Deadly Towers (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Brøderbund's 1987 NES game, Deadly Towers.
For the full review, complete with screenshot archive and soundtrack, be sure to check out www.nintendocomplete.com/deadl...
I think this is probably the fourth or fifth time I've finished this game over the years. It doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times I play it though.
The real key to getting through this is a pad of graph paper. If you carefully map out the overworld and the different towers, through trial-and-error, you can eventually get a grip on where everything is and start out for real. In that respect, it's not so much unlike many games from the same time period - Metroid, Zelda, Castlevania II: all of these had initially confusing layouts, and you left it to you to figure out which way was up. Deadly Towers tries that, but thanks to an utter lack of visual cues to differentiate different areas coupled with a hideously over-complicated set of mazes (that you enter out-of-nowhere if you don't realize that you're standing on the concealed entrance) make for an awful lot of frustration, even for a game of its time. If you forgive it for that though and take it as yet another thing learned while playing, the exploration bit can be a lot of fun here.
For context, let me qualify my feelings on the difficulty this way: Milon's Secret Castle has nothing on this game. Whether that warms you to it or warns you from it, fair enough. It can be fun, but a lot of times the issues really are just too much to put up with. Other times you'll find yourself happily overlooking the flaws because you get it as it was intended and you're enjoying it. I liked it enough to get through it, quite a few times, but is it an enduring classic? Absolutely not. Was it a good game when it came out? Not really. Is it worse than Hydlide? No.
But the most important question: is it worth your time over hundreds of other quality NES titles? Probably not.
____
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
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[@bruth6138]

Man I bought this game when it came out. I loved it and never heard of anyone else enjoying it. Really takes me back.

[@jasonshay9671]

I loved it too. Played it non-stop and even hand drew maps of the dungeons to mark the stores and ways out.

[@randycunningham7318]

I also loved and miss it.

[@Isaac_man_100]

I loved it too 😢

[@mg2779]

30:08 At the very left side on that floor of the lead-up to Great Wings' tower is a secret room within a secret room containing the blue necklace. This was only discovered in the late 2000's.

[@goldengirl8355]

Wow!!!

[@anthonysiler4938]

Ive been trying to figure out what game this is for over a decade!! Holy crap i found it and the memories just came pouring back 😢

[@NintendoComplete]

It’s brutal from the get-go, but the fun that can be had in the latter half of Deadly Towers after getting upgrades salvages the game from sitting amongst the absolute dregs of the NES library.

[@Invidente7]

NintendoComplete And also, the main hero shoots swords thought his crotch! Ain't it badass or what?

[@method0123]

You just closed the book on a chapter of my childhood. This game had been a thorn in my subconscious for 30 years. I FINALLY WON'T HAVE TO GO TO A THERAPIST ANYMORE!!!! Jk, but seriously, thank you, Hero.

[@jonnymmac]

@Clint Seeber Sorry, obviously you do not understand. This game has what's known as CURRENCY, which you can only get by killing MONSTERS. That is the most efficient way to acquire CURRENCY. Now, this is the hard part, you need CURRENCY to buy ITEMS. Items (potion) he wanted to beat the game with. This happens often in VIDEO GAMES.

[@HappyMealBieber]

the problem with it is the beginning is almost impossible. But getting the upgrades later makes it too easy. But by that time the game is 90% finished and the upgrades are useless after beating the game. The huge flaw with this is they should have had a second quest like zelda . but you keep the upgrades and the ai is far worse. Or there are harder different enemies. but the programmers maybe could not with the basic ram cartridge. or they just didnt think of it lack of q&a which this game is plagued by.

[@LMJ81]

@@HappyMealBieberif you burn the bells as soon as you get them the enemies are way harder almost impossible. Learned this the hard way like everything else in this game.

[@zolan4277]

Oh my god. Thank you so much. I remember playing this game as a kid and never actually completed it. This filled a hole I didn't even know I was missing.

[@isaiahprice895]

amen me too!

[@bear8hat897]

Same, I hope this game gets added to Nintendo Switch, via NES Switch Online.

[@schnoorsaibot313]

“You have no confidence in this sword.”

