The only real Hardy boy
hay un hamster gordo con voz de anciano perverso
Worst game ever
Threw this on my backlog because I saw a clip of it for like 10 seconds on a random youtube video and I thought it looked neat
Then I played it and realized
Its a first person ps1 game
Oh no
Then I played it and realized
Its a first person ps1 game
Oh no
It's Dark Souls on PS1
Shadow Tower is a very polished version of this game style From had been iterating on. It runs really well and looks better than the King's Field games up to this point, but I didn't find the gothic horror vibe with no real underlying story or lore to be quite as compelling.
The environments are all varied and identifiable and range through five major zones, each split into a number of discrete levels. Each of the zones is ruled over by a boss which you must defeat in order to challenge the King of Demons and complete the game. This is an even more straightforward dungeon crawl than King's Field was.
Smaller levels and lower draw distances add to the claustrophobic feel of the game and are probably what allow the more detailed environment art and enemy models. These environments are varied and make the levels interesting to explore, but don't seem to have much coherency in terms of the world itself. The layouts of the actual levels are intricate and mazelike, although the level design (along with the detail and size) makes things very navigable.
The layout here feels like you are meant to explore the tower in spurts, sallying out from safe areas even though the level design has a lot of back-gating (ascending out of the tower can be overly difficult or impossible) which unfortunately undermines this. It does add to the palpable sense of dread as you become more and more unsure of your path back to safety.
This is the first person melee combat we know from King's Field with some minor differences (including a solid framerate). You move and turn a bit faster and your initial attack range is abysmally low (later weapons mostly fix this problem, but it never feels quite permissive enough). Shadow Tower doesn't feel that good to play until you get a bit in and find a few weapons you like and some magic that works, at which point things smooth out. I never really reached the overpowered status that the end of King's Field games impart upon you, but I felt capable and strong by the end, though death can always come quickly if you aren't paying close enough attention.
Shadow Tower has a lot of magic options, but I didn't find them to be too interesting in the end. You collect rings as you play, each providing you with minor stat increases and the ability to cast a set of spells. Most of the spells are some variation on a projectile attack, the timing of which allow you to weave them between sword swings just like in past games. I didn't find much value in making specific choices about spells, and just kind of used them arbitrarily throughout the game (mostly forced by the resource system).
The most interesting thing in Shadow Tower is absolutely the resource system.
Every weapon, armor, and spell-casting ring has durability which wears down extremely quickly. It isn't uncommon for a ring to only provide six or seven spell casts, a weapon 15-20 swings before they break (temporarily) requiring you to swap to something else. These can all be fixed at special vendors that can use your hit points (their dialog implies they are using parts of your body, which is pretty metal) to repair all your stuff -- you constantly feel like you are making the choice between survival and offensive ability.
Weapons and equipment you don't need can be traded at other vendors for health and magic potions (both of which fill their respective pools to max and can also be found around the tower).
It really feels like you are making purposeful choices about which weapons you need and which you can afford to trade to fuel your hit points and (at least at the beginning of the game) which weapons you need to fix in order to progress and how much of your life you are willing to give up to do so.
Your health as the main resource is so interesting! Since everything in the game ties back to this (not least of which the exploration and combat itself) it is something you are constantly thinking about and further adds to the pervasive sense of horror this game is trying to provide.
Overall this is a very unique and cool system even though your inability to partially fix things can make things awkward and it largely falls away by the end of the game as your health pool and supply of potions become so large that they cease to really be a concern (at which point weapon degradation just becomes a minor annoyance as you switch weapons every few minutes).
This game is almost one hundred percent about the vibes, with no real discernable narrative or lore to be found. Similar to King's Field, you are following a group of soldiers into this dungeon, but there isn't really a motivating factor (the manual has a perfunctory justification about an inn-keeper you are saving/avenging and her cooking). You are in this tower because it is here and it has demons in it because it is evil. Some of the bosses, scant few NPCs, and wall messages hint at greater powers and demonic machinations, but it doesn't really come to much by the end, with the final cutscene being both unclear and unsatisfying.
Alongside the gameplay and combat, the thing I most like about From Software games is thinking about the Why of it all and Shadow Tower just isn't so interested in providing that part of it. I still had fun with the game (it is among the better versions so far of this heavy, purposeful, first-person combat From is perfecting), but it didn't hit for me as hard as King's Field II or any of the suite of Soulsborne games that are in From's future.
