Rating games according to the aspects of replayability - Deadly Towers

For more info on the game - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_Towers
For more info on aspects of replability, refer to my technical journal paper, located at https://file.scirp.org/pdf/JSEA20120700001_38193851.pdf.

Social: 1
Challenge: 10
Experience: 8
Mastery: 8
Impact: 4
Completion: 6
Playability: 2

Deadly Towers is a notoriously horrific game of the NES era.  It features many reasons why it may be hard to continue playing, such as starting from the beginning when you die.  Most of these affect the game's playability and overall enjoyability.  Placing the game on the Schemico spectrum actually gives the game some positive merits, and with some improvements to the playability of the game, its sounds and enemy interactions, the game might've been one of the greatest NES hits.

Social

For social reasons, there's typically very little reason in playing classic NES games, except for the off-chance of playing with a group of friends.  While we don't play directly against one another, we might play by taking turns or by watching each other play.  For that reason, I give the game a single point in the social category.

Challenge

The level of challenge in Deadly Towers is quite high, simply because the game is actually pretty tough to beat.  The maze-like dungeons can be quite large and difficult to navigate (although a mini-map would help playability).  Shops for the purchase of potions, better equipment and other required items are sporadically located in those dungeons with very little direction on how to achieve.  Enemies can do quite a lot of damage, in addition to the knock-back effects that they incur.  Bosses can be quite punishing and difficult.  And overall, to reach a boss and destroy each bell tower, while deaths can take you back to the beginning, is quite a hurdle to overcome, although this could be a hit on the game's playability.  Overall, if one were able to beat Deadly Towers and see the ending credits, that would be quite the accomplishment - although it may be more of an achievement in patience.  For these reasons, I placed the game's challenge level all the way at the top, at a 10.

Experience

The experience in playing Deadly Towers is quite unique.  The gameplay offers a unique style of play, and the music is somewhat catchy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYIJzJb_r4w), although grossly repetitive (and it also restarts as you visit each different "room" in the game).  The story is somewhat interesting, although there is no interaction with the story throughout the game until defeating the final boss: you play the character of Prince Myer on the eve of his coronation, who is given the ominous warning by a strange shadowy figure that Rubas, "the devil of darkness" is soon coming and plans to use the seven magic bells to summon an army and overtake the kingdom.  Hence, Prince Myer must journey to the northern mountains, venture into each tower, collect the bells and burn them to prevent this from happening, and then finally defeat the devil Rubas himself.  For all this, I give Deadly Towers an experience placement of an 8.

Mastery

For mastery reasons, players may have a few good reasons to play Deadly Towers.  Speedruns are usually a fun resource to study for this category.  While TAS (tool-assisted speedrun) tools may exploit some of the game's bugs, RTS (real-time speedruns) generally offer a better glimpse of how people master the game.  See the link below for a decent speedrun by Youtuber WebNations on how Jeff Feasel plays the game.  I place Deadly Towers an 8 on mastery because the game is very challenging, not only on the enemy scale, but also in terms of finding difficult to locate items, navigate maze-like dungeons and find the best gear in the so-called "Parallel Zones" and "Secret Rooms".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfSngofeaus

Impact

Impact is a reason players may stay in the game because they want to experience the game in different variations.  Deadly Towers is essentially a game about journeying to several castles and towers, but fortunately you can choose the order in which you do the towers.  You can also choose which gear you want to quest for, and you certainly don't need any - although most probably make the game easier, defensively and/or offensively.  For these few points, I place Deadly Towers low on the scale at a 4.

Completion

Lastly, the completion aspect is a reason players may play because they want to obtain everything possible.  In Deadly Towers, there are hearts that you can find that increase your maximum life.  There are also "Parallel Zones" and "Secret Rooms" which are hidden points on the map that you find just by wandering into them.  Usually those places house some of the game's best gear.  Additionally, there are maze-like dungeons which are also hidden, and can be difficult at best to exit.  The game's variety of items also offer reason to explore and discover what they all do - as some teleport you different areas in the game.  For all these reasons, I rate Deadly Towers as having a moderate level of completion, at a 6.

Playability

The playability aspect of Deadly Towers is the game's low point.  Any time you die, you return to the beginning in a world where journeying to each tower is pretty arduous to begin with.  There are at times, too many enemies on the screen which make it difficult to advance for the normal player who has not spent much time mastering the game.  These enemies can knock you back, sometimes into death pits.  There are also hidden zones you may haplessly wander into without much hope of exit.  The music restarts its loop on every map change - and in the maze-like dungeons, you will be restarting the music every few seconds.  Items are hard to locate, and better gear is hidden in "Parallel Zones" and "Secret Rooms".  The sword mechanics of a slow flying sword are questionable when you can only have one sword at a time on the screen (without extra booster items).  Some enemies take an unusually large number of hits to kill.  The in game menu can be confusing to use.  These all hurt the game's playability, an even with great touches on the aspects of replability listed above, a poor level of playability can override all of that.  For all these reasons, I rank the game's playability fairly low, at a 2.