Written by Anthony L. Cuaycong
Title: The Tower of Beatrice
Developer: Sometimes You
Publisher: Sometimes You
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
Price: $5.99
Also Available On: Steam
The Tower of Beatrice casts the playable character as a thief contracted by an unnamed client to, as noted in its official Nintendo eShop site, “infiltrate the tower of the powerful sorcerer Beatrice, steal her Book of Recipes, and get out alive.” The first two objectives are easy enough to meet, but it’s the third where gamers are slated to spend not inconsiderable time doing — or, rather, trying to do. Developer Sometimes You’s port of its highly rated escape-room offering on the personal computer sticks to the source material, and, for the most part, sticks the landing on the Nintendo Switch.
To beat The Tower of Beatrice, gamers will have to go through six floors, solving puzzles, making use of items put together, and summoning spells — needless to say, through the use of the target book which, infusing dry humor to the proceedings, also acts as a vehicle for the sorcerer’s condescension — at every turn in order to forge ahead. In this regard, the details in the game’s official site are spot on: the hurdles range from “simple to brain bending,” but not always in a good way. Hints are provided, but they occasionally tend to confuse more than help.
Considering the need for gamers to be extremely observant to the point of obsessive in surveying their character’s surroundings, The Tower of Beatrice could have benefited from better controls. With the Joy-Cons serviceable at best, the game thankfully provides touchscreen support. Yet, even then, there will be the occasional glitches, particularly when zooming in and out. That said, there can be no downplaying the effort Sometimes You has put forth in bringing its intellectual property to the Switch. And if there’s anything the iteration on the hybrid console presents as an advantage, it’s the capacity to be enjoyed anywhere, and at any given time.
At $5.99, The Tower of Beatrice is at a price point justified by its fairly engrossing gameplay. It’s short by the standards of similar AAA titles, but it doesn’t cheat the time it takes from gamers. And it manages not to overstay its welcome by periodically injecting doses of humor that hit more often than miss.
THE GOOD
- Offers value at a low price point
- Fairly engrossing gameplay
- Challenging escape-room puzzles
- Provides humor that hits more often than misses
THE BAD
- Controls could have been better
- Some floors very hard to escape from even with hints
- Final challenge thematically out of place
RATING: 7/10
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