[@jeremiahstamper9155]

the grind is real

[@eyefreely9682]

Thank You for the memory! I recall playing this game as a young kid 8-12 ish. I remember it being so difficult that I quit playing a couple of times but once I stumbled upon the bonus areas and started discovering the Power Items... well that's when it got fun again!

[@jillorion323]

This was a very early nintendo game. The awesome cover art probably led to a lot more sales than it should have got. Overall yes it was a poor game, bad graphics and poor animation consisting of 2 or 3 frames for most things. It did have a mystery element though. Massive mazes that went on forever. Parallel worlds that had awesome items but also enemies moving at lightspeed. It was a memorable game I thought.

[@aozgolo]

Deadly Towers is like The Legend of Zelda if it was a Bullet Hell

[@kidkique]

As a kid I never realized how much this had in common with Zelda

[@kevinerosa]

Only game my mom brought me. Would trade it on the school yard often but somehow it always ended up back in my hands. Had no choice but to play it and beat it.

[@robintst]

All these years later and I'm still left with one of life's eternal questions... why do the swords come out of the guy's crotch in Deadly Towers?

[@misecarp]

I'm convinced I'm the intellectual powerhouse I am today because I played this at the ripe age of 6. Speed reading on the opening story, check. Fiery grit in determination when you're almost up to a bell and you fucking die, check! Holding a massive mental map because there's no map, and all the rooms look the same, check. Ignoring the same song playing over and over again while focusing on complex tasks, check. Moving through multi monster rooms, shooting multi-direction on a timing, was the best prep for algebra, newtonian physics and multivariable calculus. All children should be made to play this, yes it will break most, but some will emerge tiny titans of doom.

[@RowanWhite1980]

Maaaaaan, this was a game my parents let us rent from the video store as little kids. I don’t think my brothers and I got very far into the game, but the nostalgia hits hard regardless.

[@AAFcommander]

"You have no confidence in this sword" Funniest thing I remember about this game whenever I watch Avgn!

[@JuraIbis]

Imagine in real life winning some sort of contest and then a thousand metal bells just start raining and falling on the floor CLANG CLANG CLANG to me it's the visuals and sound of the end of the world

[@TexasAggie97]

OMG! I remember this game. I've been thrown back in time to a more traumatic childhood.

[@thohangst]

I got this in the bargain bin. It was too hard so I gave up. Thanks for doing the hard work for me!

[@JoshuaGanoTyraxLightning]

This is a memorable game from my childhood. It was really a true blue "Nintendo Hard", there's no other game quite like it, & "Ludder" has seriously gotta be the goofiest Currency Name i've ever heard in my life...

[@barnabusdoyle4930]

Even more crazy then bottlecaps from FallOut?

[@JoshuaGanoTyraxLightning]

@@barnabusdoyle4930 Bottlecaps would be goofy in normal circumstances, but seem a reasonable Currency Pinch Hit in a Dystopian Wasteland imho.

[@wittydoge]

This game was one long ass Rick Astley video

[@TheDemoniusX]

So cryptic. My head hurts trying to wrap my head around how one is suppose to complete this game without help!

[@LampreyKisses]

the way my mom and i did it back in the early 90's was just discovering where the secret rooms (or parallel zones) were hidden in the towers, and then we suicided our way into getting the items guarded within. After that, just grind blue jugs until you feel like killing the final boss.

[@dennisfarrell]

2:49 this piece of music always reminds me of the Hunter by Bjork

[@metamorphicblood]

This game has really stiff controls, but there’s lot I like about it. I’d actually like to see a 3D reboot. I can imagine it with detailed gothic/baroque architecture, going into more depth with the Parallel Zones, and with symphonic versions of the music themes.

[@kidkique]

I remember this kid Jamie I used to hang out with in 1987 when I was like eight-years-old used to have this game and I never understood it - and when he let me borrow it I wasn't very good at it. This is the first time I'm seeing it since the late 80s

[@MasterRBertLink]

Hey! Have you heard of Titanic Mystery for the Famicom Disk System?

[@JPerridew]

WWwwwwow, so basically up until the end when you have all the armor and weapons you can die pretty quickly from a bat. Even with the "Dragon Slayer" it takes 3-4 hits to kill a bat. That's nuts. Good job!

