's work, which is a sentence I'd never thought I'd say. If you don't want to buy the game, I implore you buy the soundtrack. The composer, Ronan "Mr. Sauceman" de Castel, at first wasn't proud of any of his music, but he decided to submit a demo of the now extremely popular song "It's Pizza Time!" to the developers of the then-recently-started Pizza Tower project, got on the team, and has produced several lovely works of art for us all to enjoy. Do yourself a favor and listen to it, please.

I've been koola, and if I don't post for the next 4-8 months, I'm not dead. I'm just working on something to do with "planes."

(That was a total of 1,768 words. Does that count as not slacking?)

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