I'm so glad I found this channel, the humor is spot on and voice over is wonderfully relaxing, that's not even mentioning the games. Ever since learning of Kings Field and old from software, I've been dying to see good videos of them and these are perfection. Side note, I was hoping for a magazine joke, didnt expect it so early, as not disappointed.
i like the concept of this challenge because using only guns is the only sensible thing you could do in real life.. imagine fist fighing a man-sized bug, or a man-sized-bug-sized dinosaur
There is a surprising amount of stuff in shadow tower. I scoured reddit and found an obscure post mentioning how the stats worked it's really interesting. offhanding elemental increasing stuff also increases magic damage so each item does contribute. Sword increases gun, gun increases magic, magic increases ect you get it.
The atmosphere of this game looks amazing. Kind of reminds me of what Pathways into Darkness could have been. Also nice MGS3 reference!! Six bullets....
I'm glad to see people like you still exploring the old Fromsoftware games and doing challenge runs. My first experience with Fromsoftware was the PS2 game Evergrace. That game confused the hell out of my younger self and I never really got very far in it. Maybe that game has the potential for a challenge run? I rarely see anybody giving any attention to Evergrace or the sequel Forever Kingdom.
I'm loving your content. You have solid humor, random philosophical bits, a non-grating voice. Definitely a great channel that deserves, minimum, 10x the subs. I'd say closer to 100x. Hope you get there some day! The amount of work put into these videos, even if you love doing it. Cheers from Canada.
Personally while the king's Field series is my favourite of all time, I could never get into shadow Tower. I just felt it a lot less immersive then KF when I had to manage durability. But seeing abyss enjoyed and beaten with just guns warms my heart, glad to see the good in the game through others.
I know what you mean. I found durability much more manageable in Abyss.. but og shadow tower? Nah man.. there’s even that acid area that breaks all your gear inside a minute, forcing you to walk around naked
Just did an entire play through in a few days and I did it blind - I would say the beginning portion(Human World-Earth World) is where the game peaks in difficulty and managing durability. By the time you reach water world you have a blacksmith who can repair your equipment and the water world houses a fountain that will always refill you to max HP and back to Burning Cavern to repair your equipment. Give it another try someday - it's worth it :)
@@xXLunatikxXlul I have since gone back and beaten both Shadow Towers. They still aren't the games for me, but I can see why others enjoy them. It's a bit too much on the gear systems and back and forths, and personally I was enjoying the last section of the first game a lot. I liked the areas, the library was especially cool. Abyss was almost the opposite. I loved the first few zones but then after the mid point I found it became too unfair and it lost me. Mostly because I had to use a lot of healing items and that made enemies with projectiles really hard to deal with. With knowledge of the game maybe I'd enjoy a second playthrough more but it's not on my priority list. Still glad I played them, but I'll stick to King's Field for my old adventure game fix.
This is a chunky boi, eh!? Good work on the upload man. Can already tell from the intro that production level is high! I'll be chipping away at this with my breakfast 😁
Woah, I got subtle acknowledge in a video, haha. Good fun doing guns only! I think my first ever go through was melee and guns only. Didn't think to off-hand stat boost when I ran the game, despite knowing items improved stats like in the first game. Ooops.
Regarding using an external program to put a crosshair on the screen; nothing's stopping you sticking a wad of gum or piece of paper to the screen, poking it with a sharpie or putting string across it. Heck, some older software came with keyboard vinyls to indicate the keys and sometimes even things to put on the screen to perform gameplay features when it would be cheaper than a rampack or another upgrade
I'd encourage anyone suffering from Megalixer Syndrome to break out of it by using them on inconsequential fights. You aren't going to use it anyway, and you know this. As such, being accustomed to using super good items on a whim is great at breaking that habit. Next time, when you're in need of a basic cure or potion, use a megalixer!
Awesome video Blinge. Sorry for the wall of text, but I got quite a lot to say here: After completing KF4 with using magic 90% of the time, I KNEW I had to finally complete this challenge myself considering my love for guns in games and FromSoftware, though with the added stipulation that I had to kill every enemy I came across (made backtracking hellish). Pretty much everything you said was on point: the early game is hell, and at one point I only had 2 Blackhawk clips left. After the waterfall area, I always had at least 2 powerful guns stocked up on ammo as backup while I would use the lesser guns’ ammo more liberally. What’s interesting, I find, is that the developers themselves had an idea this would happen, so they designed the later enemies to compensate for this more consistent firepower. The harpies being flying enemies already makes their head hard to hit, the red desert enemies have to effectively be turned around for you to headshot them, the invisible flying beetles have no weakness as far as I can tell, so you just have to dump ammo into them, the moving floor alien robots not only fly, but if you don’t hit them dead center enough times, they will self-destruct in a massive AoE, and finally, the illusion area knights may very well be the squirreliest enemies in the game. It’s a far cry from the enemies in the previous areas that you can easily headshot and kill for the most part. Also, the combination of the design and mechanics in this game make it the most unique shooter I have ever played, making it akin to a series of shooting galleries as the most effective method of clearing a room is to open its door and take precise shots. To that end, I also had an external program put a dot on my screen, because as far as I see it, they already had a crosshair with the sniper, so might as well extend that convenience to the rest of the guns. I also made sure to employ the off-hand weapon damage multiplier, but I’m not sure if it worked too well. As for the game itself, I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece in the way that KF4 is, but what is here makes it the most fun to play out of all of their first-person games as far as I can tell. Games where firearms are present but aren’t the primary weapons you use have always been fascinating to me, and this may very well be the greatest of games like that. Having modern fps controls, a relatively fast walking speed and