[@3to5andglassy]

I hated this game when I bought it in 1988. Then I found the warps and started to get it. It ended up being quite fun.

[@toddburgess5056]

I remember getting this game for Easter in the mid/late 80's and wondering what I was doing wrong. I literally couldn't make any progress in the game. Nintendo Power never had any write-ups about this game that i can remember and KZbin wasn't even a dream yet.

[@kevingarvin6819]

my friend has this and I loved the music and running around but I didn't know what to do and never made much progress.

[@ghosttrain22]

the music was awesome

[@jaygooese4242]

I like this game's music

[@jeremiahstamper9155]

this is definitely a top three game for me i loved it but could not beat it although i got very far. Keep them coming! And why do you not commentate on your play threws??

[@NintendoComplete]

+jeremiah stamper I tend to prefer letting people take what they will from it. If I just talk over it, you don't get the experience of the game, but instead you'd get my perspective, and I don't want to impress my thoughts before someone has an opinion of their own. If I hate a game and rant over it, I might be discouraging someone from playing it that might really enjoy it, and vice versa :)

[@jeremiahstamper9155]

cool that actually makes sense!

[@sammy-gd7hw]

Loved this game it was original.

[@SwaggerLikeUz]

Never beat this one! Cool memories tho

[@jaygooese4242]

My favorite enemies in this game's are the snakes because reptiles are amazing

[@heroesoftomorrow3488]

Did anyone EVER found what the red necklace do?

[@jprogman]

Even Elden Ring wouldn't let you live long

[@bigduke5902]

If ever there was a game I wanted desperately to like it was Deadly Towers. That box art is absolutely excellent and the game SEEMS to hint at a depth below the surface that apparently doesn't really exist. I never got ANYWHERE in this game, but gave it many rents and many chances. Surely there was something I was missing and this was actually one of those awesomely cryptic games I just wasn't experienced enough the understand! Nope. Even revisiting this as an adult with the full expectation that I'd finally crack it to reveal a golden goose within a rotten egg I had to tap out and call a spade a spade. Dreadful!

[@timvanbaelen9797]

This is a prime example of a game that needs to be remade with some QoL elements (like an automap) and better, more distinctive graphics.

[@user-nh3tf3er8d]

I really want a t-shirt with the "death bear" boss on it

[@m.a.packer5450]

what in the Hell's Bells is this game?

[@orelas167]

Going into a dungeon you can get two-shotted in just to buy a shield and a helmet. Ugh, no.

[@jaygooese4242]

Sure some people might not like this game but at least the bosses are great

[@_Majoras]

this game has epic music

[@retrogamer8085]

i own this game... i recall a friend had it way back then when it first came out. i remember the goofy music and isometric kinda view. i remember it being hard and confusing. but it still had charm to it, sorta. it was like a poor man's zelda to me lol. i cant believe people on ebay are charging 10 ludder for this game right now. thats insane lol. its only worth 5 ludder.

[@tylerbabcock1376]

I remember this being run at Ganes Done Quick events

[@MrBossyful]

This game often gets flak for its cryptic design. I've even seen it on some "worst NES games" lists. I disagree with that - it is flawed, true, but it's really not that bad once you figure it out. Certainly not the level of crapiness represented by THQ.

[@NintendoComplete]

+Mariusz Bosy It's way better than Home Alone!

[@MrBossyful]

+NintendoComplete Home Alone, Peter Pan and The Pirates, Rocky and Bullwinkle... and bunch of other games. Yup, they truly were the NES shitmasters back in the day. Also, I believe that the first level of Dirty Harry is possibly the most obtusely designed level in the entire NES library. Not sure if even Deadly Towers comes close to being this cryptic.

[@smoothloc6181]

Mariusz Bosy n

[@Allerdyne]

Yeah. On one hand, it was terribly flawed (look how most bosses can be beat by just standing in a corner) but in some ways it was really innovative: the way it had a non-linear hub system of stage selection, the way it made you weigh offense and defense (by only allowing one projectile on screen at a time), 8-directional movement and attack (as I recall Zelda only had four) and so on.

