Line #0 VideoGame/MysticTowers


1	[[quoteright:226:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mystic_towers_6345.jpg]]
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3	''Mystic Towers'' is a video game created by Australian developer Animation F/X and published by Manaccom domestically and [[Creator/ThreeDRealms Apogee Software]] internationally.
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5	The game stars Baron Baldric, a geriatric wizard with a magic staff and an array of amusing mannerisms, who must quest through twelve towers and rid them of monsters.
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7	''Mystic Towers'' is a sequel to ''Baron Baldric: A Grave Overture'', a platform game in which Baron Baldric battled his evil sorceror ancestor. The earlier game, originally written for the Amiga and later ported to the PC, was published by Manaccom and not released outside of Australia.
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10	!! This game contains examples of:
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12	* AirborneMooks: Each tower has one of these (with the exception of the Tor Karad towers, which have lots). There's a flying fungus named Fungafly and a so-called Bagfly, jellyfish-like Stinger, Snapdragons and Verdragons, etc. Unlike ground-bound monsters, the Baron can't escape them by jumping up onto boxes.
13	* AggressivePlayIncentive: The good Baron has food and water bars, which steadily drop over time, and if they should run out, his health will quickly plummet. Water is available in unlimited quantities if you can find a fountain, but food is more limited, and the closest thing to a renewable source of it is... the monsters that you're there to eradicate. Better get hunting! Exploring the tower helps, too, since you can find quite a bit of InexplicablyPreservedDungeonMeat lying around, but of course that means facing wandering monsters, automated shooting galleries, invisibly poisoned floor tiles, and falling bomb traps. On the bright side, as long as he has sufficient food and water, the Baron has a HealingFactor.
14	* ArtificialBrilliance: The monsters are smart enough to run away when they're hurt, or when you have the Invulnerability powerup active.
15	* BlackoutBasement: Some rooms are very dark and require you to activate light switches or cast the Reveal spell in order to illuminate them.
16	* BlockPuzzle: Baldric will often need to stack various boxes to reach high-up boxes, either to get bonus gold, or to find keys to other rooms. Things like statues can also be pushed across the floor to find items hidden underneath them.
17	* CreepyChild: The Rosie monster, which looks like a young girl, but has completely dissonant audio and will fling fireballs at you from the distance.
18	* CriticalExistenceFailure: Played with. Like most game protagonists, The Baron's spells are equally good at 100% [[HitPoints HP]] and 8% [=HP=]. However, he does get hungry and thirsty over time, although if those bars fill up the adverse consequences are represented as wizard consistently losing health, with no reductions in speed or concentrations one would expect to accompany this.
19	* CutAndPasteEnvironments:
20	** Subverted. On one hand, the rooms all have rather different layouts with various environmental details (one tower even has rooms with nude paintings on walls!) However, each of the twelve towers you traverse has the same general layout: they have five floors with nine rooms on each, adding up to 45 rooms per tower and 540 rooms for entire game.
21	** You also have to visit each tower twice: first time as a relatively easy apprentice version and second as the much harder Wizard version. Differences include tougher enemies, complete lack of maps, etc.
22	* DemBones: The Skelefly monster, which is a one-legged skeleton that bounces around. There's also the high-level Firebones skeleton, which shoots fireballs out of its eye sockets.
23	* DenialOfDiagonalAttack: The wizard is only capable of shooting in the cardinal directions and a lot of the gameplay is spent on lining up with the enemies in one of the four directions to fire a shot. Luckily, your enemies cannot attack diagonally either.
24	* DoNotRunWithAGun: Your wizard cannot move and cast spells at the same time.
25	* DurableDeathtrap: Justified, as all traps have been laid down recently. Thus, time didn't get to them yet, much to the chagrin of our hero.
26	* EmergencyWeapon: The Ice spell is very weak, not really useful in any serious combat situation (although it has a niche usage if you manage to trap a monster in a confined space). However, it has unlimited uses, so if you run out of every other spell, you're never entirely unarmed.
27	* EveryTenThousandPoints: Getting 10,000 points from collected treasure will give Baldric an extra life if he has less than 9.
28	* FireIceLightning: Three of Baldric's five attacks are Ice, Fireball, and Lightning.
29	* FriendlyFireproof: Averted with the Fireball and Bomb Traps, as these will damage monsters and can be a good way to take them out. The Pain and Poison Traps only work on Baldric, however. Thankfully, they're also marked with a skull and a small green dot, respectively (as well as a skull rune carved into a wall for poison traps), whereas Fireball and Bomb Traps cannot be detected without a Reveal spell.
30	* GlowingEyesOfDoom: The Eggnog monster, which has two glowing spots in its shell as its eyes.
31	* TheGoomba: Scarabite monsters in the Rimm tower are ludicrously weak compared to everything else. They can be easily killed by simply jumping on them.
32	* HealingFactor: The Baron will slowly regain health, so long as he isn't poisoned, starving, etc. Unfortunately, because he [[WizardNeedsFoodBadly has to keep eating]], the player can't fully take advantage of this.
33	* HollywoodAcid: The Sulphur attack spell available to Baldric works like this. Notably, it is the only attack spell without its enemy equivalent.