downright turbo turn speed when compared to what came before, enemy dismemberment, and of course, good ranged combat after so long all show this to be the natural evolution of From’s first-person game model, but its not without its faults. This all stems from its relationship with the Shadow Tower ps1, as I feel it took away parts of it that it shouldn’t have while leaving the parts it should’ve. I think its fair to call the first game a horror dungeon crawler, as dang near everything in that game reinforced that idea. Labyrinthian level design, low-draw distance, uncanny enemies, etc., all serve to create a downright suffocating atmosphere unmatched in most other horror games. From the outset, you can see that this is not what Abyss is going for despite its still oppressive atmosphere. The vistas you see and the enemies you encounter are less horrific and more otherworldly, as if the tower is no longer an all-encompassing maw but rather a sort of anchor point between several realities. The best areas in the game, Waterfall and Cliffs, exemplify that with more naturalistic level design. Areas that keep to the original’s labyrinth level designs, ex. White Wall and Violent Poison, are the least interesting to both traverse and play, though I feel Scouring Rush managed to play around with this design successfully. A side effect of this is that they keep save, shop, repair, and heal points separate from each other for the most part, and while that worked in the previous game as they were more spaced apart, here it just tacks on a lot of unnecessary backtracking because they wanted to be cute and put the repair point in a random corner 2 rooms away from the shop. It woulda been better if they just condensed all the point types into a singular super point and put one in each level at the beginning (lol just make a bonfire bro). As well, the leveling system seems entirely unneeded as even when watching other people play different builds, high damage seems reliant on where you hit them and with what type of attack rather than pure damage numbers. One aspect that I am so sad was lost between the first and second games is the enemy variety, as Shadow Tower ps1 just had so many different, wacky enemy designs around every corner. I understand this was due to the fact that Abyss was rushed, but man, what I wouldn’t give to shoot some downright goofy enemies with an AR-15. Tangentially related, but the “7 Lords of the tower” were also not great when compared to the first game’s bosses. The big cat, bug queen, spear king, grand illusion knight, harpy queen, fog reaper, and alien robot leader (I assume these are the lords as they are the ones who actually speak) didn’t have much in the way interesting moves, to say nothing of the joke that is the final boss, while the first game’s bosses at least had a plethora of dumb bull they could pull to at least give you a run for their money (AoEs that hit you across the room, anybody?). Also, no voice acting? I know the first game had some silly VA, but at the end of the day, it did make it more distinct from King’s Field. Ultimately, despite my gripes, the game is still so good in so many other ways, and it’s a shame that even more than KF4, you can see where the cuts were made, leaving this the game that From made that had the most potential. I sincerely hope that, much like they did with Armored Core, From makes a triumphant return to King’s Field and Shadow Tower.
I used to cheat games without crosshairs by simply sticking a tiny dot of masking tape in the center of the screen or monitor. It works. Mind you I only do this in games like this that refuse to give you a crosshair _or_ allow any kind of iron sight aiming either.
Absolutely loved playing through STA myself. The areas are pretty diverse but the final few areas except the very last arent that great. The Moving Platform Area is really shoddy.
been struggling to find videos of retro games to chill/sleep/smoke to. You came up in the suggested last night and i watched the entirety of it. Love the work and the mellow vibe you have going. Its slightly "edgy" too and I fuck with that. Keep it up dude!!
If memory serves, the enemies in the game are finite. More do spawn in places of previous ones, but I definitely remember walking around floors that ended up being clearer of enemies even though they were populated before. I've never experienced having a whole area be empty like in Shadow Tower 1, but I definitely remember dwindling an area's numbers.
Both games had such a system, though the first gave you a blatant "percentage cleared" value in the menu to see. Some of the spawn triggers in the first game are really arcane at times too.
@@jashloseher578 Abyss gives you percentage too! On ng+ i walked around the first area with the percentage at 97% for an eternity, seeing no enemies. It was very unfun
@@BlinJe as I continued watching the video, I think I realized that the game just uses this certain noise as a sound effect. Look up G4 Icons if you want, the sound effect is basically the theme song
Loool thanks! He inspired me to make my first high-effort video (Kings Field 1). I re-watched his Quake episode at the beginning of lockdown and it blew me away
haha yeah in JRPGs and stuff (currently playing smt4 apocalypse and Metal Max 2 Reloaded) I've started to just use the elixirs to get me through a fight. This is my self-work lmao
From what i recall there is a finite amount of enemies in the shadow tower games that may or may not spawn when entering or revisiting a room. Enemies may seem to reappear when backtracking but theres a limited amount of them.
awesome stuff and i'm so glad you make content like this. your channel deserves more views. also the title of the game can be confusing because it's called Abyss but you're ascending the tower the whole game. i think Abyss here means more of a concept/mood. it's a descent into madness. that's how i interpret it. it could also just be an awkward translation of "darkness"
Magazine, not clip. Clips are simple bullet holders you use to manually slide bullets into a breach to load the internal fixed magazine of a gun. Usually just a simple piece of bent metal. Magazines are designed to automatically load the next round into the chamber through mechanical means like a spring. Magazines can be fixed or removable. In the case of an M1911, it has a removable magazine. the C96 Mauser, for example, has a fixed magazine and is loaded from a stripper clip.
@@Null_Experis ah yeah. and the game calls it a mag, i think? hahah. I mentioned it, but deleted the line for the sake of brevity. thanks for the comment!
@@mkultraenjoyer Ahh I appreciate that man. Yes it's a worry for me - a lot of people like the calmer style but if I did OTT reactions and ranted like I need Adderall would i be more popular? I'm not about to do that..
0:48 I feel like not all dna is fromsoft exclusive. I feel as though demon souls has some slight monster hunter dna in terms of rolling around at least and how different weapons feel.
