Video Game / Noel and the Tower of Doom

"In this journey, I've learned so many things. Both of myself, and of the world. But one thing hasn't changed, who I am inside. For I am… Noel"

— Noel Strongarm, Noel and the Tower of Doom

Noel and the Tower of Doom is a traditional turn-based RPG made in RPG Maker MV with heavy dungeon crawling elements made by the developer KrimsonKatt, released in November 2023. In this game you explore a massive tower, Fornax-3, in order to stop an apocalyptic event known as the "Neon Genesis," the continuation of the incursion. The tower has exactly 60 floors, and it's your job to climb all of them to reach the top. Floors are bite sized and easily repayable, with every 10 floors featuring a powerful boss monster you must defeat to move forward. The game's story features a human boy turned female fairy who must climb the fabled "Tower of Doom," Fornax-3, alongside her sickly brother turned Frost Dwarf Goliath, her English teacher Sterling Snow, and a mysterious samurai from another world named Zed. Together they must climb the great tower of fight off a group of racist fursonas created from the cognition of the false one, the owner of the Zohar Artifact and the one destined to bring forth the beginning and the end. But what at first seems like a silly, lighthearted adventure turns into a living nightmare as more and more about the history of the tower, it's overseer, and the dark secrets held within are slowly revealed...

You can download the game for yourself here: https://rpgmaker.net/games/12239/

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Noel and the Tower of Doom provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: The "awakened power" passives and talent art Limit Break|s are only obtained in the true ending route and only right before the end. They are incredibly powerful however and a huge help against the remaining bosses.
• Action Girl: Noel, Sterling, and Zed.
• Ambiguous Gender: The false one, who’s pronouns change constantly throughout the game making it unclear to what their gender actually is, similar to their real-life counterpart. This is explained in one of the Secret Reports by something called ”Zoharic Subconscious Fluxuations". Or “ZSF”. Basically when someone with an impure heart activates the Zohar Artifact, their subconscious is layered onto humanity’s overall perceptions to create a cognitive wall between the evil desires of the activator and the true power of the Zohar as a sort of power limiter. Since the False One’s identity and sense of self is so warped and incoherent due to severe mental illness, this warped sense of self is layered onto the subconscious of humanity, causing everyone to constantly change pronouns in reference to the false one constantly.
• And I Must Scream: The Sacrifice and Toilet Endings.
• An Ice Person: The wizard class can learn multiple ice-elemental skills.
• Battle Theme Music: As typical with a KrimisonKatt game, the game has numerous boss themes, all of them being rips from other games.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Most of the good-aligned characters are incredibly attractive (Noel and Sterling come to mind) and all the evil-aligned characters such as the false one and the delusionary beasts are incredibly ugly and/or horrific monsters.
• Big Bad: Magistrate, one of the husbands of the false one and the one in control of the tower.
• Black Magician Girl: Noel. She even wears a black frilly dress too!
• Bloodier and Gorier: Compared to Chronicles The Lost Page and Chronicles Meteorfall, this game is far more gruesome than the other two with more horror elements and EXTREMELY gruesome and violent bad endings.
• Blow You Away: The Artificer can learn various “force” elemental attacks, which includes attacks using wind.
• Bonus Dungeon: The secret depths, which are required for the game’s true ending.
• Boss Arena Recovery: Most bosses have a healing and teleport crystal in their arenas, allowing you easy access to heals and even the ability to conveniently warp out, gather better equipment and items back at town, and warp back in. At least until you get to the last two areas and get jumped by two incredibly strong bosses without access to healing or teleportation immediately before…
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Zed during her boss fight after she realizes she’s just a pawn of the False One and falls under their control.
• Cap: Every stat has a cap. The HP cap for allies is 9999, while the HP cap for enemies is 9,999,999. The AP cap for both enemies and allies is 999. The stat cap for both enemies and allies is 9999, though it's unlikely it will ever go above 999. The level cap for both enemies and allies is 99, but some enemies break the cap, namely the True Final Boss who is Lv100 and the superboss Brutalist Helberg.
