Traveller’s rest. Cozy tavern keeping game that has co-op support.

Shadow Tower Abyss (PS2 - FromSoftware 2003)

EDIT: Forgot to say, this game never released in English but there is a fan translation patch available that should be easy enough to find if you’re interested.

There’s a growing trend in indie games for the King’s Field-likes; Lunacid, Dread Delusion, etc. I’m a huge fan and if anyone has any other good ones to recommend, please let me know! EDIT: Just found Caput Mortem which looks like it might fit the bill near enough and also features music by Ockeroid of Crow Country notably …

But for this I thought I’d return to the roots. I’ve picked at King’s Field I (JP) and II a bit before and while I enjoy them, they’re overall still very clunky and I usually get distracted. I wasn’t sure how long I’d stick with Shadow Tower Abyss, but I feel like this one I may very well see through, I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far. That’s not to say it’s not still a clunky slog, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but there is real charm there.

(Scoring system: 1-5 being bad, OK, good, great, excellent with decimals being vibe based to push it closer to one rather than the other. For example 3.2 is meant to indicate a bit better than just good, but still not great. 3.8 might indicate close to great, but missing a few aspects that prevent it)

Sound: 3.2/5, Good. Like a lot of FromSoft games, there’s not really much music aside from the occasional musical sting which provides effective ambience. The sound design is minimal as well, but there are some very good moments of creepy thrumming, droning, and distant screeching that make it an intense environment to inhabit.

Graphics: 3.5/5, Good. What’s on display is generally competent and atmospheric, each new area has its own theme which is interesting to explore, but still, I feel like they could’ve done a lot more with the PS2 graphics. It’s certainly an improvement over King’s Field '94, but exactly how much is debatable …

The monster design is pretty good, everything has this kind of alien/abyssal feel to it. The overall theming is on point. Areas of the game have simple descriptions (i.e. Blue Light Area) that give the impression the player character is a foreign explorer rather than anyone with innate knowledge of this weird world. It’s a small aspect of world-building I appreciate.

Gameplay: 3.8/5, Good. Overall control still feels dated, but much less clunky than previous entries. The player moves at a brisk enough pace, but still slowly enough that you soak in the environment and progress feels meaningful. Being an older game you can’t really rebind the controls, but there are a variety of schemes including Type 4 which allow for the expected, modern dual analog stick looking/movement.

Combat can still be a little boxy and clunky but each weapon offers a left and right slash as well as an overhead bashing and frontal thrusting attack. Each weapon also has related stats for these types of attacks and enemies will have weaknesses or possible points of dismemberment making them vulnerable to particular attacks. Unlike some of the earlier King’s Field games, connecting attacks always feels good and has satisfying feedback.

The stats system is definitely very obtuse, even if you are familiar with From’s games and I recommend consulting a guide quickly before your first time playing. Again, as is very typical in From’s fashion, there isn’t an abundance of items but what exists is very deliberate. Money consists of these single large coins which you usually only find 1 or occasionally 2 at a time. Most things will only cost a handful of coins with healing potions being 2, boxes of ammo (for your gun!) being 1(?), and weapons and armor ranging anywhere from ~4-15. You’ll also find a plethora of items scattered throughout the game so there’s no shortage.

There is a unique balancing though as in order to heal yourself from the rare healing stations you have to sacrifice items for their value, although I’m early enough in the game that a basic Hat still seems to fully heal me from low health. In order to repair durability on your items from the rare purple repairing stations, you must sacrifice health with items like magic rings requiring sometimes more health than you currently have! This creates a tense and balanced management situation that feels like you might possibly softlock yourself by eating through too many resources, but so far hasn’t proved an issue for me. As a personal aside, I’m a big fan of playing games as they were designed so I’m doing my best to only save at the rare save points and not save state my way through the game, although this is of course up to your own tastes and discretion.

