A group of children lives atop a tower, dreaming of someday escaping it and finding paradise on the surface, and it’s your job, to guide them through its halls and stairs all the way to the bottom, where paradise is rumored to reside – in simple words this is the plot of Arcana of Paradise —The Tower—. Those who dwell in the tower will try to impede your progress at every step of the way, and your supply of bread (which serves as the in-game currency of sorts) is limited, so you need to find it within the depths of the tower to make sure the children won’t starve up above the world.
Developed by Tasto Alpha and published by SHUEISHA GAMES, Arcana of Paradise —The Tower— could be described roguelike deck-builder where you descend down an “endless tower”, and fight encounters with tarot card-themed enemies or randomized events that double as puzzles with additional rewards in the form of cards you can add to your deck. The combat system is pretty simple, you use weapon cards to attack, medicine cards to recuperate any damage you gain during battle, shield cards to defend against attacks, etc., however, you need to be quick in your decision-making, as the enemies won’t be waiting for you to perform your attacks to make their moves. You start your dive into the tower after picking a pair of children to be your team. Each child starts with four cards, so picking a child pairing with certain support cards in their inventory, such as a fire torch, or a healing herb, can make the run significantly easier as you’ll have your bases covered.
Despite the simplicity of the game’s mechanics, each encounter has its unique ways to make end faster and without suffering any unnecessary damage, for example, if you use a fire-based attack against the drunkard sailor while he’s healing with alcohol, you can deal enough damage to defeat him in one blow. Throughout each of your runs, you’ll encounter several random events where using the right cards can either reward you with new cards to add to your deck, keep you from taking any damage, buff a certain card for the duration of the run, or unlock a collectible enemy card for the completionists out there.
The game has an interesting and unique set of mechanics, it encourages experimentation and rewards you for carefully observing your adversaries during each encounter, as well as figuring out solutions to puzzles or certain interactions during special events, and it actively encourages using new cards even for puzzles you’ve solved before, as you never know what new unique interactions you can uncover.
The art style is gorgeous, both the children and enemy portraits are distinct in a way that conveys what the character’s personality is like and contributes to building a fantasy-like world. The soundtrack is even better and does a great job of immersing you in the melancholic and enchanting atmosphere the game has.
Arcana of Paradise —The Tower— isn’t without its flaws, however. Some encounters by design can take too long to get through, such as enemies that block all attacks or are able to flip all your cards preventing you from attacking. Not only that but every encounter has a transition period after it in which children descend down the stairs slowly with no way to skip it. The game is also severely lacking in variety, it won’t take you long to have seen every special encounter it has, with the lack of content and how slow-paced it plays it starts feeling frustratingly sluggish to progress in and repetitive to play after a while – especially if you hunting for achievements.
The playable char design also discourages mixing certain classes, as that would make at least half the cards not usable by one of the two children: a mage-class child won’t gain any interactions through weapon cards, and neither would a warrior gain from magic cards.
The game also becomes significantly easier after you become familiar with it to the point you’ll be able to defeat enemies faster than it takes you to travel between floors, some enemies can be stunned by flashing a single card at them making them easy to cheese, and if you’re able to chain your attack cards quickly most enemies die in a matter of seconds, while it is satisfying to figure out enemy weaknesses, it makes an already easy game more akin to a stroll in a park. The lack of challenge and variety in the game together with how slow-paced it feels both contribute to its lack of replayability. The endless tower begins to feel not so endless after all.
Overall, Arcana of Paradise —The Tower— is a beautiful, albeit short game. It is quite enjoyable to play with its visuals and music but if you are looking to experience it all it does begin feeling a bit tedious as it is quite short. At some point, the player begins to feel like they overstayed their welcome in the tower: the enemies become unchallenging and the fights dull. This will probably pose a bigger problem for achievement hunters, and casual players won’t even notice it and will have a good time exploring the world and looking for paradise. With some polishing, this game could definitely improve and I really hope the developers decide to go for it in the future.
Reviewer: Zed
You can get Arcana of Paradise —The Tower— for PC and Nintendo Switch.
Anime Corner received a review copy of Arcana of Paradise —The Tower— for review purposes.