The environments are all varied and identifiable and range through five major zones, each split into a number of discrete levels. Each of the zones is ruled over by a boss which you must defeat in order to challenge the King of Demons and complete the game. This is an even more straightforward dungeon crawl than King's Field was.
Smaller levels and lower draw distances add to the claustrophobic feel of the game and are probably what allow the more detailed environment art and enemy models. These environments are varied and make the levels interesting to explore, but don't seem to have much coherency in terms of the world itself. The layouts of the actual levels are intricate and mazelike, although the level design (along with the detail and size) makes things very navigable.
The layout here feels like you are meant to explore the tower in spurts, sallying out from safe areas even though the level design has a lot of back-gating (ascending out of the tower can be overly difficult or impossible) which unfortunately undermines this. It does add to the palpable sense of dread as you become more and more unsure of your path back to safety.
This is the first person melee combat we know from King's Field with some minor differences (including a solid framerate). You move and turn a bit faster and your initial attack range is abysmally low (later weapons mostly fix this problem, but it never feels quite permissive enough). Shadow Tower doesn't feel that good to play until you get a bit in and find a few weapons you like and some magic that works, at which point things smooth out. I never really reached the overpowered status that the end of King's Field games impart upon you, but I felt capable and strong by the end, though death can always come quickly if you aren't paying close enough attention.
Shadow Tower has a lot of magic options, but I didn't find them to be too interesting in the end. You collect rings as you play, each providing you with minor stat increases and the ability to cast a set of spells. Most of the spells are some variation on a projectile attack, the timing of which allow you to weave them between sword swings just like in past games. I didn't find much value in making specific choices about spells, and just kind of used them arbitrarily throughout the game (mostly forced by the resource system).
The most interesting thing in Shadow Tower is absolutely the resource system.
Every weapon, armor, and spell-casting ring has durability which wears down extremely quickly. It isn't uncommon for a ring to only provide six or seven spell casts, a weapon 15-20 swings before they break (temporarily) requiring you to swap to something else. These can all be fixed at special vendors that can use your hit points (their dialog implies they are using parts of your body, which is pretty metal) to repair all your stuff -- you constantly feel like you are making the choice between survival and offensive ability.
Weapons and equipment you don't need can be traded at other vendors for health and magic potions (both of which fill their respective pools to max and can also be found around the tower).
It really feels like you are making purposeful choices about which weapons you need and which you can afford to trade to fuel your hit points and (at least at the beginning of the game) which weapons you need to fix in order to progress and how much of your life you are willing to give up to do so.
Your health as the main resource is so interesting! Since everything in the game ties back to this (not least of which the exploration and combat itself) it is something you are constantly thinking about and further adds to the pervasive sense of horror this game is trying to provide.
Overall this is a very unique and cool system even though your inability to partially fix things can make things awkward and it largely falls away by the end of the game as your health pool and supply of potions become so large that they cease to really be a concern (at which point weapon degradation just becomes a minor annoyance as you switch weapons every few minutes).
This game is almost one hundred percent about the vibes, with no real discernable narrative or lore to be found. Similar to King's Field, you are following a group of soldiers into this dungeon, but there isn't really a motivating factor (the manual has a perfunctory justification about an inn-keeper you are saving/avenging and her cooking). You are in this tower because it is here and it has demons in it because it is evil. Some of the bosses, scant few NPCs, and wall messages hint at greater powers and demonic machinations, but it doesn't really come to much by the end, with the final cutscene being both unclear and unsatisfying.
Alongside the gameplay and combat, the thing I most like about From Software games is thinking about the Why of it all and Shadow Tower just isn't so interested in providing that part of it. I still had fun with the game (it is among the better versions so far of this heavy, purposeful, first-person combat From is perfecting), but it didn't hit for me as hard as King's Field II or any of the suite of Soulsborne games that are in From's future.
It would be so fucking cool if Fromsoft made these games bearable to play somehow, mainly by them not being limited by old ass hardware.
really fun dungeon crawling experience.
story is fun if you are willing to delve in a bit.
combat heavy, even more so than KF or souls.
story is fun if you are willing to delve in a bit.
combat heavy, even more so than KF or souls.
