Shadow Tower
Score: 70% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Agetec Developer: FromSoftware Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: RPG/ Action/ Adventure
Graphics & Sound: This is the same engine that you've seen in King's Field and King's Field II. If not, it looks identical. The graphics are dated, and slow-moving, and this is really the game's greatest flaw. The first two games came early in the PlayStation's development, but Shadow Tower has no excuse. It shouldn't move like a septuagenarian in a broken wheelchair, but it does. The load times when you choose all but a few options from the menus are almost obnoxious, but since the main ones don't require any load time, it's not quite as bad. There is no game music for most of the game, which almost makes it eerie, but instead just makes you anxious. The creature sound effects are the same as in the King's Field games, almost, with a touch more life. Nothing spectacular in either of these departments. (In the first battle in the game, I looked at the ground to aim downwards, and I could see the seams between the polygons. Not even the King's Field games were that bad.)
Gameplay: And the gameplay... well, it all depends. If you've played King's Field and King's Field II, and liked them, you'll like this game. It's the same slow-moving, epic RPG that's damned near impossible at times, but good fun once you get into the swing of things. These games are definitely acquired tastes, however, and you'll want to try before you buy. You are a warrior from a distant land, come to combat the darkness that has fallen over the Holy Land of Zepter. There are seven worlds to explore, and 150 creatures to slaughter. Like the King's Field games, gameplay consists of lots of back-and-forth movement, getting new items and using them somewhere else. A very good eye is necessary, because sometimes key items are hidden on the ground behind pillars and on the ground. There are two new 'twists' to the game -- you can have a shield that helps deflect some enemy damage, and weapons and armor deteriorate as they're used and beaten on, until they break and you need new ones. I really like the type of gameplay that is presented in Shadow Tower, but I have friends that absolutely cannot stand it. It's slow-moving, involved, and sometimes confusing as hell when you're just wandering around trying to figure out what to do next. If this is your cuppa, you'll love Shadow Tower. If not, run away. There are some problems, though, that make Shadow Tower not as good as its predecessors. First of all, there is little coherent story at the beginning. You're dropped down in the middle of the Shadow Tower, and you start wandering around. You're going to die six or seven times before you ever even find the first save point -- I don't know if the Japanese find this sort of thing fun, but I just find it annoying. And some of the tombstone-objects (the ones with crowns are Save Points) warp you to bizarre other worlds. Eh? There's nothing that really makes sense. You can't run anymore, either, which makes movement a pain in the butt, and the combat system is even less accurate than the one in the King's Field games. It's still a decently fun game, but KF and KF2 were better.
Difficulty: As in King's Field (but not so much in KF2), the start of the game is horrendously difficult. After dying a few times trying to get past the first few rooms, though, the game starts to pick up, and the difficulty level smoothes out considerably. It never really relents, though, and the severe shortage of health really gets to be a pain in the ass.
Game Mechanics: The controls move sluggishly, just like everything else in this game. Swinging your weapons is one button, the shield is another, and equipped spells are combinations of other buttons. Strafing is implemented, which is good, but sometimes when you look up and down and try to re-center your view, the game decides that the direction that's supposed to be forward is actually half a foot down, which is useful when you're trying to attack enemies on the ground, but worse when a skeleton's chasing your sorry butt around. I like this game, but the graphics quality is absolutely inexcusable, and because of that, Shadow Tower had to be docked. Some more improvements in the game engine would have been welcome as well. All in all, though, Shadow Tower is a rather fun little RPG, if you're into its style of gaming -- definitely try before you buy. If you can find either King's Field or King's Field II, though, by the same developer (From Software), get those instead. They're uniformly better games.
-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon
Silhouette Mirage Sheep