• Character Class System: You can freely change classes in the menu between 8 different options: Vanguard, Warden, Thief, Artificer, Paladin, Wizard, Cleric, and Warlock. Classes gain JP by defeating enemies which can be used to learn new skills, each class having 10 of them.
• Cool Horse: The Optional Boss Nightstar, who is the closest thing in the game to fighting the false one legitimately.
• Cosmic Keystone: The Zohar Artifact, a relic from another world which can alter reality on a massive scale.
• Creepy Child: A boss named The Child, who is also a Space Flea From Nowhere.
• Damage Reduction: How defensive stats (DEF and RES) work in this series. Instead of reducing damage by a flat amount, defensive stats reduce damage based on a percentage that starts with heavy scaling but as the stat gets higher the reduction gets lower. Damage piercing skills pierce through this damage reduction.
• Dark And Tragic Past: Zed has one of these, once being a pure evil, manipulative cult leader who sexually abused a younger Kairos, attempted to groom her own son into becoming a living sacrifice for a dark god, and was killed by said son and his allies along with Kairos, the man she abused. Billions of years later she is revived by the false one as part of their plan to rid the world of Kairos, who is now the seraphim of time who can rewind time if anything goes wrong, such as a game over.
• Dark Is Not Evil: "Dark Magick" can be used by the player-controlled "Warlock" class. In this setting, so-called "dark magick" is powered by strong emotion, both positive and negative.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: This happens to most of the bosses such as Punchy, Angelica, etc.
• Downer Ending: All the bad endings count as this such as the standard Bad Ending, the Nightmare Ending, and ESPECIALLY the Sacrifice Ending
• Door to Before: The teleport crystals can teleport you to any floor of the tower you have visited before.
• The Dragon: Magistrate is implied to be one to the false one, as well as Infini-III.
• Dual Boss: All the EX bosses fought in the true ending route count as this. The pairs are Punchy and Angelica, Bubbles and Blake, and Wild and Magistrate.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The requirements for the true ending are VERY strict and require doing some really out-of-the-way tasks.
• Easy Sex Change: Noel transforms near-instantly off-screen from a human boy to a female fairy shortly before the game begins. In the opening monologue, it's revealed that the female fairy is Noel's "true form."
• Elemental Powers: Multiple classes as well as enemies have access to elemental attacks.
• Enemy Scan: The Wizard class can scan enemy weaknesses.
• Escape Rope: Teleport Stones instantly teleport you to the entrance of Fornax-3.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The entire game revolves around one of these, the eponymous “Tower of Doom.” The game’s title screen even uses the trope image!
• Experience Booster: The growth ring raises EXP earned.
• Fade to White: Happens multiple times, most notably before and after the Zed flashback scenes.
• Fairy Sexy: Noel is her setting's equivalent to a fairy and she's very beautiful.
• Fate Worse than Death: Most of the bad endings that don't outright kill the party in increasingly gruesome ways, such as the Nightmare Ending.
• Final Boss: Magistrate and his second form, Magus-Eos.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The three elements the Wizard class has access to.
• Flashback: Zed has these throughout the first half of the story, telling her Dark And Tragic Past.
• Flashback B-Plot: Zed's flashbacks serve as a sort of b-plot to the main story, explaining her Dark And Tragic Past.
• Game Over: Happens when you lose a fight, afterwards allowing you to retry. However, certain fights you can't retry since losing triggers a bad ending.
• Gender Bender: Numerous examples.
  • Noel used to be a guy, but is now a female fairy. She enjoys her new form greatly.
  • Everyone is turned into mermaids in the Mermaid Bad Ending.
  • The Wingli NPC in Centerfield Port is implied to be trans, turning from a male human into a female wingli upon the incursion.
• Giant Hands of Doom: The True Final Boss, [[spoilers:Infini-III]], has two hands that you have to deal with along with the body.
