Having fun in Girls of the Tower
Girls of the Tower
Girls of the Tower is quite an interesting gem of a game. It’s an auto-battler with a surprising amount of depth to it, which hopefully my words can unfold through my adventure.
Character selection
We start our humble adventure at the selection screen. Unlike other games of its genre, here, you can pick a pair of commanders, each commander bringing something unique to the table:
- an exclusive minion tribe
- certain types of buff/debuff spells
- certain type of elemental damage
I went with Kamisari and Asuka, since I never tried them together. For my starting treasure, I picked Thieves’ Badge, which gives me a one star copy of Kun at each level up. Because I just unlocked it and wanted to try it out!
General Plan
Kun himself seems to be quite strong, especially early! He is able to retaliate against units using skills, and he also has a quite potent stun ability! By taking an item encounter, we are able to find an item that turns him into a CC machine.
Since I’m playing on Hell difficulty, there is something quite valuable to learn from this.
Always take encounters for things you are hurting for. What you get from them is much better than what's in town shops.
Since we are playing protectors, most of our units are front-line brawlers. This means that we will need a bit of help from magic to help us deal with the backline.
Magic System
The magic system in this game is deceptively simple : each of the commander comes with their own set of magic cards, in 5 rarities, like in a MMO : white, green, blue, purple, yellow, each more potent than the last. However, what makes the magic system fascinating is the fact that you can augment each card with gems. One gem for white, green and blue rarity, and two gems for purple and yellow.
Mind you, the gems are VERY potent : they can turn single target magic into AoE magic, or AoE magic into global magic, change its cost to the last card played, bring it back to hand but more expensive.
I was lucky that through a gem encounter, I was able to equip a card with a gem that mirrors the cost of the previous card and a gem that brings it back.
Why, yes we can. Which brings me to the next tip I have.
A simple, but potent strategy is to equip two cards with gems that copy the previous cost and come back.
This strategy is not without flaws, however :
- gems require commitment, once you socket it in you can’t take it out
- you need specific gems
- you need a very cheap spell as an ignition key for your loop
- once you start, and you need something else, you will have to decide if breaking the loop is worth it
- opportunity cost is less potency, since you will not be equipping gems that make the cards stronger
So, we will have to farm gem encounters, hoping to find another pair similar to this, so we could form a loop.
Story
Before continuing with my story, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the game’s story.
It is played out through these visual novel-style intermissions. There are no CGs other than the backgrounds and the characters, so they are quite minimalist.
The translation is … less than ideal. It’s a machine translation most likely, and it hurts the game a bit. You will struggle to figure out on which of your minions a minion exclusive item is supposed to go on. This is also available for relics, but at least for relics it tells you how many of the specific minion type you have.
However, it’s not all bad. Each pair has their own unique storyline, and once you play through a few of them, they are surprisingly consistent. Some events will make far more sense when you understand the true nature of a character, such as Kamisari being a demon lord.
The story is light and easy-going, with a healthy mixture of comedy, ecchi elements and seriousness. It is also extremely chinese.
I have some familiarity with chinese culture, so some obvious puns like Lord Aini do not escape me, but there are also modern cultural references like leftover women.
I have even found some historical references, such as the red bandits.
Back to our other story
Now, let’s go back to our other story. After grinding for maybe 10 gem fights, we finally have it … the final piece of our loop combo.
Let’s carefully sock it in into our global spell …
Now we can finally loop our two cards!
Well, after all this effort, all good things must come to an end, including our run.
I have started encountering problems regarding the minion pool. Since protectors are not a character exclusive tribe, I eventually ran out of protectors to buy and I realized it too late. I tried augmenting it with magic users, but it was too little, too late.
Unfortunately for us, this boss has fire resistance, so looping him with our fire spells was quite ineffective. The final battle was not completely hopeless, since both Kun and my Explorer in the backline there had the ability to stun, just that it did not proc often enough to keep the boss perma-stunned.
Consult the monster glossary for non-commander exclusive tribes so you actually have enough to buy!
The run was, overall, very enjoyable, but if I am planning to try for more tribal achievements, I should be more careful with my character selection.
Final Notes
This game is quite cheap, but it does come with two pieces of DLC.
One of them is a character, Decotine.
She comes with her own commander exclusive tribe, an array of frost spells and since each story with each pair is unique, 4 additional stories.
The other one is a whole new game mode, Chaos Mode, where you can buy enemy minions to join your clause. Maybe I’ll do a writing on a run there, some day.
Until then, sayonara, and thank you for being here!