@@BlinJe Gotta love that, I remember resident evil does that too. Also! Nice content. I've just about watched everything that has your voice in it. I await more.
i like so much the style of the video, the humor its simple but realy efective the only shame its than there are no much content on the chanel, i will be waiting for more. cheers from a latin american country, colombia
Ah, I hate to break it to you, but... Apparently, Shadow Tower and Shadow Tower Abyss are set in two different worlds that have nothing to do with each other.
im fairly certain there is an m14 hidden on the floor before the parasite infected enemies, when i first played through the game i remember using it on that floor against the big laser worms but i dont recall where i found it
To anyone who wants to play Shadow Tower Abyss: Don't waste HP restoring 2 durability on something that has 35. HP regen is king. Whatever stats other gear may give, make sure you have some passive healing. Mid-rate is good, fast is obviously better. You gain stats from killing. Don't run past enemies. Not only do they make you stronger, but they can drop cune or potions. Don't let your weapons break. If you plan on selling items, they are worth less if broken. Don't sacrifice your equipment for healing. Two cune are worth far more than a mere full HP/MP heal. STR boosts encumbrance, VIT boosts health more than STA. Don't bother raising magic stats with your stat boosting items. When you get fast MP passive healing, you will break certain rings before you run out. Gun rhymes with fun for a reason, stranger. Learn to be accurate and you can make a lot of areas less painful. This includes bows. Not all guns are created equal. A 1911 today and now may work, but you may find a better model later that has notably higher stats. Keep around 4-6 regular weapons on you. Use and consume whatever you find to the point it's almost broken but keep a reliable arsenal so you can go long stretches of time without having to repair. Still have no clue how repair powder works, never used it. Be careful about buying gear. A lot of it does not compare to what you can find. And there is precisely one item that is very expensive, but will become a permanent fixture to your character. Weapons that offer you passive healing do not need to be used to enjoy their effect. Just equip and go to your other arm's weapon. Be careful about selling gear. Armor degrades somewhat slowly, I've never had any armor break. But make sure you have a second layer of armor available when the max durability is below 20. Resources you find/buy/sell are limited. But you can always grind more. RNG is still a thing for drops. A health potion saved is a health potion earned. You may be tempted to heal up when you're down to 60% HP at the start, but that'll heal a whopping ~300HP maybe. Learn your damage values so when an enemy attacks, you know you can at least take two more hits healing. Kiting and circle strafing can still work. Your first passive HP healing item will most likely be one that heals at around .5HP/second. It's not a lot, but it will make a difference. To bring it back around to the start, passive HP/MP equipment stack. If you're taking a break, take a break near a repair orb. Repair your gear and heal up over a while. Even when your HP gets to be over 6k, having a passive heal rate of ~140 a minute is pretty good. Especially when your best weapons may require over 1k HP... or around 400.
Also, make sure you are 50% encumbered at max when you leave a store orb. You will need the spare space for more gear, and you will always find gear where you least expect it. Going off of that, pick up everything. Nothing is not worth taking.
@@BlinJe for armor, I've had gloves almost break on me but I swapped them out when they had 4 durability left. And if you're doing magic only? Maybe. You still wanna be durable and be able to carry what you find to sell for rings. It might not matter a ton once you get rolling.
For magic potions, I found a lot of luck finding them in the first area Patches is in. Don't know if it was RNG or not. But I've also found headgear as well as accessories that give passive MP healing. Same with some accessories that drain HP a small amount but restore MP at med amount. You can balance that out with enough passive HP healing, naturally.
Honestly I've absolutely painted a little dot on my screen with washable marker to help me aim in some games when I was a kid. I consider the white dot to be about the same in that regard.
Whoever made that english patch is a hero. Theres a ng+ system btw. You can get a broken sword the seccond ir third time around. Its got hp and mp regen on attack making it OP as hell since hp lets you repair everything you have for free.
27:50 The Nambu is a Japanese service pistol from the same era as the 1911 and the Luger. Mechanically it's nothing alike, but visually it appears as a clone of the P08 at first glance.
I’m not sure it’s even possible 😮 depends on if you can buy a ring early but those things break after like 3 uses. Otherwise the first ring is after bug boss
@@BlinJe well if you have to play normally up till then that would be ok for the run as you could change it to can you beat the rest of the game with only magic XD
For what it's worth, I don't consider using the reticle cheating. When I played this game way back when, I used an expo marker and put a little dot in the direct center of my CRT to aim assist. Using your reticle software seems within the spirit of old tricks gamers have always used to make games more playable
When I first joined the ward, I was strictly solo. You were the first real buddy I ever had. Buuuut if you and he wish to be buddies once more, I won't stand in your way. @@BlinJe
i clicked this thinking there could be like, 3-4 guns tops throughout, and a really rough climb up tower. then it just kept giving more and bigger guns lmao
27:05 Then again, what is change, if not a thousand deaths of what once was and a thousand births of what comes after? What is a change of perspective, what is growth, if not the death of something that used to be and the birth of something that sprouts from its ashes, recognizable but not quite what it used to be?
This is the pickiest of nits, but I find it funny how you talk about Cyclopes, while showing on screen a different pronunciation than you're using, lol.
49:45 Y'know, I remember back in days of cyber-cafe Counter-Strike 1.6 a lot of snipers used boogers as a make-shift scope for non-scope mode Did somethin' simular with med. bandages, when I played old FPSes - mostly 'cuz my monitor was shit, and I couldn't see a crosshair
that sound like 4 seconds in im pretty sure ive heard that in some soundtracks that ZIZZ studio did im pretty sure in the first track for hanachirasu it was used. really interesting how pattern recognition works, like how i keep hearing the exact same cicada sound that was used in higurashi.