This review contains spoilers
[Japanese version reviewed]
Not as interesting as King's Field.
It feels like a big step back, despite being released a full two years after KF3. Instead of an intricately interconnected open world, this is just a series of "worlds" branching off from the central eponymous tower. Beat the boss at the end of each of the six worlds, and a big creepy door opens at the bottom of the tower. Enter the door, fight the last boss(es), and that's it.
The game engine is a slight upgrade from King's Field, but still creaky and sluggish on the PS1 hardware.
There's a weird in-game economy at work. Your equipment is constantly wearing down, and you have to spend your own HP at the smithy to repair it. But now you have low HP, so you drink a health potion. To get more health potions, you can trade in old equipment at the item shop. This motivates you to keep exploring and keep finding new equipment to use, repair, or trade in.
There's no story, really, and the lore is utterly forgettable. But it's interesting to see some of the ideas that would reappear in Demon's Souls a decade later. You don't harvest souls from enemies, but you do find "soul pot" consumables that give you different amounts of skill points to assign to your attributes. There's no inventory limit, but you do have an equip burden.
Even some of the bosses are similar, like the semi-invincible red dragon and the weak, slug-like final boss.
I'm still not entirely sure what they were going for. It's sort of a horror-themed King's Field with some slightly different mechanics, but the gap between the two is far smaller than between Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, for example.
Not as interesting as King's Field.
It feels like a big step back, despite being released a full two years after KF3. Instead of an intricately interconnected open world, this is just a series of "worlds" branching off from the central eponymous tower. Beat the boss at the end of each of the six worlds, and a big creepy door opens at the bottom of the tower. Enter the door, fight the last boss(es), and that's it.
The game engine is a slight upgrade from King's Field, but still creaky and sluggish on the PS1 hardware.
There's a weird in-game economy at work. Your equipment is constantly wearing down, and you have to spend your own HP at the smithy to repair it. But now you have low HP, so you drink a health potion. To get more health potions, you can trade in old equipment at the item shop. This motivates you to keep exploring and keep finding new equipment to use, repair, or trade in.
There's no story, really, and the lore is utterly forgettable. But it's interesting to see some of the ideas that would reappear in Demon's Souls a decade later. You don't harvest souls from enemies, but you do find "soul pot" consumables that give you different amounts of skill points to assign to your attributes. There's no inventory limit, but you do have an equip burden.
Even some of the bosses are similar, like the semi-invincible red dragon and the weak, slug-like final boss.
I'm still not entirely sure what they were going for. It's sort of a horror-themed King's Field with some slightly different mechanics, but the gap between the two is far smaller than between Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, for example.
kinda crappy at some points, but overall highly atmospheric and enjoyable. it's King's Field but spooky! and with some cool level progression. it has a lot of unique and interesting ideas too!
I love this game. It really is a primitive version of Dark Souls in the way that you start out as weak and terrified of what's around every corner and you end feeling like a total badass who can take on the world. It's so satisfying to go from getting swatted to death by skeletons in 2 or 3 hits to juking every hit and decimating whatever crosses your path (you will be very used to the protagonists cries of agony by that point though).
The difference between this and Souls though is that Souls stays hard to the end, whereas Shadow Tower will fear you much more than you fear it by the end. The first half of the game it'll feel like a much more slow buildup, you'll want to kill as many enemies as you can to grind yourself up and ensure your survival. If you play the way I did, and grind until most enemies on each floor are dead, conserve your health potions, and hold onto the weapons you really like, you'll end up with a huge arsenal of weapons and magics that will make the end of the game trivial.
That being said, using an online map was essential for me making progress in this game. It would've taken me so much longer to try and draw a map myself or find my own way through all the dark areas with floors that look exactly the same.
Final words: the story is epic, many charming characters, and the bow is massively OP
The difference between this and Souls though is that Souls stays hard to the end, whereas Shadow Tower will fear you much more than you fear it by the end. The first half of the game it'll feel like a much more slow buildup, you'll want to kill as many enemies as you can to grind yourself up and ensure your survival. If you play the way I did, and grind until most enemies on each floor are dead, conserve your health potions, and hold onto the weapons you really like, you'll end up with a huge arsenal of weapons and magics that will make the end of the game trivial.