[@OswaldMiyake35]

Damn, i wonder if you are playing those games i recommed, because those are really hard.

[@NintendoComplete]

+Oswald Epic Loquendero Oh man, I dunno about those. I typically stick to games in English unless they're really good, and neither of those look very good. I'm not sure I want to play something just because it's hard. I'd like to enjoy it to some extent lol

[@despawn7663]

1987 and an honest to god worthy epilogue

[@ThailandXpress]

Why didn't Gygax ever made a module based on this idea? Would have been legendary.

[@gamerzero7735]

According to humorist Seanbaby, Deadly Towers, his choice for worst NES game, was originally called Shitty Towers, but after a dark, cold morning when some game testers went mad and left on a violent, genocidal tirade, the name had to be changed. In actuality, its original name was Hell's Bells, but with an infinitely superior song of the same title by AC/DC out long before this, I'm sure the name was changed to avoid both confusion with something great, but also to avoid public outrage. Either that, or Puritan Nintendo wasn't havin' it, bexause it could be confused with a bad word.

[@Mr.Spongecake]

Gotta wonder how Prince Erik held all those swords he just tossed at his enemies...

[@mcgannahanskyjellyfetti6854]

Why did you go back and forth 24 times? 7:00 🤔

[@salvation7362]

I loved this game and my best friend never understood why... I haven't watched the video yet so this will be the first time since 1987-88 that I've seen footage. Was I right, or was he? *edit* Ok... he may have been right but after skipping through and seeing the ending I remembered that I beat it at least.

[@jasonshay9671]

I played this game constantly. Even hand drew maps of the dungeons on paper to figure them out. I never thought this game was bad. But I had an NES when it 1st came out and before cheat codes/Game Genie/Nintendo Power were up and running. I would play this again if they emulated it on the Switch.

[@jdorffer]

The thing that's appears to be in jail takes all your ludder, don't kill it

[@Palamedes2009]

That was a close one😊

[@killdren5658]

This game was glitch asf.

[@aronm5617]

The game would have been a lot better if there was a map system for the dungeons just needed to be an item you found.

[@kevink2986]

They honestly thought a sequel would have happened? Yeah right.

[@HappyMealBieber]

Scientific studies were conducted for this game by playing the dungeon music on loop for hours . They had found that listening to the dungeon grind session music for prolonged hours led to what they labeled acute mental illness. particularly the going back and forth shooting the orange ball enemy for money grind . Also studies were conducted on Kids that played this game and listened to the music for long periods of time. the repetitious manor of the music. (The Dungeon in Particular) Negatively effected the childs over all well being in the long term.(music at 30:32) It was said to Damage the cognitive functions in the brains hemisphere linked to mental clarity . This in turn resulted in a sort of dismantling of the developing frontal cortex and ability to speak in a coherent way. _The Science Journal of Medicine and Studies

[@timothyroehm4307]

Good lord look at all of these ads in the beginning of this video!!!!!O_0

[@AfternnTwMrB]

When farming passed as gameplay

[@TheJetJONES]

"Das Spiel ist s*****e! Dieses Spiel f***t dich härter, als das Leben!" James Rolfe, aka AVGN

[@captainnsmegaman4438]

Avgn quotes plz

[@NCGNTO202]

I got this game as a gift for Xmas...so horrible.

[@MichaelDavis-mk4me]

Describing the sound for people with hearing disability or people without speakers : AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNN STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@jamesl.anderson1384]