But is there a poison area with forced damage, I hear you ask? Yes, you fool, YES! Why would you even doubt it? Don’t let this discourage you though as understanding the stats system and equipping proper armor allows you to minimize the damage per poison tick such that it creates urgency as a pressure point more than a pain point. Definitely sacrificed a few lives just scouting the area out, though. Game Over means reload a save.

Summary/TL;DR Shadow Tower Abyss is a very competent dungeon crawler with a unique theme and atmosphere that’s worth exploring if you’d like to see historic FromSoft (it’s 20+ years old, as an ancient gamer I can use “historic” if I want). Miyazaki gets a lot of credit for modern From games and while a lot of that is certainly due, it’s fascinating to see how many of these deliberate design concepts have always been in their DNA.

As an aside, one day I’m going to write an entire essay on what makes a Soulslike a Soulsike. I missed the boat on the original hype and only got into them during COVID lockdown in 2020. I didn’t think I’d be a fan of the grueling, “git gud” experience but I’ve come to realize that’s not what makes those games interesting. It’s one concept and some people may find it unsatisfyingly vague, but it’s not the bonfires, or the losing souls on death, or the dodge rolling. It’s the stone-cold deliberateness. A lot of the difficulty from these games arises out of that deliberateness; what items you choose to equip and how you observe and approach unique situations. The games aren’t good because they’re hard, the specific design elements that make them hard are also the things that make them good.

Just spent the last 2 days 100% Sword of the Sea. I highly recommend giving the game a shot.

Decided to check out VOID/BREAKER, a roguelite FPS, which just released into Early Access. The trailer makes it look like some crazy, super fast-paced, effects filled shooter, where you constantly destroy your environment, and maybe it gets to that point, but so far in my <10 runs, 6h, with the game, it’s been pretty basic.

Each run you choose a single weapon, so far I’ve unlocked a pistol (default), automatic rifle and shotgun, and then you’ll find different upgrades and abilities that you slot into your weapon to modify it.

The main thing of this game is the grappling hook. You can either grapple objects in the environment to throw at enemies, like explosives. Or you can grapple to specific points in each arena to fly around, but so far, for me, that hasn’t been as fun as it should be.

Then the destructible buildings, although they are really basic (mainly just boxes) and take a surprisingly long time to bring down, and even then it’s mainly in parts, not the whole thing. Unless you find some upgrades, your grenades (and the aforementioned explosives) will be the main way to destroy stuff, so you’ll have to constantly wait for the short cooldown to throw the next grenade or look for more objects in the arena.

I’ll give it some more time, because I can see the potential, but I haven’t really found anything like the “deep gun modding” or “deadly synergies” the Steam store page is talking about. 90% of the time it’s been stuff like your bullets fly faster, and your grenade deals more damage.

I discovered Inscryption this week. It’s a story driven, deck builder, escape room game.

Hollow Knight in preparation for Silksong

I‘m gonna continue Salt & Sanctuary this weekend, which is basically 2D Dark Souls, like, heavily inspired by Dark Souls.

Other than that, I‘ve picked Outpath back up which is Minecraft graphics combined with Forager gameplay, I suppose? It‘s hard for me to describe.

Maybe I‘ll start Peak with my gf if she wants to. She‘s kinda scared cause she read it‘s hard, I have no clue, I‘m going in blind lol

Kingdom Come Deliverance II

Still working my way through this one. It’s aight. Not as good as the first one; better mechanics and QoL, but lacks the amazing writing and soul of the first one. Still very enjoyable when doing main quests though and excited to finish.

But… from what I’ve seen on Twitch I, next I really want to play Abiotic Factor. Described as Half Life 1 meets Minecraft, with apparently amazing progression. Can’t wait.

Skies of Arcadia Legends

I’ve barely played this version and it really makes it less of a chore compared to the Dreamcast version.

Squad

It’s hard to recommend to new players because of some big issues the game has but it’s the only game that I play 90% for the social interaction it brings.

Guilty Gear Strive just got a big balance patch and a matchmaking update, and it’s great to be back. The experience of playing the game is better than ever.

