Games Ex has beaten in 2016:
89. Shadow Tower Abyss|PS2|2003|dungeon crawler|10h 47m|9/10A young man is lead through a dark and foreboding forest. Legends tell of a hidden grotto here, housing the entrance to a shrine. It is said deep within the shrine there lies a spear of legendary ability. He who holds the spear holds absolute power. But is it true? The old man shows the young man the entrance, and the young man steps within the gloomy confines. Suddenly the rocky wall of the entrance slams shut behind the young man, just as it does he hears the old man cackling with malicious joy. Is this a trap? Is the story of the spear just a ruse for a vile and deadly sacrificial chamber? There's only one way to know, the young man must press onward into the yawning darkness. Thus begins Shadow Tower Abyss.
Shadow Tower Abyss is of course the sequel to FromSoftware's original Shadow Tower. And as such, carries over many of its predecessors ideas. That is to say, a first person dungeon crawler with a high level of difficulty. You are alone in a terribly dangerous tower, working your way to the top (as opposed to the bottom in ST), you must survive with limited resources against legions of monsters, and everything that can go wrong will likely go wrong. Meaning all of your gear, weapons, armor, and even magical rings, will break over time. (Especially when you least need them to.) There are no tutorials, no menu invoked maps, no extra lives, no checkpoints, no extra party members, and no helpful NPCs. It's you against the tower, and to say the tower is apathetic to your existence is putting it nicely.
Want to repair broken equipment? It will cost you life points. Want to refill your life points? It will cost you a sacrificial piece of equipment. Want to buy items at a shop pillar? You'll have to sell equipment, or loot money off corpses. Pillars are worth mentioning now. There are four types of pillars to find that are sporadically spread throughout the tower. Shop pillars, save pillars, repair pillars, and life restorative pillars. Each type of pillar sans saving, requires either money, equipment, or life points to use. Save pillars are fairly rare, often having 30-45 minutes of gameplay between each one. Yes it does suck something fierce to fall off a cliff and lose 45 minutes of time investment.
When you're not simply trying to survive, you will be actively trying to make others not survive. Shadow Tower Abyss is full of vicious creatures who'd like to add your dead body to the legions of rotting victims littering the tower. Thankfully there's no shortage of swords, axes, bows, maces, and guns to fight back with. Yes, guns! STA has guns, and they work well, as long as you have ammo. Walking around with a crackling lightning sword, a flame pillar ring, and a bazooka in tow feels strange, but it just works. What also works is the enemy dismemberment. You can decapitate foes, cut off their arms, legs, or whatever appendages they might have. This is strategically advantageous as well as brutally satisfying. Blowing an enemy's head off with a shotgun and then watching it blindly running into walls trying to find you, for example.
Monsters are not the only challenge of the tower though. Rather, its labyrinthine layouts, strange puzzles, and deadly pitfalls are arguably even more deadly. Some areas are cursed with ailments that kill you over time, wander lost for too long and your dead. Some areas have tricky moving platforms or thin walkways to navigate, one slip of the foot and you fall to your death. Thankfully all of the tower's areas are distinctly different from each other, making exploring each new realm an exciting proposition. The overall theme is dark, weird, and dangerous... you can always expect that. Your quest may be simple, destroy the seven lords and reach the spear at the top of the tower, but it's no cakewalk.
I'd say the greatest challenge in Shadow Tower Abyss though, is proper item management. Your gear is always falling apart, so you want to carry a lot, but you have a weight limit. Choosing the correct assemblage of gear for the tactics required of any given area is a constantly crucial skill. You will always be making hard decisions about what gear to keep, what gear to sell, and what gear to sacrifice. Because if you're not careful, you'll have your most favorite armor shatter amidst a boss battle, and with no backup piece you'll likely be dead. There are also multitudes of items necessary to keep track of. The most important of which being health potions. Ah, but there is a finite amount of each item type in the tower. You can indeed eventually run out of health potions, magic potions, ammo, etc. with no way to ever replenish them. Be judicious with your item usage, or you will not succeed. You do not level up in Shadow Tower Abyss. Rather, you gain individual levels for each type of skill you possess. For example, if you constantly use swords, your slashing skill will increase. The only way to raise your HP is to wear gear that raises that stat. You are only as powerful as your equipment is, and how you use it.
Shadow Tower Abyss was FromSoftware's final console first person dungeon crawler. It reflects a lot of lessons learned over the years. Perhaps the most impressive is the ability to use dual analog controls, finally! But the graphics are of course no slouch, everything looks and runs great. Audio is convincing, especially in the realm of sound effects. There's not much in the way of music in Shadow Tower Abyss. Basically there isn't any music while traversing the tower, it's just sound effects with great audio placement. But as far as the nuts and bolts go, controls are better than ever, graphics are great, sound is great, and the menus are well designed. STA even supports 16:9 natively! Interacting with this game was pure joy.
In 2003, Agetec tried to bring Shadow Tower Abyss to the USA. Sony of America would not let them. Was it a mistake? Of course I think so, but who's to say how this would have been received by western gamers of the time. Most likely, STA would have met with the same indifferent fate as Eternal Ring and King's Field IV. Reaching cult hit status with a niche audience, but little else. But if you are a fan of that niche, that is to say; dark foreboding extremely challenging first person dungeon crawlers, you simply must play this game. Shadow Tower Abyss is a brilliant experience, and serves as a worthy end to a magnificent era for FromSoftware.
I do own it, however, just on the strength of the first game. And even with its quirks, The 3rd Birthday was quite excellent as well.