round out our portfolio." Legacy and reception Deadly Towers and Rygar (whose NES release preceded Deadly Towers by a few months) were among the first Japanese action role-playing games to be published in North America. Computer Gaming World described Deadly Towers as a new kind of role-playing game that differed from both the console action-adventure games (such as Castlevania and Trojan) and American computer role-playing games (such as those in the series Wizardry, Ultima, and Might and Magic). Deadly Towers used a permanent power-up mechanic, which blurred the line between the power-ups used in action-adventure games and the experience levels used in RPGs. At the outset of the game, Prince Myer is comparatively weak: he can throw only one sword at a time, and some enemies take eight or more hits to defeat. While the game was not the subject of much press in its time and was commercially successful, it has received negative reviews in retrospective critiques. Sean Reiley, writing in 2001 for his comedy website Seanbaby.com, dismissed it as the worst Nintendo game of all time. In 2007, J. C. Fletcher of the video game blog Joystiq wrote that Deadly Towers is "the most frustrating game on the NES" and "may be the most frustrating game of all time." Even so, he also said that the game should be distributed through Nintendo's Virtual Console service. References Deadly Towers Instruction Manual External links VC&G Exclusive: Secret Deadly Towers Maps Revealed! 1986 video games Action role-playing video games Broderbund games Fantasy video games Irem games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Single-player video games Video games developed in Japan Video games with oblique graphics