The Nerd: This is a very special episode because I'm not gonna review the game, the fans are. Yeah, for the first time, I asked the fans to recount their experiences with the game, and send them to a specified email address. And as a result, this one inbox got over 6,000 messages. So if you're one of the lucky ones, then I hope you enjoy hearing your words comin' out of my mouth. But regardless, thanks for the submissions, thanks for supportin' the show, this one's my little reward to you. Enjoy. (remixed Angry Video Game Nerd theme plays) The Nerd: Deadly Towers on the NES. First of all, what's with the poorly drawn Herculean Viking guy on the cover of the game? What, was Fabio unavailable that weekend? And talk about false advertising, the in-game character doesn't even come close to looking like that. Some boy in a green spandex jumpsuit with horns. What the fuck? The Nerd: Outside of Japan, the game was supposed to be called Hells Bells. I'm sure they changed it because they didn't want to associate this piece of ass-fudge to anything good like AC/DC. The Nerd: If you let it load, it plays a backstory. No one would ever wanna read this much text, and it scrolls way too fast! Hell, I don't even know if it tells you what you're supposed to do anyway; you have to collect seven bells and burn 'em in a sacred fire, or some shit like that. The Nerd: When you start the game, it doesn't tell you where to go or what to do. And watch out for what door you go in, it's a beginner's trap! You don't know where to go, so you just walk into a room and... (he gets bombarded by a troupe of enemies) SHIT! THE ENEMIES GANG-RAPE YOUR ASS! The Nerd: At first you might say, "Hey, the game looks decent. You got a sword which you can shoot, much like in Zelda." But the enemies at the start of the game don't die with one hit. No, you have to hit them repeatedly! And the worst, you can't stab the sword like in Zelda after you shoot, you have to wait till the sword leaves the screen until you can fire again. Come on! Oh, this must be why the attack is so slow. Our hero must pass the blades out of his cock! Hell, if broadswords shooting out of my cock was my only defense against purple inch worms and bats, I'd probably let them kill me. Since when are you supposed to just throw a sword anyway? I mean, swinging it at your enemy would have worked nicely, but no, he throws it, and where the Hell does he get all these swords? The Nerd: Even the manual says, "You have no confidence in this sword." What the fuck kind of advice is that?! That's like saying, "Buddy, if you play this game, YOU'RE GONNA GET FUCKED UP THE ASSHOLE WITH A PORCUPINE! GOOD FUCKIN' LUCK, DOUCHEBAG!" It's almost like the game just wants to fuckin' PISS YOU OFF! The Nerd: Every screen in this game is just a CLUSTERFUCK OF SHITTY BAD GUYS TO FIGHT! Oh great, I'm being attacked by BALLS! BLUE BALLS, NO LESS. Oddly enough, they're the hardest to kill for some reason. THEY TAKE, LIKE, 20 DAMN HITS! THEY'RE JUST FUCKIN' BALLS! It's as if they ran out of decent enemy ideas and just programmed random moving shapes to come kill you. It's like: "What the fuck are sprites from Marble Madness doing in this game?" The Nerd: My biggest complaint with the game is that there's no in-game map. That'd be fine if you could distinguish where you are with different backgrounds, but everything looks so similar, IT'S TOO EASY TO GET LOST! The game's like a maze, but it's beyond that. IT'S A FUCKED UP GUESSING-GAME MAZE WITH NO END! The Nerd: I stumbled onto some area where there's no door, there's no icon or anything to let you know that anything's there, you just gotta take a shitty guess, like in Simon's Quest where you kneel down in that corner waiting for the tornado to take you away. You can just be walkin' around and you just magically appear in a room when there are clearly no doorways around. I mean, what kind of sense does that make? Have you ever just walked into a wall and appeared in another room? The Nerd: You get an inventory screen. It's empty right now, but it seems pretty standard. Tells you your life and everything. It also has this thing called ludder. Yeah, it says you have 50 ludder. I can only assume that that's currency, so I Googled it to check what it meant, and according to an urban dictionary, ludder means cheap-ass hoe! So, therefore, we're already startin' out with 50 cheap-ass hoes, so we're doin' alright for ourselves. I wonder what the exchange rate is for the expensive whores? Maybe we'll find out later. Now, I can understand wanting to call the currency a fantastic world something different, but, what's wrong with just calling it gold? The Nerd: You can find power ups to make you stronger, but good luck finding a store that'll give you any. They're found in underground dungeons infested with enemies that can kill ya faster than you can say "game over". The Nerd: Oh, and the music. The bubbly sound of ripping ass isn't even an adequate way to describe the music in this game. Imagine taking a phonograph machine, submerging it in diarrhea, and wiring it to a horse's ass to use as a speaker. It makes nails on a chalkboard sound like fuckin' Mozart! And listen to this, see what happens when you go to a different room in the castle. (music starts over) The music starts all over again! It gets really annoying because you're constantly going from room to room, so you're hearing the same part of the music over and over again! The Nerd: What's the fuckin' deal with the ledges that you fall off of?! A lot of the places are really narrow and it's hard avoiding those ledges. And to top it all off, when enemies hit you, it knocks you back a bit! And more times than not, they send you falling down a conveniently placed ledge. And do people normally spin like that when they fall off of somethin'? Reminds me of shit spinnin' down the fuckin' toilet! (toilet flushing sound) The Nerd: When you die, you have to start at the beginning of the game! What kind of shit is this?! I honestly don't have the patience to get any farther in this game to see if there's another checkpoint or somethin'. The Nerd: Whenever you die, you get a password. But it makes no sense, because no matter how far you got into the fucking game, YOU START FROM THE BEGINNING WITH ALL THE PASSWORDS! AND WHAT PROGRAMMER DECIDED TO PUT A TIME LIMIT ON THE FUCKING PASSWORD SCREEN?! The Nerd: When they named this game Deadly Towers, they weren't kidding. The last time I saw towers this deadly was when they decided the horses need more fiber in their diets. This game is so fuckin' hard it's easier to lift an elephant with my ass while singing Old McDonald. This game is equal to that of liquid ass butter! STAY AWAY FROM THIS HORRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT-ENCRUSTED FUCK! I'D RATHER SUCK FARTS OUT OF A DOG'S ASS! The Nerd: Das Spiel ist Scheiße! Dieses Spiel fickt dich härter als das Leben! (Translation: The game is shit! This game fucks you harder than life!) Well, I gave that a try. Anyway, this game isn't just your average turd, it's the kind of putrid rancid disgusting turd that sits in a truck stop bathroom for 20 years until even the flies won't go near it. It's games like this that make me regret ever picking up an NES controller. The Nerd: This game is like a never-ending turd that bends around and goes into your mouth, thus creating an endless cycle of eating your own shit whilst taking a crap, and occasionally puking up the same for all eternity! The Nerd: This is so bad, Satan wouldn't even accept it if you offered it with your soul! I'd rather suck the dried shit out of Chewbacca's ass fur! Fuck this game! No, better yet, DON'T fuck this game, don't let your friends fuck it! IT'S UNFUCKWORTHY! This game is just an orgy of ass! This game is a chicken-lickin' finger fuckin' son of a bitch! This game is ball cider! The Assholians bow down to this piece of shit! In other words, the game sucks. (Speakonia version of Angry Video Game Nerd theme plays)