That being said, using an online map was essential for me making progress in this game. It would've taken me so much longer to try and draw a map myself or find my own way through all the dark areas with floors that look exactly the same.
Final words: the story is epic, many charming characters, and the bow is massively OP
Every step a journey, every dungeon crawler a new plaque in my heart. I don't have anything new to say about Shadow Tower that I haven't said about King's Field, but oh my god it goes above and beyond with the vibes. As soon as the first title card popped up with the blotty typewriter font and the dithering, my soul was bound and I fell in love. I'm chaining myself down trying not to start Abyss right away, but it's technically irrelevant to what I'm working on right now and I can't justify it yet...
Sem dúvida um dos jogos mais assustadores que já joguei.
A ausência de uma OST aumenta demais o nível de horror que esse jogo proporciona. É só você, barulho de seus passos e o barulho das criaturas. Confesso que fiquei travado em um boss e tive que procurar na internet um jeito para passar. Tô pra te dizer que sem arco e flecha esse jogo fica MUITO DIFICIL.
Se você é amante dos jogos da From Software a partir do Demon's Souls vale a pena conferir esse, aqui muito do DNA dos jogos que temos hoje em dia, foi construído.
A ausência de uma OST aumenta demais o nível de horror que esse jogo proporciona. É só você, barulho de seus passos e o barulho das criaturas. Confesso que fiquei travado em um boss e tive que procurar na internet um jeito para passar. Tô pra te dizer que sem arco e flecha esse jogo fica MUITO DIFICIL.
Se você é amante dos jogos da From Software a partir do Demon's Souls vale a pena conferir esse, aqui muito do DNA dos jogos que temos hoje em dia, foi construído.
i hate this game so much, i have beat it two times and I will beat it again. i hate it.
i hate it
its terrible, its absolutely fucked.
i will continue playing it
I hate shadow tower with every inch of my body.
i hate it
its terrible, its absolutely fucked.
i will continue playing it
I hate shadow tower with every inch of my body.
I last played this game about 10 years ago, in 2013/early 2014. Yet I remembered very little about it, and replaying it revealed why. Simply put, the way the game is designed makes it hard to remember in the moment, much less over the years. The layout of every level is a fucking pain in the ass (positive connotation), and there are very few landmarks so they blend together and make navigation quite confusing. Add to that the fact that the tower is dark as shit unless you have a Bottle of Light active, and I can see why I only remember enemy designs and nothing about the lay of the land.
With all the weirdness in layouts, design choices, and strange creatures, it's quite a unique game. It really is survival horror King's Field!
But I'd say it overall plays worse than King's Field 1-3, at least what I remember of them (I also haven't played those in 10 years, but I don't plan to replay anytime soon). Bosses suck ass, Hallow Mage can suck my cock for that stupid AoE spam, but the rest of them are just pushovers. Annoying, but pushovers. My biggest complaint is that you have to be bumping into enemies for your melee attacks to hit them at all. I don't know why this was done, considering King's Field 1-3 felt "right" with your weapon's range, but it's annoying.
Still, conquering such an obtuse game and its strange-ass world sure is a uniquely fun time...
With all the weirdness in layouts, design choices, and strange creatures, it's quite a unique game. It really is survival horror King's Field!
But I'd say it overall plays worse than King's Field 1-3, at least what I remember of them (I also haven't played those in 10 years, but I don't plan to replay anytime soon). Bosses suck ass, Hallow Mage can suck my cock for that stupid AoE spam, but the rest of them are just pushovers. Annoying, but pushovers. My biggest complaint is that you have to be bumping into enemies for your melee attacks to hit them at all. I don't know why this was done, considering King's Field 1-3 felt "right" with your weapon's range, but it's annoying.
Still, conquering such an obtuse game and its strange-ass world sure is a uniquely fun time...
Playing through the first three King's Field games as a post-Demon's Souls FromSoftware fan was revelatory, with many traits of the Souls games I assumed to be Miyazaki-isms were in fact simply From-isms. Turns out the whole 'spiritual series' thing we get with the Souls games, where a bunch of officially unrelated IPs are grouped as a 'series' by fans due to their obvious gameplay continuity, is in fact also a Fromsoftware staple, with Shadow Tower continuing the King's Field style of dungeon crawler despite its new name and universe.
