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Shadow Tower Abyss (2003) Developed by FromSoftware

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Shadow Tower Abyss (2003)

While King's Field 4 is the end of its lineage as the series which really guided early Fromsoft's hand into dark fantasy, Shadow Tower Abyss is perhaps the true end of that particular blood ancestry. A lot of folks have looked back at King's Field and Shadow Tower to better understand the DNA that created the Souls series. For some it was out of a desire to create a more holistic view of how this series was formed. For others it was merely out of curiosity. For me I was of the former camp. Video essays say a lot, but perhaps this was something I should experience with my own hands. Why Shadow Tower Abyss? Its setting and gameplay seemed just intriguing and playable enough to hold my attention. I thought surely I'd get frustrated by the labyrinth and my weak ability to mentally map such spaces so I expected to get my impressions of the first hour or two then hop off it. 8 hours later I beat it.

I loved this game. Its the sort of game that makes me reconsider what a "good game" is. When you turn it around in the sunlight it has the feeling of a game that was meant to be far more ambitious yet had to be chopped up and slapped together as a minimum viable product. There's a certain point where glowing armor of archangels and weapons crackling with power are being dumped on you by the truckload, which has the hilarious side effect of possibly crushing you to death under their encumbrance due to the strange decision to not allow you to drop or destroy items from your inventory without a shop. Your power scaling reaches a zenith of comical supremacy where you are blasting endgame bosses away with a few shots of a shotgun before they opine about the meaning of their lives with their last breaths.

Whether it's the case that this game was always meant to be this way or not, it ends up telling a compelling tale with its ludo-narrative.

(Story spoilers beyond)

You start at the base of the tower fighting tribal creatures (who I admit are pretty racist) who use the bodies of a captured modern special forces unit as incubators for their young. You're presumably a soldier who was a part of them or is maybe unrelated to their mission. The only dying soldier you get to talk to asks you to "kill them all" before handing you a knife.

You delve further until you find the true base of the tower: An alien structure rising from the titular abyss. There are creatures who tend this area who talk about being "Trapped here as you are" yet also say "It is enough to exist. You may not understand since we are so different."

I think this creates an interesting contrast against you who is ascending the tower rolling up power like a katamari till you find the heart of the tower who regrets the fact that you two must be at odds in such a way. It says you and it both just want to live, and looking back you realize the creatures by large only really feed on humans and create problems for you because that is simply what they must do to live and thrive.

Your quest originally seemed to be finding a spear who's power was so great that it cowed neighboring nations to submit to it. The true nature of the spear is apparent though as you find its resting place: A desert of red rusted sand full of disfigured heroes from long ago. They warn you to not suffer like they had. They try to stop you for your own good. You find the spear though and it crumbles in your hands. The spear does not exist anymore, and maybe that is because it has played out its role. Many come to the tower because the tower knows what they want: Power. The spear is the sickly sweet smell of nutrients at the bottom of a pitcher plant.

Perhaps though, the tower swallowed up something it shouldn't have. It swallowed the frightening power of the modern world. While you can use legendary swords left by their owners who died in the tower, you also can use the frightening modern power of guns that have been freshly brought into the tower. They truly tip the balance of power in your favor and it's a scary notion that against the eldritch, perhaps extraterrestrial power of the tower, we have formed weapons that can challenge it at last and slay it like yet another beast.

Perhaps the power of the spear is an analogue for weapons of mass destruction. They cow fellow nations into submission yet put the world on a knife's edge, capable of plunging it back into darkness with smug carelessness. Those who have suffered by its hands plead with the future generations to leave these tools yet we are quick to see this form of power as necessary to achieve life and peace.

Anyways, that's my reading of it!

I would definitely recommend this game to at least try. It's strange in a way that bewitches you and feels very before its time in some regards such as location-based damage and dismemberment on enemies as well as directional swings that really utilize this mechanic. Truly it was dead space before dead space. In fact I would say this game's balance and gameplay put it closer to a survival horror than a true souls game.

Another comparison I'd make is it's a better Scorn since it also has an HR Giger-esque aesthetic yet includes far more gameplay. I'd describe Scorn as a walkable artpiece that is interspersed with survival horror segments where health and ammo is limited. Shadow Tower Abyss is far more consistent at being an actual game and while I admire the walkable gallery sense to scorn, I did not admire the threat of being sent back to uncertain checkpoints by failing the survival horror segments that ultimately had worse combat than Shadow Tower Abyss due to wonky hitboxes.

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