• Guide Dang It!!: The requirements to reach the true ending, which require that you Defeat every Optional Boss, obtain every weapon and armor, register them all in a secret area, get past the crushers in the NEVI Storehouse, turn the Cursed Ring into the Anchuent Ring, travel to the secret depths, defeat all three hidden "EX Bosses", light the fire in Hellion, burn EVERY secret report, defeat Nightstar, and then defeat the True Final Boss Infini III.
• Golden Ending: The true ending. Everything is resolved and every plot point left hanging from the standard good ending is fulfilled.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The False One, the one orchestrating the game's events, who does not appear in person outside one of the bad endings.
• Hard Light: There is a light pillar up you must navigate up right before the fight with Angelica.
• Have We Met?: Zed remarks this to Noel upon first meeting her. [[spoilers:It is revealed in the true ending that it is because Noel is an “avatar” of the goddess Barbello, creator of the world, and that Karuta/Moros, Zed’s and Kairos’ son, was also an avatar of Barbello, albeit a much younger and less mature one.]]
• Hell Is That Noise: Getting caught by the creature in the nightmare ending uses an edited version of the Jump Scare sound effect from Five Nights at Freddy's.
• Hot Teacher: Sterling, who is noted as being very attractive.
• Hub Level: The town of Centerfield Port.
• Ice Magic Is Water: Ice-elemental spells are considered water elemental. This is to stop element bloat which was a problem in previous KrimsonKatt games.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests can be found all over Fornax-3.
• Infinity -1 Sword: “Sword of the Son”, a weapon dropped by the story boss The Child.
• Infinity +1 Sword: A fully upgraded “Aspect of Jimmy,” which requires fusing it with the “legal papers” item. The result is an absolutely devastating weapon that completely breaks the game.
• It’sAllUpstairsFromHere: The first and only dungeon in the game is a massive tower with 60 sprawling floors.
• Joke Weapon: The Aspect of Jimmy before it’s upgraded. It only has 1 STR, the weakest out of any weapon. It becomes a Lethal Joke Weapon later on after upgrading it.
• Jump Scare: Multiple.
  • Zed lets out one in the first flashback scene
  • The bosses Wild & The Child when they ambush you.
  • Pretty much every Superboss.
  • The Creature in the Nightmare Ending.
• Kaizo Trap: In the Final Ascent, by taking the wrong path on Floor 57, you will be teleported BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TOWER and will have to CLIMB THE TOWER ALL OVER AGAIN FROM THE START. Thankfully, the bosses don’t respawn, but this is extremely annoying, especially if you don’t have the Dispel Ring.
• Kill It with Fire: The wizard class learns multiple fire spells. Enemies also have many fire elemental attacks.
• Lethal Joke Weapon: The Aspect of Jimmy after being fully upgraded using the Legal Papers. Afterwards it’s the strongest weapon in the game by far, having 100% CRI, 100% P.Pierce, and granting 999 STR and MAG.
• Life Drain: Some attacks can steal HP and/or AP both for allies and enemies such as the Thief's HP Thief attack.
• Lighter and Softer: Despite being Bloodier and Gorier than previous entries in the Chronicles series through its bleak bad endings, this game tends to be a lot more lighthearted in tone with frequent jokes and silly moments alongside the more serious ones.
• Limit Break: Each character's talent arts.
  • Noel has Wand of Destruction, which deals colossal almighty damage to all foes 4 times while lowering all stats for the target(s).
  • Sterling has Judgement Volley, which deals colossal gun and light damage to all foes while reducing the enemy's AP by 50% and removing all buffs.
  • Zed has Crimson End, which deal colossal sword damage to all foes 8 times and always crits.
  • Goliath has Gjoll Permacrush, which deals colossal axe and water damage to all foes while always breaking two shields that also pierces 35% of DEF.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Subverted, it is actually one of the HEROES who has the whole place blow up after the defeat of Magus-Eos.