Yes mate. It’s the ending credits theme. before that i use the main menu thene. Those are basically the only two tracks in the game, other than tiny little intro pieces when you change area
@@BlinJe Cheers! Thank you for not taking FromSoft too seriously like most other fan boys/girls. While they have become a mark of quality in the vein of Capcom/Nintendo's in-house studios, they also do some daft things in their games, and I love that you enjoy pointing them out 🙏
@@thomassharples9734 haha, i do point it out for entertainment. But I absolutely love the studio. I don’t want to be one of these guys that just criticises things for the hell of it; because it’s a fast track to youtube clout and seeming like they know anything about game design. Armchair critics are cringe imo
I'm so glad I found this channel, the humor is spot on and voice over is wonderfully relaxing, that's not even mentioning the games. Ever since learning of Kings Field and old from software, I've been dying to see good videos of them and these are perfection. Side note, I was hoping for a magazine joke, didnt expect it so early, as not disappointed.
So when you say Original Shadow Tower, you mean the one with Ruus Hardy right?
i like the concept of this challenge because using only guns is the only sensible thing you could do in real life.. imagine fist fighing a man-sized bug, or a man-sized-bug-sized dinosaur
fists?.. yeah... imagine.... 👀
@@BlinJethank you for your hard work, I really appreciate it. ☺️😊😄😃🤩😍 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Man-Sized Bug-Sized?
@@howdoyoudo5949a dinosaur the size of a man sized-bug.
your narration sounds like an educational tv shows i watch when i was a kid .its like you are reading a fairytale
I hope that’s a good thing!?
You can register an item for instant use in the menu, then activate with the Select button - Good for healing potions.
Think i gave up trying to figure it out very quickly, or forgot. Oops! It’s a bit annoying because i used select button healing in eternal ring
There is a surprising amount of stuff in shadow tower. I scoured reddit and found an obscure post mentioning how the stats worked it's really interesting.
offhanding elemental increasing stuff also increases magic damage so each item does contribute. Sword increases gun, gun increases magic, magic increases ect you get it.
yes mate! I found out about the offhanding and mention it in the video
"A worm surprise, this game's got it all."
Perfect delivery.
The atmosphere of this game looks amazing. Kind of reminds me of what Pathways into Darkness could have been. Also nice MGS3 reference!! Six bullets....
I love the smell of cordite...
When you store shotgun ammo...would you say you are a professional at shot put?
This is the tier of pun i expect from my longtime viewers hahah.
glad to see you here bud
i don't know how i got here but I'm glad i did. this was the most relaxed I've felt watching a playthrough of a fromsoft game. keep up the good work
Thanks king. i’ve got other vids with a similar vibe
i really like how instead of doing all the research possible to beat the challenge in the easiest way, you just go in and see what happens, i love it.
Ah yeah man. It’s more fun that way; for me aswell
I keep coming back to this video to rewatch it. This is one of those very rare videos that are bordering on absolute perfection.
Damn man. thanks for the kind words.
video after next will be the ps2 era again
"I use my special ability...It's called a gun." Genuinely made me chuckle.
im glad to see more and more videos of shadow tower abyss. this game gets so slept on.
It really does. The JP only thing doesn’t help!
@@BlinJe it needs to be ported or remastered someday🎃👻
I'm glad to see people like you still exploring the old Fromsoftware games and doing challenge runs. My first experience with Fromsoftware was the PS2 game Evergrace. That game confused the hell out of my younger self and I never really got very far in it. Maybe that game has the potential for a challenge run? I rarely see anybody giving any attention to Evergrace or the sequel Forever Kingdom.
It is so sad that FromSoft abandoned hard-core Dungeon Crawling games. It would be nice to see a modern Dungeon Crawling game from FromSoftware.
I'm loving your content. You have solid humor, random philosophical bits, a non-grating voice. Definitely a great channel that deserves, minimum, 10x the subs. I'd say closer to 100x.
Hope you get there some day! The amount of work put into these videos, even if you love doing it. Cheers from Canada.
awesome man thanks so much
Personally while the king's Field series is my favourite of all time, I could never get into shadow Tower. I just felt it a lot less immersive then KF when I had to manage durability. But seeing abyss enjoyed and beaten with just guns warms my heart, glad to see the good in the game through others.
I know what you mean. I found durability much more manageable in Abyss.. but og shadow tower? Nah man.. there’s even that acid area that breaks all your gear inside a minute, forcing you to walk around naked
Just did an entire play through in a few days and I did it blind - I would say the beginning portion(Human World-Earth World) is where the game peaks in difficulty and managing durability. By the time you reach water world you have a blacksmith who can repair your equipment and the water world houses a fountain that will always refill you to max HP and back to Burning Cavern to repair your equipment. Give it another try someday - it's worth it :)
@@xXLunatikxXlul I have since gone back and beaten both Shadow Towers. They still aren't the games for me, but I can see why others enjoy them. It's a bit too much on the gear systems and back and forths, and personally I was enjoying the last section of the first game a lot. I liked the areas, the library was especially cool.
Abyss was almost the opposite. I loved the first few zones but then after the mid point I found it became too unfair and it lost me. Mostly because I had to use a lot of healing items and that made enemies with projectiles really hard to deal with. With knowledge of the game maybe I'd enjoy a second playthrough more but it's not on my priority list.
Still glad I played them, but I'll stick to King's Field for my old adventure game fix.
Never been this excited for a new video, I'm in the process of beating king'sfield 4 and shadow tower abyss.
This is a chunky boi, eh!? Good work on the upload man. Can already tell from the intro that production level is high! I'll be chipping away at this with my breakfast 😁
Woah, I got subtle acknowledge in a video, haha.
