You can go fast in Pizza Tower. Like really fast! I guess not fast enough because my warped little brain wanted to go even faster. I found myself instinctively holding the left or right button on the d-pad with an iron grip so tight my thumb started to hurt. All in the vain attempt to gain more speed.

I've been following this game on and off since 2019 and I'm so glad it turned out as great as it did. I played Wario Land 4 in preparation for this game and boy, its influences are very apparent. The most obvious one being the rush mechanic. In Wario Land 4, jumping on a frog switch activates a timer and you have to race back to the level's starting point. What this also does is change the level's environment; paths originally closed off by blocks are now open, and vice versa. In Pizza Tower this activates after attacking Pillar John and is known as Pizza Time. Just like in Wario Land 4, it's a race to the beginning, but along the way you can do some backtracking for collectables or secrets that you might have missed on the initial run through, the clock is always ticking though! The whole thing is quite exhilarating; making it back to the beginning with just a few seconds to spare is so gratifying.

To aid you in achieving breakneck speed you have a pretty sizable move set, a lot of these pretty much taken from Wario Land. You have the continuous dash, grab, ground pound, and all that fun stuff, but unlike Wario, you have a super jump which can be performed by holding up while in a continuous dash state at max speed. You can do a sick ass piledriver by pressing down in midair while you're holding onto an enemy. Wario doesn't have that (he has a piledriver in Wario World)! Defeating an enemy starts a combo which is maintained by defeating more enemies and collecting toppings scattered around the levels. Defeating enemies also raises your heat meter which increases the points given out; additionally, this makes enemies more aggressive, so make sure you don't drop your combo! Oh wait, you have this taunt which is totally useless right? Well, this totally useless taunt can turn into a screen wipe after accumulating enough points, indicated by you having an electric aura around you. The taunt can act as a parry for enemy attacks and projectiles as well.

This game is just fun and that's really all I can say about it. It's a video game ass video game and I'm all here for it. Side note for anyone playing, after the animated intro sequence, you see Peppino sitting in a dark room. Let this idle for about 40 seconds for a cool reward!

(5-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

You get to go on a slide and at the end you gotta beat Bowser, because you get to MOVE and MOVE if there's turns, and also there's a slide in the snowy place!

[Dad's note: She would use the Wii U gamepad to go do the secret slide in Peach's Castle over and over again, every day for the entire summer of 2020]