Mirage Of Tower

I got my copy from the dev Strange, usually I defend Arkhouse games (well, most of the time), and honestly it's not as bad as I expected, but I just did not enjoy the first half of the game. The entire thing feels like an Arkhouse retrospective gallery with AI social commentary on top of it. I remember someone did not like that I compared Arkhouse games to paintings, but now he made a museum out of his games, which is a bit funny. This game also uses generative AI for various features like cutscenes, posters, and some aspects of the soundtrack, which is unfortunate considering that I follow the developer specifically for original art direction. Now, I am not against devs using AI in limited capacity, I just don't want to feel like AI dictates the experience, but I felt like this game crossed that line for me. To be fair, Mirage of Tower uses AI art as part of the narrative, so it's not just using it only for the "convenience", there is something that the dev wants to convey in this game that relates to AI, it's self-aware in a way, [spoiler] commenting on progression of art from simple sketches to people eventually cutting corners with generative AI, I guess maybe saying that AI is here to stay regardless, or at least that is my interpretation of it. [/spoiler] I enjoyed the second half of the game, I thought the [spoiler]'waifu' and 'retro'[/spoiler] stages were genuinely hilarious and completely unexpected, especially in contrast to your previous work. Arkhouse is known for making difficult and unfair games, but considering there was so little to this game, I felt like the difficulty spike made it better, and it was not as punishing overall. You get 100 falls to finish the game, and if you lose the last one, your save file is erased, so you may want to consider leapfrogging the save stations. At first the game feels very basic (probably the simplest game he made), you pretty much just jumping the entire game, think of it like a linear Mirage of Dragon. It will introduce a few stage mechanics and some boss fights later in the game. One neat feature I liked is that bullet-hell spam is replaced with teleports, every projectile in this game is a teleport, so you don't die from getting hit, you die from being teleported and not landing. There was a ton of trial and error in this game which is a very Arkhouse thing, potentially adding artificial difficulty. The narrative actually kinda works, thematically I think the game has an interesting perspective, even if I don't agree with the use of AI, I think the game intentionally rage baits you with generative AI content, while also being somewhat self-aware. Ultimately it depends if you willing to tolerate dev's new found fascination with AI slop, which I don't really blame him for, but I personally see it as directly inferior to his previous work, even if it is a little cheeky and he probably does not take it that seriously. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) There were a couple of really funny moments in the second half of the game, I liked the few "unexpected" jumping sections which I felt were so random for one of your games, I genuinely felt amused. (+) While I don't like how much AI is in this game, I still think the game had a decent mood going for it, overall I liked the presentation and the self-aware slop commentary. Actually some of the vocals were pretty funny, not sure if you generated them or just used the vocal effect. (+) Actually I think the difficulty was reasonable this time, turning all bullets into teleports was pretty creative. Still had some trial and error though, would not be Arkhouse if it didn't I guess. [h1] Feedback: [/h1] - the first half of the game just didn't have much in it aside from maybe setting up the contrast for what is to come, all the cool $$$$ happens in the second half, so that kinda threw me off a bit, I felt like the game was very dull for the first 90 minutes, and actually had a few cool moments later - maybe you could give those Mirage of Dragon balls a bigger detection radius - If you stick with using AI, I think you should avoid the cutscenes, a few pictures here and there is whatever, using cutscenes that I can generate in a few minutes myself, what is the point, anyone can do that [b] Overall Thoughts: 5/10 [/b] If you are a diehard Arkhouse fan you probably will find a few things to enjoy here, but it's arguably the worst game he made, not just because of heavy AI, but also overall direction and pacing, with the first half of the game being extremely slow and somewhat pointless. That said, I still think you somehow brought the AI usage all the way around, I don't dislike the overall tone and the idea of the game, it was just a little too late and frankly it just falls short from your previous work. [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]

I've been a big fan of Arkhouse since early 2022 when I decided to play ALL of his games pre Saturn Quest 3 and I was blown away on how much blood, sweat & love the developer put into these games with his amazing artistic & musical talent. Mirage of Tower is sadly NOT one of those games and I would even say its the worst game he's ever made. Mirage of Tower is basically sort of a spiritual successor to Mirage of Dragon but completely linear instead of being a non linear maze but still with the same pure platforming gameplay although a bit stiffer kind of similar to Dark Dreams platforming. The game plays like a museum of Arkhouse "greatest games hits" with levels based on all of Arkhouse previous games minus any of the gameplay elements(honestly miss opportunity to have returning annoying platforming hazards from previous Arkhouse games) since your main obstacles is teleporting cubes. Speaking of teleporting cubes: they really for the most part suck as I felt they were overused just WAY too much with the exception of the Cube Gothic level where you had to navigate a few of them in a series of mazes which I actually enjoy solving them and will even say its my favorite section of the game 😎👍 Now to explain WHY this is Arkhouse worst game: The AI gen slop 🤢🤮 Arkhouse has sadly double & triple down on needing to use AI gen slop in for the past few games after his nearly 3 year absence since completing his masterpiece Saturn Quest RUNE 3000(yes I think its his best game before he started putting AI slop in his newer recent games). All video cutscenes were made with AI(thank god they're skippable), majority of the soundtrack has AI re-arrangements of his previous music(That one Saturn Quest track that was re-arrangement by AI hurt my ears & soul 💀) and some wall posters were made with AI. With the inclusion of MORE AI gen slop, most of the game feels wrong & souless like almost some weird fanboy wanted to make an Arkhouse ripoff tribute but use AI gen slop tools to make it. That's really the impression I get from Mirage of Tower. At the end of the day, I'm just a fan(or former fan at this point) of very few who loves silly abstract & obscure games and every game up until Saturn Quest 4 click with me good because I see the same inspirations of old NES, SNES & MS-DOS games that I love growing up back in the 90s & 2000s. Sadly I don't a future of myself buying & playing ANY future Arkhouse games due to moral artistic reasons which is a shame because I think in a different timeline of the cancelled Saturn Quest RPG game actually being made could've truly been peak Arkhouse 😔 Nevertheless I do wish the developer good luck on his future games even if I don't agree with the unethical ways he's developing his games these days. Also one final note: The developer should reconsider & remove the use of ripped copyright assists from the retro level as a few of them are from Nintendo and Nintendo has a history of DMCA ANY game that uses their IP assists whether its a fan game or a commercial game.

I am a former fan of arkhouse games and the man behind them, arkhouse games were always closer to being art than an actually playable game, with the introduction of AI art and the like what can I even say the game is anymore. A poorly made platformer, with bad controls. This is one of the least fun games I've ever tried playing, I would sooner watch Red Sonja, Dragonball Evolution, Resident Evil: Damnation, The Wolfman (remake), any movies made by Zack Snyder again, stare into a mirror for 24 hours straight or play bioysque again. If I had to recommend a game by arkhouse I wouldn't. I need to wash myself from the filth of this game.

Ragegame, too hard, limited save game, too much time between save points, especially after boss battles. The atmosphere isn't bad, but I'd only recommend it to people who like challenging platformers.