Toren

Toren has great style and a compelling story to tell. Though it’s dragged down by its gameplay, it’s still far more than worth the asking price for the experience it offers.

Because it's such a small game, there isn't all that much to it; it's not a game with something for everyone. Still, even if you're interested, remember that the game is only two hours long, even though it's a very focused two hours, some people may feel they have overpaid for the amount of content they are given.

Toren is an experience that's worth at least one run. Then, it gets put up on a shelf like a nice book, where it ends up disappearing alongside the other novels.

Toren is a short but sweet game about growing up, climbing towers, and fighting dragons, all shrouded in symbolism and cosmic metaphors. While it has its flaws - including a noticeably limited playtime - it's an incredibly unique outing from Swordtales that's well worth playing.

It’s worth the $11 though just barely, and will delight anyone looking for a great art style to enjoy as they sort of mindlessly solve simple problems.

It’s not a bad game at all, it’s just another game in a crowd. Once played through there is not enough there for a revisit. But there is enough there to visit at least once.

It’s gorgeous in places, rough around the edges in others, and if you dig deep, then you’ll find something meaningful. In a few short hours it’ll be over, and you may have found yourself feeling like you’ve put in a lot of effort for not much reward.

Toren is a good story that suffers in the telling, with simplistic platforming that's hampered by a sloppy camera and controls.

A competent game which has little wrong with it, but just won’t leave an impression.

Toren is a very cool concept that's held back by its rough presentation, especially on the PC platform.

An attempt to pass a mediocre platformer as a work of art that has a deep meaning.

Toren tells a captivating story, but the game itself is dull, lackluster and terribly short.

Toren's cryptic storytelling and focus on signs, superstitions, ancient beliefs and systems is often close to being too self-indulgent, but its aforementioned style is enough to see it over the line.

For all the problems, it's easy to recognize the flashes of something special in Toren. It's a loaf of homemade bread, proofed and kneaded, laid in a pan, and sprinkled tenderly with rosemary but unfortunately pulled from the oven a few minutes before it could pass the toothpick test. However complex the recipe, Toren just feels undercooked.

This fairytale about the human journey to freedom is totally unfinished. It’s filled with technical issues and the gamplay is so terrible that even its great storyline can’t help the game at all.

Neither the kind atmosphere nor the colorful world can hide, that the Toren is very short, boring and hardly playable arcade game filled with too many creators' mistakes.

Toren’s gameplay is so shallow and poorly executed that makes it more of a pretentious movie than a proper game. [08/2015, p.53]