• Magikarp Power: The weapon "Aspect of Jimmy," normally one of the weakest weapons in the game that costs an absurd amount of money, ($9900 on a good day) can be upgraded using the "Legal Papers" item obtained from Brutalist Hellberg into the strongest weapon in the game BY FAR.
• Marathon Level: The Secret Depths, being 6 brutally tough, massive floors filled with powerful optional bosses and tough enemies. Luckily, there is a healing crystal and a chest containing a teleport stone on every floor, but you will still need to clear the dungeon in one go as if you leave, you will need to start the whole thing all over again.
• Multiple Endings: Over 12 different endings, with most of them being bad endings.
  • Good Ending: Reach the top of the tower and successfully defeat the final boss. [[spoilers:The tower is set to explode and everyone falls off the tower. However, Noel saves everyone by learning to fly and they all continue their quest to deactivate the enochian pillars, though many mysteries still remain.]]
  • True Ending: To get this ending you must first unlock the Secret Depths. To unlock the [Secret Depths, you must register every single weapon and armor in the NEVI Storehouse. This includes unlocking and defeating the four secret bosses. Once you have registered every weapon and armor you can safely pass the crusher in the warehouse and reach a special shrine where you can transform your Cursed Ring into the “Anchuent Ring.” Then, re-enter the entrance to Fornax-3 and a cutscene will play that will unlock the secret Depths. Then, once in the secret depths, you must find and defeat the three EX bosses to obtain their Secret Reports. Then, in Hellion, (Floor 6 of the secret Depths) after using the lighter fluid to light the bonfire you must burn every secret note. Then the boss “Nightstar” will appear in the Gas Station. Defeat Nightstar to unlock the path to the 8th floor of the secret depths and the true final boss. Then defeat the true final boss. In this ending Mewtwo is purified and deactivates all the enochian pillars across the globe. With the power of the pillars gone, Zed disappears due to the false one’s power being no longer able to sustain her existence, thanking the other three heroes for helping her find redemption. The other three heroes carry on while Mewtwo heads back to his own dimension, pledging to find the other two fragments of god and defeat the False One once and for all.
  • False Ending: This ending has the same requirements as the True Ending, with the only difference being failing to encounter and defeat Nightstar. This ending has two alternate paths. Agreeing and siding with the False One results in a legitimate ending with full credits, while the other involves fighting the False One, who is impossible to beat. Losing to the False One gives you the same bad ending as losing to Magistrate/Magus-Eos.
  • Forgetful Ending: To get this bad ending, you must enter Fornax-3 without having required Goliath. This ending is more humorous than scary.
  • Explosion Ending: To get this ending, you must lose to the Superboss Motormouth. In this ending 25% of the planet explodes and billions die. The end.
  • Nightmare Ending: To get this ending, lose to the Superboss King Kill, In this ending Noel gets stuck in a never-ending eternal nightmare. The end.
  • Zed Ending: To get this ending, you must kill Zed during the boss fight with her. In this ending Kairos appears and tells the 3 remaining heroes that since Zed is dead, this timeline is now doomed and that they will have to use his power to go back and time and save Zed instead of killing her. Upon leaving the area a text scroll plays and the game ends.
  • Toilet Ending: To get this ending, lose to the Superboss Wonder Wizard. In this ending Noel is turned into a toilet. The end.
  • Sacrifice Ending: To get this ending, lose to the Superboss Angler Eye when Patriot Defender is not the only one left on the field. In this ending Noel and everyone else is gruesomely sacrificed to the dark god.
  • Mermaid Ending: To get this ending, lose to Patriot Defender after the Superboss Angler Eye has already been defeated. In this ending everyone is transformed into mermaids and seemingly live happily, but the pillars still exist and will inevitably activate without anyone being able to stop them, dooming the world.
  • Bad Ending: To get this ending, lose to the Final Boss Magistrate or his second form Magus-Eos. This is just an animated and extended version of the standard game over sequence.