[@timothyroehm4307]

Didn’t I saw this before or did you copy and pasted it to this video?

[@GamerFavor]

You sadist

[@loneshewolf74]

Don't you mean a masochist?

[@GamerFavor]

+Simaginary Friend Yes, just as I said

[@NintendoComplete]

+Jeccuverner They're compete opposites. A sadist enjoys inflicting pain on others. Masochists enjoy pain or suffering. Were you meaning to say that I like torturing myself by playing this? That would be masochism ;)

[@GamerFavor]

+NintendoComplete Yes Master

[@NintendoComplete]

+Jeccuverner Oh dear.

[@brettjohnson4111]

Great ideas, terrible execution. I remember the hype being that it would surpass Zelda for action RPG supremacy, but it just ended up being half cooked. Overly repetitive with incoherent stage design. But perhaps the worst aspect was how glitchy it was. If you somehow managed to make progress, there was a serious risk of it being shot to hell at any given moment. Way more than your average NES game. I recall worse NES games, but this is in the hall of fame of disappointing games. It could’ve been a gem with a few alteration.

[@derrellarthur4604]

This game was hard as hell. I was just 7 or 8 trying to beat this game. Every time you die you start right back at the beginning. Fuck this bootleg Zelda wanna be game.

[@retro9263]

It's hard in the very beginning but once you start collecting hearts and equipment, its get much easier. Yes, you start right back at the beginning when you die, but you keep your hearts and equipment. Only the money (aka ludder) goes back to 0.

[@LordTchernobog]

"Diese Spiele ist SCHEISE!"

[@An_actual_Human.]

Not having an actualle reason to kill yourself? Then try to finish this game

[@spurgear]

I wish the DEVIL would have just won and ended this nonsense.