Good fun doing guns only! I think my first ever go through was melee and guns only. Didn't think to off-hand stat boost when I ran the game, despite knowing items improved stats like in the first game. Ooops.
Yeah the magic is kinda ass
Oh neat, thanks for teaching me about Angkor Wat; it's humongous!
You know with how obscure old fromsoft games and are seldom played. I feel as though there is probably one last big secret in one of them
Fantastic vid Blinge.
I had a spit take when I saw the title like “the mad lad finally made it” :3
Haha that’s how i felt!
The narration on this is like an nature documentary.
I hope that’s a compliment 👁️ 👁️
I have really been looking forward to this one! I will savour it like a fine wine. Greetings from Australia 🦘
Regarding using an external program to put a crosshair on the screen; nothing's stopping you sticking a wad of gum or piece of paper to the screen, poking it with a sharpie or putting string across it. Heck, some older software came with keyboard vinyls to indicate the keys and sometimes even things to put on the screen to perform gameplay features when it would be cheaper than a rampack or another upgrade
Nice of you to include footage of the latter levels of Shadow Tower 1
Think i had a save there already! i loaded it for footage. iirc the first area has bugs and skeletons so doesn’t serve my point well..
Shadow spiders, slimes, skeletons, and shadow bats iirc. I really love the enemy design of OG Shadow Tower :)
@@xXLunatikxXlul Absolutely, and there's a bunch of them, that all still end up being interesting and weird.
I'd encourage anyone suffering from Megalixer Syndrome to break out of it by using them on inconsequential fights. You aren't going to use it anyway, and you know this. As such, being accustomed to using super good items on a whim is great at breaking that habit. Next time, when you're in need of a basic cure or potion, use a megalixer!
Omg, what is this blasphemy…!
Awesome video Blinge. Sorry for the wall of text, but I got quite a lot to say here:
After completing KF4 with using magic 90% of the time, I KNEW I had to finally complete this challenge myself considering my love for guns in games and FromSoftware, though with the added stipulation that I had to kill every enemy I came across (made backtracking hellish). Pretty much everything you said was on point: the early game is hell, and at one point I only had 2 Blackhawk clips left. After the waterfall area, I always had at least 2 powerful guns stocked up on ammo as backup while I would use the lesser guns’ ammo more liberally. What’s interesting, I find, is that the developers themselves had an idea this would happen, so they designed the later enemies to compensate for this more consistent firepower. The harpies being flying enemies already makes their head hard to hit, the red desert enemies have to effectively be turned around for you to headshot them, the invisible flying beetles have no weakness as far as I can tell, so you just have to dump ammo into them, the moving floor alien robots not only fly, but if you don’t hit them dead center enough times, they will self-destruct in a massive AoE, and finally, the illusion area knights may very well be the squirreliest enemies in the game. It’s a far cry from the enemies in the previous areas that you can easily headshot and kill for the most part. Also, the combination of the design and mechanics in this game make it the most unique shooter I have ever played, making it akin to a series of shooting galleries as the most effective method of clearing a room is to open its door and take precise shots. To that end, I also had an external program put a dot on my screen, because as far as I see it, they already had a crosshair with the sniper, so might as well extend that convenience to the rest of the guns. I also made sure to employ the off-hand weapon damage multiplier, but I’m not sure if it worked too well.
As for the game itself, I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece in the way that KF4 is, but what is here makes it the most fun to play out of all of their first-person games as far as I can tell. Games where firearms are present but aren’t the primary weapons you use have always been fascinating to me, and this may very well be the greatest of games like that. Having modern fps controls, a relatively fast walking speed and downright turbo turn speed when compared to what came before, enemy dismemberment, and of course, good ranged combat after so long all show this to be the natural evolution of From’s first-person game model, but its not without its faults.
This all stems from its relationship with the Shadow Tower ps1, as I feel it took away parts of it that it shouldn’t have while leaving the parts it should’ve. I think its fair to call the first game a horror dungeon crawler, as dang near everything in that game reinforced that idea. Labyrinthian level design, low-draw distance, uncanny enemies, etc., all serve to create a downright suffocating atmosphere unmatched in most other horror games. From the outset, you can see that this is not what Abyss is going for despite its still oppressive atmosphere. The vistas you see and the enemies you encounter are less horrific and more otherworldly, as if the tower is no longer an all-encompassing maw but rather a sort of anchor point between several realities. The best areas in the game, Waterfall and Cliffs, exemplify that with more naturalistic level design. Areas that keep to the original’s labyrinth level designs, ex. White Wall and Violent Poison, are the least interesting to both traverse and play, though I feel Scouring Rush managed to play around with this design successfully. A side effect of this is that they keep save, shop, repair, and heal points separate from each other for the most part, and while that worked in the previous game as they were more spaced apart, here it just tacks on a lot of unnecessary backtracking because they wanted to be cute and put the repair point in a random corner 2 rooms away from the shop. It woulda been better if they just condensed all the point types into a singular super point and put one in each level at the beginning (lol just make a bonfire bro). As well, the leveling system seems entirely unneeded as even when watching other people play different builds, high damage seems reliant on where you hit them and with what type of attack rather than pure damage numbers. One aspect that I am so sad was lost between the first and second games is the enemy variety, as Shadow Tower ps1 just had so many different, wacky enemy designs around every corner. I understand this was due to the fact that Abyss was rushed, but man, what I wouldn’t give to shoot some downright goofy enemies with an AR-15. Tangentially related, but the “7 Lords of the tower” were also not great when compared to the first game’s bosses. The big cat, bug queen, spear king, grand illusion knight, harpy queen, fog reaper, and alien robot leader (I assume these are the lords as they are the ones who actually speak) didn’t have much in the way interesting moves, to say nothing of the joke that is the final boss, while the first game’s bosses at least had a plethora of dumb bull they could pull to at least give you a run for their money (AoEs that hit you across the room, anybody?). Also, no voice acting? I know the first game had some silly VA, but at the end of the day, it did make it more distinct from King’s Field.
