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It is, quite simply, all about the catch. All the great multiplayer games have that one special hook - the mechanic that elevates them above the pack and fires even the most jaded of competitors up into a fist-pumping roar. Countering an Ultra in Street Fighter 4; lobbing the keeper in Pro Evolution Soccer; a last-second, final-bend banana in Mario Kart. And now you can add another to the list - catching an arrow in TowerFall Ascension.Without this most audacious of counterattacks, Matt Makes Games' four-player arena brawl would still be a marvellous multiplayer game, like a 16-bit approximation of Bomberman, Smash Bros and Mario's battle mode. Four generic fantasy types fight for supremacy in a handful of two-dimensional arenas, where platforms are just too high to easily bound around and dropping through the holes in the bottom of the screen just transports them back to the top. Unlike Smash Bros, though, TowerFall offers ranged combat: every player has a stock of arrows that they fire across the level, which can only be restocked by grabbing them from where they drop, finding new ones in a treasure chest or - yes - catching an opponent's.
By yanking on the right trigger at the perfect time, your diminutive archer will snatch and incoming arrow out of the sky and immediately add it to his or her quiver. This leads to all manner of wondrous moments; the type of flair and gusto normally reserved for carefully crafted action games. Leaping from a high vantage point, firing off a speculative arrow to the left which kills one opponent, catching another as you fall and then executing the now arrowless foe as you land... this is TowerFall, and these amazing moments happen nearly every match.
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