Pizza Tower: A Slice Above
Platformers are the pizza of video game genres: there are a lot of ways to do it and I pretty much like all of them! You have your classics, your cheese or pepperoni (Sonic, Mario), over the top ones that just throw everything on it like meat lovers or supreme (Crash Bandicoot, Rayman), ones that leave you with surprises and emotional gut punches like buffalo chicken or stuffed crust (Celeste, INSIDE), elegant artisan ones (Ori, Symphony of the Night) or you have the really spooky scary ones that people don’t dare try like anchovies or Hawaiian (Hollow Knight, Limbo), or, y’know. The gas station pizza you have at 2am right before they’re swapping out to the new ones and you’re like “Hey, Jeff, can you get me the new one instead of this old one that has the hard crust?” and he says, “They’re all hard crust, one is just a little older,” so you say, “well, okay,” so you eat the newer one but then you’re REALLY curious about the old one and then it’s just hard as a rock (Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, also Mega Man) you get the jist.
Why am I on this diatribe, you ask? Well I’ll tell you, internet. Coming in from shoveling my driveway on a cold winter night, I knew just the greasy, cheesy comfort food to warm me up: Pizza Tower. I’d just beaten it before heading out to shovel, but when has anyone stopped eating pizza after a reasonable number of slices? I played that game for another 2–3 hours, the same day I’d beaten it. And I ordered pizza while I did it. Man, it was a great idea to write this when I was hungry. Anywho.
Pizza Tower is a game made by indie developer Tour De Pizza. Development started around 2018 and apparently began as an RPG with survival horror elements before evolving into the Wario Land-esque platformer you can find on Steam. Make no mistake, though. This game is uniquely its own. You play as Peppino Spaghetti, a strong candidate for greatest italian based video game character of all time. Seems like a shoe-in for the award. When you launch the game, the intro tells you that Peppino is the proud owner of Peppino Pizza, which is in debt because of our titular Pizza Tower that is…well towering over his humble pizza shop. A floating Pizza Face, aptly named “Pizza Face,” floats up to Peppino as he laments about his debt, much like anyone in 2023, and taunts him while destroying his pizza shop. Peppino, enraged, charges at the Pizza Tower.
The art is very reminiscent of ’90s cartoons, specifically Nickelodeon shows like Ren & Stimpy or Rocko’s Modern Life. It definitely has a touch of what I’ve been describing to friends as “Cocaine: The Saturday Morning Cartoon.” and I stand by that! The game, at its core, is a blend of Sonic the Hedgehog and Wario Land, specifically Wario Land 4. Peppino can walk, but, really, the game shines when he is running, jumping, rolling, or sliding. Peppino engages enemies by grabbing them, and from there, he can punch ’em, kick ’em or piledrive ’em. Peppino also has a “parry” — more of a taunt — which is one of the funniest things in the game. If Peppino runs for long enough, he begins to dash, allowing him to run up walls and plow through enemies and objects. The goal is to increase your score by beating up enemies to build up your combo meter. In non-boss levels, players who look hard enough can find both the Janitor and Pillar John’s brother Gerome. You can trade in keys found throughout the level to them to open the Janitor’s room to access the Tower’s “Secret Treasure,” artifacts ranging from peanut butter to a can of beans. You are also able to collect the five Toppins: Mushroom, Cheese, Tomato, Sausage and, everybody’s favorite, Pineapple! Once you get to the end of the level and hit Pillar John, an escape sequence is triggered, and you run your ass off to get out before Pizza Face stops you. The thing that makes this game is the controls. For a platformer, precision handling is crucial, especially when it comes to the absolutely fast and furious speed that Peppino (and, later, his brother Gustavo) reaches. In fact, this might be one of the smoothest platformers I have ever had the pleasure of playing. The fluid movement and control that you have over Peppino the entire game is felt the moment you start the tutorial, and I cannot praise it enough. It’s that slice you get when you’re half in the bag at 1am when your local pizza place is closing, but they let you get that final slice, and boy oh boy does it ever hit the spot.
The levels themselves are incredibly varied and have specific achievements for each “episode,” with title cards similar to the aforementioned Nickelodeon cartoons — definitely one of my favorite parts of this game. The levels range from typical cartoonish landscapes like Pizzascape, where you’re first introduced to the “Knight” power up, to Fun Farm, which guest stars Mort the Chicken from world famous and not at all niche Playstation 1 game “Mort the Chicken,” to Gnome Forest, which gives you a tutorial for Peppino’s brother Gustavo, who instead of waving you on like he typically does in the first couple levels, decides to run through the Forest with his stupid rat Brick. I absolutely love it. The variety is remarkable. There’s even a jump scare horror level, “Don’t Make a Sound.” The levels are brimming with character and personality, so much so that I have to move on because I can almost guarantee I would just continue to name level after level, and nothing can quite compare to experiencing them firsthand.
I can’t forget about the Boss Battles, which are incredibly challenging but fair. Much like any good game: when you’ve lost, it’s your own damn fault, and you gotta re-roll that dough and RISE damnit! Ranging from a giant red bell pepper to a vengeful Cheeseslime to … well, it’s the Noid from Domino’s — but done cleverly; honestly, it rules and made me laugh out loud. To say that this game made me laugh out loud constantly is an understatement. Remember that “parry” I mentioned earlier? It’s more of a taunt: going full Ren & Stimpy/Looney Tunes, Peppino strikes a quick pose and surprises the enemy, disrupting their attack. It’s hysterical, and I’m tickled pink every time I execute it.
Lastly, I have to talk about the music. From the moment the intro to the game starts the music helps to set the tone to how incredibly batty and over the top this experience will be. From the moment the tutorial level song “Funiculi Holiday” plays to the song “It’s Pizza Time” that triggers when you hit Pillar John and the game gets deadly serious and lets you know it’s time to boogie on out of there! The emotional whiplash from the tunes is something I will not soon forget. Those are just two of the songs mentioned off of the incredible soundtrack that is available on Steam for purchase.
Overall, I can’t recommend Pizza Tower enough. It has lightning fast speed, pulse pounding action, incredible twitch/reaction gameplay and it brings something out of me that reminds me of waking up at 8am to watch Saturday Morning Cartoons. I’m about to be 30 next month, and it’s great to see Saturday Morning Cartoons grow up with me, getting a little more vulgar but staying pretty dang funny. The aesthetic, the character, the humor and just the flow of the game is a breath of fresh air. In a year that could quite possibly go down as the greatest year in Video Games, I’m glad I experienced Pizza Tower and cannot wait to jump back into it and experience it some more.
My Final Rating on Pizza Tower is a:
