i always have a moment when engaging with a piece of media that has "changing the game" status on launch. besides the subject of today's post, the most recent example i can remember is [everything everywhere all at once](https://letterboxd.com/film/everything-everywhere-all-at-once/). it's impossible to not be aware of the hype before you get in on the show or film or game yourself, and i find that i spend a huge amount of time wondering whether i actually like it or whether i feel like i _should_ like it. this said, i think i did like everything everywhere, and i think i like pizza tower as well, despite the hordes of video essayists raving about it en masse. they don't really have anything insightful to say about the experience, and neither do i, so i might just cut to the core of my feelings.
you know how kids in the early 2000s would get given a gameboy or a playstation but because the parents had just made a pricey investment they had no interest in actually buying a top shelf game for it, so you end up with planet monsters for the gba and play it front to back because there isnt another option? i had sonic advance 2, which definitely wasn't the worst game i've ever played, but this particular "go fast at any cost" experience left a little to be desired. a horrid combination of viewport size (small) and map design (weird) meant that you could only get the wonderful sense of speed and fluidity that sonic promises by learning the maps and getting a bit lucky. more often than not a really fun feeling back and forth of horizontal springs and loops would be shot down by a 1 block high wall and a rising spike.
pizza tower feels like applying the 2d sonic concept against 2020s era movement game sensibilities. slapping a couple of extra moves (wall runs, drifts, super jumps) onto the moveset means that you only need a fraction of a second to recover if you're about to hit a wall, meaning you can realistically play twitchily and take the environment at play time without having to memorise it. the grab being intrinsically a foreward moving action, and actually acting as a boost if you want to hit high speed from standing, vastly improves on a jump that requires you to slow down to hit a target unless you have the perfect speed and placement.
i mostly just want to use this to talk about the final boss fight. the rest of the structure of the game is perfectly serviceable and simply facilitates you pushing through a sequence of cool areas while very calmly encouraging you to go back if you just blast through them without looking for secrets or collectables. zero complaints there 👍
my one issue structure-wise is the boss fights, although this is hardly a unique complaint. the gameplay is pretty different and i didn't feel like it was really explained. i also wasn't very good at them, but i'm fine with being bad at boss fights if i can be pretty good at (and enjoy) the rest of the experience.
this thankfully does not apply to the final boss. i weirdly found it to be the easiest boss in the game, and it did a great job of challenging me _just_ enough while giving multiple satisfying and punchy scenes bundled into one big fight. the reveal of pizzahead is delightful and was legitimately unexpected, and even though it was desperately obvious since the beginning of the game, i couldnt help but grin doing the crumbling tower escape.
i know that that wasn't the most in-depth or insightful input on the finale of the game, but i feel like i need to at least attempt to put into words how much fun i had with it. after a bit of a string of puzzle games ending in well meaning but somewhat limp conclusions ([antichamber](./../antichamber/) and [manifold garden](./../manifold_garden/)), it's nice to get back on form.
this is probably the area of the game that has been most harped on about by video essayists, but the art style is a breath of fresh air with its ms paint-ass wonky lines and paint bucket tone. the energy of peppino spaghetti and the games cast of characters is extremely chaotic, but i think the most important takeaway is that it has a different tone to the warioland 4 that inspired it. peppino is equal parts desperate and courageous which basically just means that he can be the best of both worlds when either situation demands it. most importantly to my personal enjoyment is that they dont lean on any gross humour like wario does. farts and breathing raw garlic breath arent really that funny and don't endear me to a character, sorry.
before i started writing this segment i was planning on being a contrarian and saying that the soundtrack wasn't that memorable, but after listening to it through i do have to confirm that it's pretty good. i wish that people would stop fixating on pizza time because theres plenty of other goodies in there. that track in particular is excellent for hyping you up for the final escape, but i think something like [splatoon](./../splatoon/)'s [now or never](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua4s7tV8WGM) does a better job, potentially because it's guaranteed to end on a perfect crescendo. my questionable pizza tower skills meant that half the time i would end the level about 60% of the way in, where the song is just starting to build up again for the actual good players doing a second lap to get a p ranking.
