A few days ago we talked about the true seed of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Blood borne and all the Games from Software: La Saga King's Field. The studio clenched its lifelong action RPG games with a combination of unusual difficulty, challenging bosses and the enigmatic world where everything can hurt you... until you create your own genre, soulslike.
Now we are clear that almost everything that makes the Souls a special game was already in that PSX and PS2 saga. But the reality is that it is not the only game that I sought to explore the limits of the genre they were trying to create. Today we will talk to you about Shadow Tower, a substage created a few years later and made up of two titles.
What is Shadow Tower?
The first Shadow Tower was a difficult game to understand. King's Field premiered in 1994 and saw as in two years the other two deliveries that were in PSX came out in Japan, while Shadow Tower was already launched in 1999, in the last est adores of the first PlayStation. It is not that they did not play at that time for the machine since in full 2000 it landed Final Fantasy IX, for an example, but The first Shadow Tower was at first sight a King's Field more.
His game system was identical, when presenting us a world in first person and some tremendously similar controls to the other saga. The fantasy used was tremendously similar, and there were even enemies copied like soil dumps or skeletons. The only thing we had different is the approach to having to progress through the tower, the total absence of music, and the tone even more somber.
That incomprehension made the second part, arrival in 2003 for PS2 under the name of Shadow Tower Abyss and already with King's Field, taking the saga with that fourth installment, redouble the bet.
Shadow Tower Abyss, a twist to madness
The second installment came with a forming software quite different from the King's Field, but also that launched the first Shadow Tower. The saga of wicks armored core was for the fourth installment and tench was already among the Japanese studio games. What do we mean by this? Well, the study had grown in size, and also learned a lot from other genres.
Maybe that's why Shadow Tower Abyss can be called as a totem revolution, that is, a mixture of many concepts already explored in the past of Software and the introduction of many others. At first glance, it complies with the first Shadow Tower and the King's Field when it comes to having a first-person action gameplay and matters such as magic, obtaining new equipment and the exploration factor.
But Shadow Tower walks a very different path when choosing your story. We do not talk so much about his tone, which is still somber and taciturn, as his touch of modern fantasy in a world belonging to a more classical aspect. Because now we are not a prince of a distant kingdom, or a chosen one of a poppy of the outskirts... Now we are a gunman in search of a research magic spear.
not without my pistols
Let us address this as soon as possible, since it is possibly the most striking of the game. The only occasions in which we have seen some gunpowder in the soulslike from Software was with the Victorian Guns of Blood borne who barely served to do Parries, and with the firecrackers of the Prosthetic Arm of Senior. They had always been a complement for the offensive tools made of steel.
That's not what happens in this Shadow Tower Abyss. From the first moment we will have access to a nine-millimeter pistol, and we can use it in the same way as a sword, an ax or an arc. It is true that The bullets are really scarce during the first half of the game, but they are extremely powerful.
Already in the final part, when the ammunition is not a problem, we can end the enemies from afar with weapons as shotguns, assault rifles or launzagranates, tools with a destructive power even superior to the spells that are still present Also in this Shadow Tower Abyss.
The previous step to Demon's Souls and father of Dark Souls 2
The first great similarity of Shadow Tower Abyss with the Souls, and especially with Demon's Souls, is that Sony did not trust him. If you do not know, the current Sony and old independent games responsible for the brand in what video games are concerned, Shula Yeshiva, was responsible for the Japanese company responsible for PlayStation will not distribute in the West that Worship game. As you know today, he has after proven him for the first time he said that it was a shit, causing Demon's Souls to end up being published by Atlas and NAMC Banzai.
Well, that also happened with Shadow Tower Abyss. Through the Acetic Forums, the Publisher of From This Concrete Game, it was official by its producer Mark Johnson that Sony rejected the launch in the West even though the title already had practically finished all its translation. These were the words of him: I have worked in this industry for the past 10 years and this has been from afar, as hard as I have had to accept.
According to Johnson, Sony denied the arrival of this PS2 title to the West because of his inferior graphics to other games in the first person and the lack of sale power for his niche gameplay. The same argument used by Yeshiva years later with Demon's Souls.
But if we go inside the game, we find a lot of additional references to the current saga, especially the dense of it as it is Dark Souls 2. The game famous for being the only one without Miyazaki as director, has been criticized since its launch for its most lazy level design than the previous delivery, its philosophy of more is better and the drop in charisma in its areas.
And who directed that video game? Well, it was another that someone has present in Shadow Tower Abyss as Yew Tamara. Shadow Tower Abyss has an initial area for Dark Souls 2, high boil included. Similarly, it has a huge amount of equipment and weapons, and also a design that will make us change zone constantly and delete to some extent the backtracking and the present exploration in King's Field and the previous Dark Souls.
But there are also references and playable improvements that already make us think about what they were going to do six years later with Demon's Souls. To begin with, we now have a few points above the bar of life that measure the amount of consecutive attacks, introducing a factor stamina much more recognizable. And if we go to the references... Yes, here was now the pending, that initial object of the Souls that is not used for nothing and has had the fans creating crazy theories for years.
Dead Space five years before Dead Space
Dead Space, an exalted survival spatial horror created by Visceral Games and released by EA in 2008, is known to be the first great game that made use of the dismemberment of enemies as a playable mechanics. But the reality is that already did Shadow Tower Abyss five years before. All enemies can be dismembered with playable consequences.
If to a monster with a spear you short arm of the weapon, it will become much less dangerous; If a harpy slices you a wing, she will fall to the ground, and she will attack you running. This even goes further, pointing to key zones in which there is a parasite that will cure the rest of members if they are cut. A factor that talks about the enormous amount of animations and work on artificial intelligence behind Shadow Tower Abyss.
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