  • Secret Ending: To obtain this ending, you must view the secret event in the bathrooms of CFCC. Then, on Floor 54, there will be a 1/99 chance for a door to appear if you have already viewed the secret event. Once you open the door, it will always be open even in future NG+ runs. Within the door there will be 12 flames, each one being lit by obtaining a certain ending. Once all 12 flames are lit the big door in the back will open, revealing a massive staircase down. On this staircase tons of the creepy bathroom ghosts will spawn and swarm the player, repeating the same voice clip over and over. Eventually the screen will become filled with those ghosts before the screen goes black with red shaking text that says “YOU ARE NOT REAL” flashes on the screen before it cuts back to the title screen. Tip:Wearing the cursed ring will cause secret events to always occur.
• New Game Plus: Once you defeat the final boss Magus Eos you will be be able to access NG+ from the title screen, allowing you to replay the game from the beginning to get any potential Permanently Missable Content.
• One-Gender Race: Mermaids and pureblood Alfar like Noel.
• One-Winged Angel: Magistrate transforms into Magus-Eos upon his defeat.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Goliath's nightmare in the secret depths.
• Pensieve Flashback: Goliath during the nightmare he has while sleeping in the Secret Depths where he interacts and leaves commentary for his past (and potential future) actions. In reality he is being manipulated by Blake to commit suicide.
• Permanently Missable Content: Numerous examples.
  • The "Forgetful Ending" is missable after recruiting Goliath.
  • The "Zed Ending" is missable after properly defeating Zed Infinity.
  • All the bad endings linked to the Superboss encounters are missible if you beat the bosses on your first attempt.
  • The Mermaid Ending is missable if you either defeated the Superboss Angler Eye on your first attempt OR you end up killing Angler Eye's summoned monster Patriot Defender first and then losing, which will give you the Sacrifice Ending instead.
  • The legal papers item is completely missable if you decide to kill the Babiberg enemy, which will permanently get rid of the Brutalist Hellberg Superboss.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Noel's frilly black and gold dress.
• Power-Up Food: All the healing items in the game are food.
• Reality Warping: The Zohar Artifact has the power to do this.
• Sequential Boss: Magistrate and Magus-Eos.
• Sexy Mentor: Sterling is Noel's mentor and the Group Mom and is incredibly attractive.
• Shielded Core Boss: The True Final Boss Infini-III can only be damaged when their two hands are destroyed.
• Shock and Awe: The wizard along with a few other classes can learn thunder elemental attacks.
• Shout-Out
  • In an early cutscene (right after you leave the starting room) Noel mentions a memory of she and her brother fighting the final boss of Kirbys Return To Dreamland.
  • In another early cutscene Noel references Octopath Traveler as a game she enjoys playing, albeit the non-existent 4th game. (Octopath Traveler IV)
  • A line from Noel during the bathroom cutscene references the infamous meme “Mario Pissing”
  • In the bathroom, there is a 1/256 chance when using the sink a ghost will appear who will jumpscare you and give a bizarre text to speech message before disappearing forever. This is a reference to multiple things including Uboa from Yume Nikki, the Goner Kids and W.D. Gaster from Video Game/Undertale and Video Game/Deltarune, and the classic spooky story of ghosts in bathrooms. Seeing this secret event is actually a requirement to unlock the “secret ending.”
  • The returning Wingli race is a reference to Legend of Dragoon.
  • Anna from Fire Emblem appears in the form of a Sonic the Hedgehog OC, being a shopkeeper like always and selling special scrolls that enhance your weapons.
  • The Black Market uses the “Dogecoin” Cryptocurrency for purchases.
  • The sign that shows up after you commit murder in the black market that shows you are banned is the same image that shows up when you are banned from rpgmaker.net, the website the game was originally hosted on.
  • A line Sterling says in the Zed introduction cutscene in a reference to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. (Earth is a planet teeming with life, 8 billion strong.)