I’ve still been going through Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. It remains the best game I’ve played this year. I’m working my way through the Brushes With Death DLC, which has some interesting mission design if not the most compelling narrative. I think I’ve done all the side quests I planned to do before finishing the game, so I’ve got the last third or so of the main quest to return to after I finish the DLC. Then the second expansion comes out early next month.

I also started playing Mafia: Definitive Edition, and boy have I missed crime drama stories in video games. This one is pretty by-the-numbers when it comes to gameplay, but after 4 hours, they’ve got plenty of interesting set pieces and narrative beats. I’m very much into this. I plan to play through the next two games before picking up The Old Country.

Other than those, I’ve got a project I’m working on to set up a VPN that I control, rather than trusting an external service whose terms of service could change at any time, so that I can play old LAN games with my friends in this era of live service multiplayer games. Once I get it all sorted out and working, maybe I’ll write up a post here so others can do the same.

Ruffy and the riverside

Ending is a little off, but overall an enjoyable simple platformer.

Still working on Conan: Exiles, which got an update yesterday. My thoughts remain the same: good game, excellent base-building, but there’s not really much that I haven’t already seen a hundred times in other survival games. I’ll probably drop it soon.

I finished a co-op campaign of Abiotic Factor. We started our playthrough early in its Early Access period and had been returning to it every few months as new chapters were added. The game is every bit as great as everyone says, though the ending is incredibly abrupt. I’m wondering if they had to cut a bunch of content to make the release date. I hope they expand on things in a later update or future DLC, because it’s the only major flaw in an otherwise nearly perfect game.

Also played a bit of Gloomwood, a lo-fi immersive sim which comes very close to scratching that classic Thief itch. The stealth is great, the levels are well laid out and heavily intertwined so you always have multiple routes to achieve an objective, and the AI is the perfect balance between smart and dumb for shenanigans. There’s also an incredibly satisfying backstab with the canesword, though certain enemies wear armor that makes them immune so you sadly can’t clear out entire levels while ghosting.

I do have some minor complaints. As a packrat I’m not a fan of the Resident Evil-style grid inventory with limited space, especially since the game has a research mechanic where you need to chop up mutated corpses and bring one of every single body part to a specific point on the map to unlock crafting recipes and permanent character bonuses.

A single body’s various parts are enough to take up the entire inventory, necessitating either some very fiddly inventory juggling (items switch from grid-based paper dolls to physics-enabled models as you drag them to and from the world, causing all sorts of messes) or multiple trips across the entire open world map and back. The Goatman alone took nearly half an hour of combat-less hauling to research, and its boss arena isn’t even that far from the lab.

Enemies are also persistent. Once you kill someone they stay dead for the rest of the playthrough, which on one hand speeds up the backtracking, but on the other also makes it a boring chore if you’ve been thorough. There are a few points in the story where new enemies will spawn in old areas, at least.

All that said it’s an excellent game, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a good immersive sim. It’s still in Early Access, but what’s there is already incredibly satisfying despite my various gripes.

New arcade just opened up near me, they’ve got maimai, Chunithm, and Wacca all patched to connect to unofficial servers with most songs unlocked. Cabs are all in excellent condition, I’m never going back to Round 1 again. Location’s perfect too, at the mall 10 minutes away from where my local Riichi Mahjong club meets, so this may be my new Wednesday routine to hang out there before club.

Demon Turf

3D platformer with some interesting mechanics and boss fights. Enjoying it so far. There are some mild collectathon elements, but nothing tedious. I like the art style a lot.

I’m playing split-screen Halo MCC with my brother. I’ve only got a 27" monitor to play on, so cutting the screen in half makes it very small and really brings back some of the nostalgia of playing the game back on the original xbox with a tiny little box tv lol.

With a mixture of the AlphaRing mod and an edit to the settings.json file for EasyAntiCheat, I’m still able to get achievements despite using a mod which is nice. We’re currently playing through Halo 2 on Legendary, which is less nice. Sniper Jackals are the bane of our existence.