Ultimately, despite my gripes, the game is still so good in so many other ways, and it’s a shame that even more than KF4, you can see where the cuts were made, leaving this the game that From made that had the most potential. I sincerely hope that, much like they did with Armored Core, From makes a triumphant return to King’s Field and Shadow Tower.
I used to cheat games without crosshairs by simply sticking a tiny dot of masking tape in the center of the screen or monitor. It works. Mind you I only do this in games like this that refuse to give you a crosshair _or_ allow any kind of iron sight aiming either.
hah, we used to do that for the Ocarina of time Archery too ages ago
This is legit my favorite channel on UA-cam. Thanks for all the refreshing content bro!!!
😳 that’s high praise.
New video tomorrow
I'm late as always. Quite happy to see this challenge from you. Anything Shadow Tower is basically great to me personally.
You were right on time bro
If you think about it, the heat death of the universe is the ultimate and final tax.
Paid to whom?
Absolutely loved playing through STA myself. The areas are pretty diverse but the final few areas except the very last arent that great. The Moving Platform Area is really shoddy.
Yup the theory that they ran out time seems on point. i like it for its weirdness tho
I always enjoy your content! Keep up the amazing work!
yeyyy another video! i alredy knew that end game would be easy with only weapons, but the start doesnt look that hard also
It’s easy if you know how 😉
been struggling to find videos of retro games to chill/sleep/smoke to. You came up in the suggested last night and i watched the entirety of it. Love the work and the mellow vibe you have going. Its slightly "edgy" too and I fuck with that. Keep it up dude!!
If memory serves, the enemies in the game are finite. More do spawn in places of previous ones, but I definitely remember walking around floors that ended up being clearer of enemies even though they were populated before. I've never experienced having a whole area be empty like in Shadow Tower 1, but I definitely remember dwindling an area's numbers.
They can definitely be empty
Both games had such a system, though the first gave you a blatant "percentage cleared" value in the menu to see. Some of the spawn triggers in the first game are really arcane at times too.
@@jashloseher578 Abyss gives you percentage too!
On ng+ i walked around the first area with the percentage at 97% for an eternity, seeing no enemies. It was very unfun
Blinge has blessed us with another feature length video. Loved that G4 icons callback in the intro
Huh, What do you mean? I don't follow..
@@BlinJe as I continued watching the video, I think I realized that the game just uses this certain noise as a sound effect. Look up G4 Icons if you want, the sound effect is basically the theme song
I realise that Blinge's commentary is like Ahoy but with extra dank.
Loool thanks! He inspired me to make my first high-effort video (Kings Field 1). I re-watched his Quake episode at the beginning of lockdown and it blew me away
Finished watching this earlier. Great work, man! Vast in content, without feeling like it was over staying it's welcome 👏
When is the video about the difficulty of Dark Souls 1 vs Dark Souls 3. That's what we REALLY need.
REEEEEE
your mega elixir problem is so relatable lol. ive gotten over mine at this point thankfully so i know you can to
haha yeah in JRPGs and stuff (currently playing smt4 apocalypse and Metal Max 2 Reloaded) I've started to just use the elixirs to get me through a fight. This is my self-work lmao
great work as always
As soon as I heard the Dr Sanchez impression I was fully onboard.
Ahaha it was supposed to be Matt Berry in general but only the real ones know about Sanchez!!
From what i recall there is a finite amount of enemies in the shadow tower games that may or may not spawn when entering or revisiting a room. Enemies may seem to reappear when backtracking but theres a limited amount of them.
awesome stuff and i'm so glad you make content like this. your channel deserves more views.
also the title of the game can be confusing because it's called Abyss but you're ascending the tower the whole game. i think Abyss here means more of a concept/mood. it's a descent into madness. that's how i interpret it. it could also just be an awkward translation of "darkness"
We “look up” into the abyss of space
@@BlinJe That's a great point. I also just enjoyed the idea of it being an inversion of the first game.
I pretty much used guns for most of my first playthrough, so this seemed quite familiar to me
I barely touched them first time!
Magazine, not clip.
Clips are simple bullet holders you use to manually slide bullets into a breach to load the internal fixed magazine of a gun. Usually just a simple piece of bent metal.
Magazines are designed to automatically load the next round into the chamber through mechanical means like a spring. Magazines can be fixed or removable.
In the case of an M1911, it has a removable magazine.
the C96 Mauser, for example, has a fixed magazine and is loaded from a stripper clip.
um..did you..watch the video
@@BlinJe Yes. You kept calling magazines clips intermittently, then when you actually picked up a clip, there was no mention.
@@Null_Experis ah yeah. and the game calls it a mag, i think? hahah.
I mentioned it, but deleted the line for the sake of brevity. thanks for the comment!
If David Attenborough reviewed video games
Cmon bro i sound nothing like him
@BlinJe it's the calm way of speaking, makes it feel like I'm watching a documentary which is much better than a lot of reviewers imo
@@mkultraenjoyer Ahh I appreciate that man.
Yes it's a worry for me - a lot of people like the calmer style but if I did OTT reactions and ranted like I need Adderall would i be more popular? I'm not about to do that..
0:48 I feel like not all dna is fromsoft exclusive. I feel as though demon souls has some slight monster hunter dna in terms of rolling around at least and how different weapons feel.
Maybe the aliens are from the edge of the universe where the is nothing, no stars, no light-
Man that might be it
He called a magazine a clip already and now I am going to hyperfocus on this minor detail the entire video. 😂
The game does it!!!