  • The Forgetful Ending is a reference to a famous meme from the TV Show Two And A Half Men.
  • The bad endings in general are all references to the bad endings from Streets of Rage 3. They even use the same music!
  • Franchise/Pokemon is referenced numerous times, as the bosses you fight are all heavily corrupted Pokemon.
  • The different bosses you fight throughout the tower are references to the infamous webcomic Web Comic/Sonichu.
  • An artifact similar to the Zohar from Video Game/Xenogears plays a prominent role.
  • The false one is Chris Chan and the plot revolves around their “Dimensional Merge” delusion.
  • The Bad Ending and the standard game over sequences are references to Cruelty Squad, speificly the video on it made by Creator/Pyrocynical.
  • The Secret Depths area is one massive reference to the Doom 2 mod “My House”
  • The Superboss "Brutalist Hellberg" is a reference to the TV Show Better Call Saul along with Chris Chan's Lawyer.
  • The "Hubba Tester" that the reborn Punchy and Angelica put on as a front is a reference to Fire Emblem Fates..
  • Chris Chan’s Ponysona “Night Star” appears as an optional post-game boss. She is a required fight to access the true ending.
  • Mewtwo is the True Final Boss, albeit in a heavily corrupted form. This form is also a reference to the old rumors of a “Mewthree” Pokemon.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Parts of the Water Ascent apply as this, especially the sliding puzzle sections.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: Noel's deadname is Noah.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The boss fight with The Child comes out of nowhere, with an epic score, cinematic visuals, and an extremely challenging boss worthy of final boss status. He is never mentioned again before or after.
• Superboss: Numerous examples. All but Brutalist Hellberg are required for the Golden Ending.
  • Motormouth, a steam-powered android with a mechanical jaw. He can bite down on your allies for absurd damage, most often killing them in a single hit. However, he has a major weakness. He only targets whoever has the lowest current HP. Meaning that you can just set up one of your guys as bait and constantly revive them to get Motormouth onto an infinite loop.
  • King Kill, the nightmarish “king of bats” who specializes in debuffs.
  • Wonder Wizard, the mad rainbow magical wizard man who possesses incredibly strong spells and the ability to drain ALL your AP.
  • Angler Eye, a demonic angler fish who specializes in defense-piercing attacks and summons a powerful ally, Patriot Defender, at 50% HP.
  • Brutalist Hellberg, who is not required for the Golden Ending and is a recolor of the normal Hellberg enemy found in the Final Ascent. He possesses incredibly strong attacks and is 50 levels higher than the True Final Boss. Good freaking luck.
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Noel changes gender when the incursion happens, which is because the incursion fuses the imperfect human world with the magical world, the world of dreams that reflects the desires of humanity's subconscious. So when Noah, Noel's false human form in the human world, and Noel, Noel's true form in the magic world, fuse, Noel takes control and changes Noel's gender from male to female.
• Toilet Humor: Two examples.
  • Early in the game there is a joke involving Noel taking "her first piss as a girl" which references the infamous series Mario Pissing.
  • A more literal example is the "toilet ending" where Noel is turned into a freaking toilet.
• Trauma Inn: The bed in Noel's Room which fully heals HP, AP, and status effects.
• True Final Boss: Infini-III, an incredibly powerful boss with multiple phases and body parts, each with devastating attacks. He’s even one level above the level cap at Lv 100.
• Underground Level: The Secret Depths.
• Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The final ascent of the tower. Also the secret depths.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Just like in the Doom 2 mod My House you can kill the little dog (called "Babiberg* in this game) in the secret depths in order to instantly kill the Superboss Brutalist Helberg. However, doing so will permanently lock you out of obtaining the legal papers in this playthrough, and you'll only get a second cursed ring as a reward.
• Wind Is Green: Force/Wind-elemental spells are colored green.
• "Which Restroom?" Dilemma: Played for laughs in a very early scene in the game, combined with Toilet Humor.