Tower Toppler

Name:	Tower Toppler
Company:	Atari
Model #:	CX-7856
Programmer:	US Gold
Year:	1988
Released?	Yes
Notes:	Originally called Nebulus

Port of the popular Amiga game Nebulus, Tower Toppler is a fast paced puzzle/action platformer in which you play a frog-like creature who must destroy several evil towers that are polluting your planet's pristine oceans.  Atari decided to rename the game to Tower Toppler for some reason when they ported it to the 7800 and XE.  Oddly enough Nintendo also decided to rename the game to Castelian when they ported the game to the NES.  I guess no one liked the original name (maybe it was a bit too nebulous?).

So how exactly does a frog-like creature destroy an evil tower?  By climbing to the top of course!  Simply push against the edge of a platform and you'll hop up to the next step.  You can also encounter platform lifts that will send your froggy hero skyward (these can be recalled by standing next to the base and hitting the fire button).  Of course getting to the top of each tower isn't easy, as hordes of evil creatures and dastardly puzzles await our froggy hero as he ascends.  Most enemies are indestructible and must be avoided, but some like the cannonballs can be shot.  Shooting a rolling cannonball will destroy it, but shooting a bouncing cannonball will simply stun it (and it can still hurt you).  But just shooting enemies won't help you achieve your goal, you must also solve the puzzles of each tower to succeed.

Each tower contains a series of lifts, holes, platforms, doors, and disappearing tiles to impede your progress.  Successfully navigating these hazards requires a bit of memorization, and a whole lot of guesswork.  Also making things a bit difficult is the fact that the tower actually rotates as you climb, this means you have little or no warning of what is coming up.  Although your little frog creature can jump, his stubby little legs won't take him far so he can only jump across gaps that are one brick wide (press the fire button while moving to jump).  If you stop on the edge of a platform your character will fall back onto the previous platform.  Be careful of this because if you stop at the top of a pair of steps you'll slide all the way back down like a froggy slinky!  If you get hit by an enemy you will be knocked down a level, if you fall all the way down into the water you will lose a life.  Running out of time will also result in losing a life.

Between each tower you will be treated to a short little bonus round.  In these bonus rounds you pilot a little submarine and must blast fish with bubbles.  After encasing each fish in a bubble you must touch it to gain the bonus points.  These bonus rounds also help explain how you travel from tower to tower, as they end when you arrive at the next tower.  These bonus levels also feature some nice parallax scrolling which was rarely seen in Atari 7800 games.

The Atari 7800 version of Tower is pretty good.  The graphics are among the best for the 7800, but use some artifacting to get more colors (as was seen in the unreleased Atari XE version) which is somewhat unusual for a 7800 game (although not unheard of).  Tower Topplers main problem is that it's so bloody hard!  Completing each tower is all about memorizing where the enemies and disappearing floor tiles are and then executing the correct path.  The time limit on each level is extremely tight so you must do everything almost perfectly or you'll never make it to the top in time.  Couple this with the random nature of some of the indestructible enemies and you've got a recipe for frustration.  Thankfully the Atari 7800 version has a cheat code that allows you to skip levels.  Simply switch the left difficulty switch to B (left position) and the game will keep cycling through each of the towers.  To play a tower put the switch back to A (right position).  Since this trick is easy to do accidentally it's not uncommon for people to think their copy of the game is broken since it won't let them actually play the game.

While Tower Toppler may never be at the top of most peoples list of best 7800 games, it's certainly not one of the worst.  If you can get past the absurd difficulty that its European pedigree brings, Tower Toppler is actually a fun little action puzzle game.  Tower Toppler was not released until January of 1989 making it one of the later 7800 releases, but the game is not as rare as one might think.  Tower Toppler was also due to be released on the Atari XE and 2600, but never saw the light of day on either of those platforms although a complete prototype for the XE version exists.

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