#zettel #gaming/biographical sourced from: [[Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team]] # Sky Tower is THAT Final Dungeon for my Childhood I remember it WELL. Like, you ask me about Sky Tower almost fifteen years after beating it for the first time and I can still tell you what it was like playing it. I remember when I was in the summer of 2007, going to the upper Iowa Campground late having been in the Little League Allstar game, I was playing through Sky Tower in the backseat of Dad's car. I remember the car pulling into the campground on the hot summer afternoon as I was scaling Sky Tower. This had to have been my first playthrough since it's the only summer that I was in B-Minor Baseball while also owning a Gameboy Advance. I was struggling on Floor 20 or so fighting in a Monster House with Solrocks, Venomoths and Dusclops, just trying my best to get through this dungeon. I had to quicksave as we parked, looking forward to playing the game later that evening under the cover of night. This *IS* the "level" for me. Every kid has *that one level*. Between Sky Tower and the [[Playing through Magma Cavern with Pikachu is akin to Testicular Torsion|Testicular Torsion-inducing Magma Cavern]] with Pikachu and Treecko, these last two dungeons were the ones that were the HARD stuff for my childhood. I had to really struggle through Sky Tower's middle floors. ## An Average Run of Sky Tower Each stretch of floors was distinct to me. The first floors is where the ghosts were that could travel through the walls. Once I got past them, then I had to deal with the Bugs and the Flying types like Ledian and Altaria. These were alright floors, ones with gaps in the floors, but once I had to start dealing with Scizor and then Dusclops, things got hard. I would consider myself on a good run if I found myself having to deal with Aerodactly and Tropius. ## Sky Tower Summit Sky Tower Summit was just a crapshoot. I played the Sky Tower Summit sections so much, I knew the two layouts that were possible like the back of my hand. There's the long straight set of 5 rooms all connected by one long hallway, or a set of 12 rooms all connected on a grid and your hunger goes DRASTICALLY down. the former is easier to traverse but you basically have to fight everything you see, whereas the latter allows you to dodge foes more easily, but the take FOREVER to find the stairs. It's made worse by the Salamence, Metagross and Aerodactyl (the worst mon in the game to fight, woe be unto the player who has to fight Aerodactyl) And then there was Rayquaza which was always a real pain. Had to hope I could just do a lot of damage all throughout. My first time clearing it was in my living room on the couch, curled up with my Gameboy Advance. ## The Music Easily an incredible and memorable track. It's a LONG track to loop, which I suppose is the best kind of song to have playing while climbing Twenty-five floors of actual difficult dungeon crawling. Definitely feels like a climb. I should try to find some music theory on it.