It was with great excitement that one of our favourite publishers, Mega Cat Studios, announced three new games for old consoles. Old Towers, Plyuk, and Super Fanger were all released at the same time and are now available to purchase in physical cart form directly from Mega Cat Studios‘ website. We’ve tried all three games to bring you our initial impressions. Old Towers is a platformer with a twist that exchanges jumping for dashing, and platforms for barriers.

It sounds confusing, but once you start playing Old Towers, it is a clever mechanic that puts a new spin on the tried and tested formula. Each level requires you to collect all the treasure and then find the exit. The problem is, you can only dash in one direction at a time and must use barriers to position yourself at the right height or length to dash through the next line of treasure. While it is an action game at heart, there is a slight puzzle element to the proceedings, as some levels need careful planning to finish.

The other interesting mechanic in Old Towers is that some levels require you to control a second character, the brother, who must also find an exit. It creates some brilliant experiences that mean you must maneuver one brother into a certain position in order for the other one to collect the treasure. Add in the fact that enemies are constantly flying around, and bullets are firing across your path, and there is some excellent depth to the gameplay that helps raise this title above the usual homebrew offering.

There were many times when we had to think about the order in which we moved the brothers around and had to time our dashes across the screen so as not to get trapped by enemies. As you progress through the levels, they become more intense, and the enemies get faster as well as less predictable.  The gameplay loop in Old Towers is excellent, and although the general mechanics don’t change all that often, the variety in obstacles, enemies, level themes, and layouts keeps the whole game interesting right to the end.

There are also some great graphical touches in Old Towers. We were impressed with the large sprite work in the game’s intro and the great use of color in the levels. There is also lots of variety in the themes, from pirate ships to futuristic settings. The overall presentation is high-quality, and the developer has made great use of the NES hardware to create a game that wouldn’t have felt out of place had it been released 35 years ago.

This is a brilliant indie title that has lots of great gameplay mixed in with excellent presentation. It’s a little short; it won’t take experienced players long to finish, but it’s enjoyable enough to play over several times. Retro platform fans looking for a genuinely unique experience would do well to pick this one up, as would those who appreciate quality NES graphics. Old Towers reaches a high bar for a homebrew title and stands out in a crowded market of retro platform titles for the NES. This one is thoroughly recommended.