If your game immediately makes me think of any of Fumito Ueda’s in any sort of way, the likelihood is that I am to play it. There are only so many Ueda games (three, by my count) and there will only be so many (hopefully more that upcoming fourth one isn’t the last), so when something rocks up that fits into that vibe like TALON TOWERS, a parkour platformer set on dilapidated structures that stand high above an infinitely stretching fog, I’m going to be pulled in.
TALON TOWERS is the next game from Jan Malitschek, the dev behind brutalist first-person climbing platformer BETON BRUTAL, this time getting some help from Blanksword’s Quinn K. and If Found’s Hyphinett. The Uedaness of it all comes from the setting, these towers look old, as if there’s a storied history to them. A history, I might add, that perplexes as much as it impresses; why are there so many criss-crossing parts to parkour across? I don’t know the answer, but I’m not fussed about it because the platforming looks grand.
Watch on YouTube
You’ve got a lot of movement tools at your disposal. You can run, climb, swing across monkeybars, wallrun and -kick, walk across tightropes, crouch and crawl, it looks incredibly expressive and tricky to get a handle on. A lot of those platforms are mighty narrow, and the way down looks… well, I don’t know, there could be a bunch of pillows down there, but I assume it’s not great. You can check all of it above in a nice and lengthy showcase for a game that only just got announced.
It’s not just navigating tough platforms either, one particular section in the showcase sees the player character being chased by some such figure that calls Celeste’s second chapter to mind, where you get chased by Madeline. There’s a bit of an Ico vibe there too, like when the shadowy creatures try to nab Yorda. You can even play as a bird at some points! Neat! You can wishlist TALON TOWERS on Steam, and it’ll come when it’s done.