After the interconnected King's Field II and the sprawl of King's Field III, Shadow Tower is back to basics. This is a no-frills dungeon crawler, akin to the first King's Field. This time each floor is connected to a central pillar, the titular Shadow Tower, giving each floor a bit of physical context.
If KFII was akin to Dark Souls, and KFIII akin to DSII, then Shadow Tower fills in that Demon's Souls comparison I wanted to lazily make regarding the first King's Field but couldn't quite bring myself to. Each floor is a 'realm', themed around some concept (acid, fire, etc.) which features multiple sections leading a boss which must be defeated to face the final boss at the bottom of the Shadow Tower, which acts as a partial hub. While the Nexus and the Shadow Tower are different in many ways (ain't no merchants here), there's a comparison to be made. The realms, with their various sections leading to bosses, are much more obviously comparable to DeS' levels.
Outside of interesting comparisons, how's the game? Very good! It's the most focused of the bunch so far, which means it never quite reaches the heights of KFII or KFIII, but never reaches their lows either. It's initially very off-putting and obtuse, but honestly pretty manageable once you get the hang of things. The degradation system seems scary , but the odds of you actually properly screwing yourself are pretty low. I played very conservatively for a while and steamrolled the last third of the game. Probably don't make this your first King's Field-like, but if you're into this style of game Shadow Tower is a very strong example of it.
After the interconnected King's Field II and the sprawl of King's Field III, Shadow Tower is back to basics. This is a no-frills dungeon crawler, akin to the first King's Field. This time each floor is connected to a central pillar, the titular Shadow Tower, giving each floor a bit of physical context.
If KFII was akin to Dark Souls, and KFIII akin to DSII, then Shadow Tower fills in that Demon's Souls comparison I wanted to lazily make regarding the first King's Field but couldn't quite bring myself to. Each floor is a 'realm', themed around some concept (acid, fire, etc.) which features multiple sections leading a boss which must be defeated to face the final boss at the bottom of the Shadow Tower, which acts as a partial hub. While the Nexus and the Shadow Tower are different in many ways (ain't no merchants here), there's a comparison to be made. The realms, with their various sections leading to bosses, are much more obviously comparable to DeS' levels.
Outside of interesting comparisons, how's the game? Very good! It's the most focused of the bunch so far, which means it never quite reaches the heights of KFII or KFIII, but never reaches their lows either. It's initially very off-putting and obtuse, but honestly pretty manageable once you get the hang of things. The degradation system seems scary , but the odds of you actually properly screwing yourself are pretty low. I played very conservatively for a while and steamrolled the last third of the game. Probably don't make this your first King's Field-like, but if you're into this style of game Shadow Tower is a very strong example of it.
I am oddly enchanted by this game. The controls are pretty bad, but it's still fun and extremely challenging.
Somehow this game controls better than Kings Field IV lol but still pretty crappy.
Consigo ver bastante a estética de demon souls e dark souls e foi uma surpresa quando vi que era da Fromsoftware; a ambientação é legal e tem uns monstros até que ok, me fez ficar tenso e nervoso. Eu dropei pq como eu joguei a primeira versão do game no ps3 os controles são muito obsoletos e ruins, tive que andar na seta e olhar pra cima apertando R2. se eu instalar a versão que saiu pra ps3 talvez seja bem melhor de se jogar.
as a huge fan of KF I Want to love Shadow Tower but it kinda fucking sucks
I LOVE the ideas behind this game but the random enemy spawns are abysmal and feel like a kid designed the game, thank god the sequel took the best parts of this and made a Far better game
I LOVE the ideas behind this game but the random enemy spawns are abysmal and feel like a kid designed the game, thank god the sequel took the best parts of this and made a Far better game
Frustrating to play at times, but it has a lot of really interesting and unique ideas.
The missing link between King's Field and Demon's Souls. Has some gameplay issues compared to King's Field games, such as you having to be really really close to enemies to actually hit them, but features a fantastic horror atmosphere and From's weirdest enemy designs (constantly had me asking "what the FUCK is that?"). Also has some unique things, such as an extremely limited currency (there's only about 120 cunes in game, making it basically both a currency and collectible).