34	* InterfaceScrew: Drinking wine will make Baldric drunk, causing him to hiccup and spin around for a short while.
35	* InvisibilityCloak: One of the power-ups you find turns the Baron (temporarily) invisible. He can still get hurt if he walks into a monster, but they won't chase him.
36	* KleptomaniacHero: The Baron can take his time to search for any hidden gold and treasure in the towers, and you get ranked at the end of the tower on how many of the treasures you found.
37	* MookMaker: Each tower has a Monster Generator, and you must blow it up with a bomb before you can get rid of all the monsters.
38	* MooksButNoBosses: Unless you count the monster generators (which cannot even fight back) as bosses.
39	* NighInvulnerability: One of the power-ups grants this to Baldric. Notably, the monsters will actually stop attacking him while it's active.
40	* NintendoHard: You will not have an easy time beating this game. Your character is frail and also needs food and water to survive, while the monsters are tough and hit very hard (as do the numerous traps you can blunder into). In addition, figuring out the way to beat the wizard towers often isn't easy.
41	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: The Snapdragon creature. It flies and has considerable health, but cannot breathe fire.
42	* OurMonstersAreWeird: A lot of the creatures that inhabit the towers are very strange looking.
43	* PaletteSwap: The game technically has 30 enemies, but most of these are tougher, repainted versions of either the basic enemy, the flying one or the fireball casters.
44	* PermanentlyMissableContent:
45	** You cannot come back to the cleansed towers, so take your time searching for those coins!
46	** The spell vending machines have a chance of breaking after being used, preventing you from buying any more spells.
47	* PlayingWithFire: The fireball spell. The majority of ranged enemies will also specialise in fire. Finally, there's a Hothead enemy that attacks Baron in melee with a tongue of flame.
48	* PoisonMushroom:
49	** There are literal poison mushrooms that will instantly kill Baldric if he eats them (unless he's poisoned, in which case they [[MagicAntidote remove poisoning]]).
50	** A milder example are bottles containing wine and slime-infested wells: the first causes a temporary InterfaceScrew while the Baron is drunk, the second will inflict him with poison.
51	* QuadDamage: The "Meta Power" item increases your weapon spell power for a short time.
52	* PunnyName: Rosie Chiques is a pun on "rosy cheeks".
53	* RegeneratingHealth: Baron's health slowly regenerates over time for as long as he is not poisoned or his food and water bars haven't run out.
54	* RetCon: In the original ''Baron Baldric'', Baron Lazarus was killed by a mob after he kidnapped a milkmaid named Rosie, who died with him and they both became ghosts. In ''Mystic Towers'', however, it is stated that Lazarus was killed by a type of creature called a Rosie, which happens to look like a cute teenaged girl, but is actually a deadly monster.
55	--> The home of Rosie Chiques! Don't be fooled by her angelic appearance. Your ancestor Lazarus made that mistake!
56	* SaveGameLimits: A mild example. While you can save at any time, reloading will cause a monster to be immediately spawned from the Monster Generator, provided the generator is still intact and there are less than 15 monsters present in the tower.
57	* ShockAndAwe: The lightning spell, which is the rarest and most powerful ranged spell in the game. The Writwraith enemy that uses it can kill you in as little as two hits.
58	* SquishyWizard: Baldric. He does technically have nine lives, but it only takes a few hits for one to run out.
59	* TeleportersAndTransporters: There are teleporter pads, which would send you towards the floor marked on them when the Teleporter spell is cast on them. Given that these spells are limited, you'll have to think hard about whether it's worth doing that yet.
60	* TurnsRed:
61	** The Azurblast monster will attack in melee at first and only begin to use fireballs once you damage it enough.
62	** Most enemies will also become faster after they lose most of their health.
63	** Meta-power greatly boosts the power of Baron Baldric's currently equipped spell, allowing him to use weaker spells to defeat stronger enemies, or blow them away quickly using the more powerful spells.
64	* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: Unlike all the other towers, Wolf's Claw has only 14 enemies instead of 15. However, the Monster Generator can still sometimes make a 15th monster, which will not appear in any room, leaving you stuck as you cannot get the Tower Key until you kill all the monsters. The bug can be avoided simply by killing at least one monster before the 15th spawns.
65	* UniversalPoison: The Venom Cloud spell will work on every enemy in the game. Similarly, the poisons from all enemies (as well as the slime Baldric can accidentally ingest) will all turn him green and cause him to lose health.
66	* UnwinnableByDesign: Some of the wizard towers can become unwinnable if you waste too many Levitation or Teleport spells.
67	* VideoGameFlight: Baron has the levitation spell, and it can be cast many times to make him float higher and higher. This is required to complete some of the Wizard towers.
68	* VideoGameLives: The Baron has nine lives, which offsets his fragility to some extent. Lives can be replenished by accumulating points.
69	* ViolationOfCommonSense:
70	** Poison Mushrooms will instantly kill Baron at most times. If he's poisoned, however, they will cure him of poison instead.
71	** Drink slime once, you get poisoned; drink it while poisoned, it removes the poison.

Context VideoGame / MysticTowers