TowerFall Ascension

TowerFall Ascension is a fun and approachable battle royale that makes excellent use of its deceptively simple retro looks and classic arcade platforming style. Every second is a mad scramble for ammo, powerups, and survival that, while sadly limited to local play only, kept my group of four players glued to their controllers with its highly competitive action. Even the single-player and co-op Quest mode is worth playing to practice your skills before going into battle.

Arguments about lag are moot if you just don't often have four friends around to play it. I'm not even good enough to take real tactical advantage of the low latency—decaying synapses are my bottleneck. But I can still feel that crisp, tactile, instant response. It feels good. It feels right. When a game is this precisely considered, so exactly tuned in every part, then forget the convenient compromises of netcode—play it how it wants to be played.

It's incredibly hard to make a game as great as TowerFall Ascension is in its finest moments. But that's not what sets the game apart as the new gold standard in the local multiplayer renaissance — it's the fact that no matter how you play it, TowerFall Ascension is never not fun.