@@BlinJe
Gotta love that, I remember resident evil does that too.
Also! Nice content. I've just about watched everything that has your voice in it. I await more.
@@The24thWight dude thankyou so much.
you madlad did what i recommended in your kf4 vid nice and i enjoyed this challenge as always i smash the like button
Thanks for the recommendation my dude!
and my crazy brain found another challenge run how about the original shadow tower with magic only :D@@BlinJe
@@dnawolf8789 of course i’ve been thinking about that bro. It’s on the list!
looking forward to it@@BlinJe
Now i want shadow towers abyss Sequel thats a tactical shooter
i like so much the style of the video, the humor its simple but realy efective the only shame its than there are no much content on the chanel, i will be waiting for more. cheers from a latin american country, colombia
Muchas gracias. Quiero hacer mas, pero es un poco difficil por mi trabajo
1:12:10 Ruth Hardy my beloved
Ah, I hate to break it to you, but... Apparently, Shadow Tower and Shadow Tower Abyss are set in two different worlds that have nothing to do with each other.
Omg yesssss more videos :D
can you do a magic only run of og shadow tower? abyss is great but i always found the og to be facisnating and much more difficult.
It’s defo on the list.
I dont know if it’s even possible. I fully agree ST1 is tougher
Classic Fromsoftware W
Now this is a good watch.
Eyy thanks man
im fairly certain there is an m14 hidden on the floor before the parasite infected enemies, when i first played through the game i remember using it on that floor against the big laser worms but i dont recall where i found it
So Shadow Abyss is to King's Field as Bloodbourne is to Souls.
Yeah pretty much.
There’s Eternal Ring for another take on the formula too
@@BlinJe I'll have to check out your video on that.
Blinge: "can you believe it a FromSoft game WITH GUNS!?"
Me: *side eyes FromSoft's Mecha lineup*
honestly, that line has functioned exactly as intended 😘
@@BlinJe You're Welcome
To anyone who wants to play Shadow Tower Abyss:
Don't waste HP restoring 2 durability on something that has 35.
HP regen is king. Whatever stats other gear may give, make sure you have some passive healing. Mid-rate is good, fast is obviously better.
You gain stats from killing. Don't run past enemies. Not only do they make you stronger, but they can drop cune or potions.
Don't let your weapons break. If you plan on selling items, they are worth less if broken.
Don't sacrifice your equipment for healing. Two cune are worth far more than a mere full HP/MP heal.
STR boosts encumbrance, VIT boosts health more than STA.
Don't bother raising magic stats with your stat boosting items. When you get fast MP passive healing, you will break certain rings before you run out.
Gun rhymes with fun for a reason, stranger. Learn to be accurate and you can make a lot of areas less painful. This includes bows.
Not all guns are created equal. A 1911 today and now may work, but you may find a better model later that has notably higher stats.
Keep around 4-6 regular weapons on you. Use and consume whatever you find to the point it's almost broken but keep a reliable arsenal so you can go long stretches of time without having to repair.
Still have no clue how repair powder works, never used it.
Be careful about buying gear. A lot of it does not compare to what you can find. And there is precisely one item that is very expensive, but will become a permanent fixture to your character.
Weapons that offer you passive healing do not need to be used to enjoy their effect. Just equip and go to your other arm's weapon.
Be careful about selling gear. Armor degrades somewhat slowly, I've never had any armor break. But make sure you have a second layer of armor available when the max durability is below 20.
Resources you find/buy/sell are limited. But you can always grind more. RNG is still a thing for drops.
A health potion saved is a health potion earned. You may be tempted to heal up when you're down to 60% HP at the start, but that'll heal a whopping ~300HP maybe. Learn your damage values so when an enemy attacks, you know you can at least take two more hits healing.
Kiting and circle strafing can still work.
Your first passive HP healing item will most likely be one that heals at around .5HP/second. It's not a lot, but it will make a difference.
To bring it back around to the start, passive HP/MP equipment stack. If you're taking a break, take a break near a repair orb. Repair your gear and heal up over a while. Even when your HP gets to be over 6k, having a passive heal rate of ~140 a minute is pretty good. Especially when your best weapons may require over 1k HP... or around 400.
Also, make sure you are 50% encumbered at max when you leave a store orb. You will need the spare space for more gear, and you will always find gear where you least expect it.
Going off of that, pick up everything. Nothing is not worth taking.
How TF you never had a piece of armour break on you
Is it worth using soul pots to boost magic stats if you’re only using magic? Asking for a friend..
@@BlinJe for armor, I've had gloves almost break on me but I swapped them out when they had 4 durability left. And if you're doing magic only? Maybe. You still wanna be durable and be able to carry what you find to sell for rings. It might not matter a ton once you get rolling.
For magic potions, I found a lot of luck finding them in the first area Patches is in. Don't know if it was RNG or not. But I've also found headgear as well as accessories that give passive MP healing. Same with some accessories that drain HP a small amount but restore MP at med amount. You can balance that out with enough passive HP healing, naturally.
Wasnt expecting to hear a Garth Mehrengi refrence in a shadow tower video.
The Sanchez quote? does he actually say 'tough customer' ??
I was going for Matt Berry in general.
"he says he come, but he dont"
Idk why i laughed so hard at that.
Honestly I've absolutely painted a little dot on my screen with washable marker to help me aim in some games when I was a kid. I consider the white dot to be about the same in that regard.
Great video!!! shadow tower ps1 without melee?
That’s the pipe dream!
@@BlinJe Here's hoping!
Just to be pedantic, AR 15s are not assault rifles because they are semi-automatic.
Very interesting game, I'll have to try it.
hahah oh nooo.
Blinge BTFO
@@BlinJeLol, subbed
@@oblivionspartan haha appreciate it man!
This run gets a GUNS FOR THE GUN GOD, AMMO FOR THE AMMO THRONE from me.
Why can’t i hold all this ammo!?! 😂
Whoever made that english patch is a hero. Theres a ng+ system btw. You can get a broken sword the seccond ir third time around. Its got hp and mp regen on attack making it OP as hell since hp lets you repair everything you have for free.
Yeah i mention ng+ at the end! I don’t do it because the game doesnt scale upwards so you get OP and everything is too easy
@BlinJe you can roleplay as doomguy for a bit shotgunning every thing.Wish the Kingsfield games had ng+ especially 4.
@@mirrorblade6268haha. it would be good, yeah. .. there's a modding idea there surely!
Grow channel grow! This is so good!
It’s happeninggggg
This is such a good video.
Cheers! 🍻
keep fighting the good fight!
Probably already been said but Nambu pistols were a WW2 era line of Japanese soldier/cop pistols.
I love the challenge. Making a non fps a fps.
27:50
The Nambu is a Japanese service pistol from the same era as the 1911 and the Luger. Mechanically it's nothing alike, but visually it appears as a clone of the P08 at first glance.
Ahaha. Can i appoint you my fact-checker-in-chief?
@@BlinJe
I'll take it, ha
This is so weird. This is really what i was hoping Scorn would be more like yet it predates it by far and I never new it existed until this video.
Was scorn any good? It looks wild!
Amazing atmosphere but not for me. It is far more puzzle focused than anything else.
omg he said the cune word
would love to see this done with magic mostly as i can't find a good play thought of it in game with magic only
I’m not sure it’s even possible 😮
depends on if you can buy a ring early but those things break after like 3 uses. Otherwise the first ring is after bug boss
@@BlinJe well if you have to play normally up till then that would be ok for the run
as you could change it to can you beat the rest of the game with only magic XD
7:36
Red Spirit MoistCritikal has invaded!
Finally an america only run !!
You know it bro 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🍔
For what it's worth, I don't consider using the reticle cheating. When I played this game way back when, I used an expo marker and put a little dot in the direct center of my CRT to aim assist. Using your reticle software seems within the spirit of old tricks gamers have always used to make games more playable
Aha cheers boss.
Still, with how much easier the game gets after Scouring Rush - it’s probably more fun without the dot
Eyyyy been waiting for this one!
you should put a tiny piece of tape right in the center of the screen for a crosshair like they used to do back in the good ol' days
"Whatever happened between you and this Renwick Customer?"
You and he were… buddies.. weren’t you?
When I first joined the ward, I was strictly solo. You were the first real buddy I ever had. Buuuut if you and he wish to be buddies once more, I won't stand in your way. @@BlinJe
@@atmastand3485 in your WAAEEEYYYyyyyy
Your speech patterns correlate with the game's pacing harmonically. That's one really laid-back watch, despite the tension.
i clicked this thinking there could be like, 3-4 guns tops throughout, and a really rough climb up tower. then it just kept giving more and bigger guns lmao
haha yeah I thought the early game would stop me but knew there was big stuff coming up.
Can you imagine a fromsoft game with guns?
Armored Core "sup"
Trust me bro i did a video about armored core and there are no guns!
“Can you believe a fromsoft game with guns” armored core is shooting itself in the foot, I think it has the most games in all of fromsofts IPs
What’s Armored core?
@@BlinJehaha I like u man that’s was funny, I wasn’t throwing shade ur way, that comment just popped in my mind is all
Aw ye, Let’s GO M8
27:05 Then again, what is change, if not a thousand deaths of what once was and a thousand births of what comes after? What is a change of perspective, what is growth, if not the death of something that used to be and the birth of something that sprouts from its ashes, recognizable but not quite what it used to be?
This is the pickiest of nits, but I find it funny how you talk about Cyclopes, while showing on screen a different pronunciation than you're using, lol.
Wait what
Oh ffs 🤦♂️ 😂
1:29 *screams in Armored Core noises*
Hehehh.. keep reelin’ ‘em in. 🎣
@@BlinJe banger video regardless of baiting me. I might have to get the PC version of this and give it a go
You should really revist this and either do a melee or magic only run. Though magic would probably be 10x harder
49:45 Y'know, I remember back in days of cyber-cafe Counter-Strike 1.6 a lot of snipers used boogers as a make-shift scope for non-scope mode
Did somethin' simular with med. bandages, when I played old FPSes - mostly 'cuz my monitor was shit, and I couldn't see a crosshair
actual boogers?! nooooo cmon
that sound like 4 seconds in im pretty sure ive heard that in some soundtracks that ZIZZ studio did im pretty sure in the first track for hanachirasu it was used. really interesting how pattern recognition works, like how i keep hearing the exact same cicada sound that was used in higurashi.
1:08:12 there it is again...........
for me it's the DOOM door opening and closing sound. and epona's neigh from OoT. i hear both everywhere
Is the music playing during your introduction when talking about weapon durability from Shadow Tower? It sounds majestic...
Yes mate. It’s the ending credits theme.
before that i use the main menu thene. Those are basically the only two tracks in the game, other than tiny little intro pieces when you change area
@@BlinJe Cheers! Thank you for not taking FromSoft too seriously like most other fan boys/girls. While they have become a mark of quality in the vein of Capcom/Nintendo's in-house studios, they also do some daft things in their games, and I love that you enjoy pointing them out 🙏
@@thomassharples9734 haha, i do point it out for entertainment.
But I absolutely love the studio. I don’t want to be one of these guys that just criticises things for the hell of it; because it’s a fast track to youtube clout and seeming like they know anything about game design.
Armchair critics are cringe imo