Shadow Tower Abyss

Shadow Tower Abyss is played entirely from the first-person perspective, and requires the player to navigate through a series of catacombs, caverns and open-air walkways in an effort to ascend the tower. There are numerous regions within the citadel, including subterrean forests, hellish caverns, waterfalls and temple-like chambers. While exploring, the player encounters a variety of friendly and aggressive characters, and collects keys, armour and up to 500 different weapons. The majority are aggressive and attack the protagonist on sight, while others provide information and serve to further the plot. 'Cunes' are the game's unit of currency, and are typically looted from cadavers. In addition, there are save points, which are represented by a cyan crystal. ==Plot==

The game is set within the citadel first featured in Shadow Tower, and sees the return of a number of familiar non-player characters. The protagonist, an explorer, is in search of an arcane spear thought to have given great powers to the long-dead ruler of the kingdom, and ushered in an age of unrivalled prosperity. What remains of the kingdom today is largely covered over by the forest, save for the tower itself. Once inside the citadel, the protagonist encounters a mysterious Old Man, who traps him within and forces him to climb to the very top of the structure to escape. ==Development==

Three years after the release of its predecessor, From Software announced Shadow Tower Abyss in 2001 and unveiled the game's website on 13 December 2002. A demonstration version, presented at the Tokyo Game Show between 26 and 28 September 2003, suggested that development was almost finished. Shadow Tower Abyss was the only role-playing game in From Software's stall, and the company's other ventures at the time included Otogi: Myth of Demons, Kuon, Armored Core: Nexus and Echo Night: Beyond. While the Japanese release of Shadow Tower Abyss continued as planned, the English version was cancelled during the localisation stage. Mark Johnson, Agetec's producer, announced the cancellation on the SCEA website and stated that "for the most part the localization was completed, aside from package and manual". SCEA was also worried at the game's visual quality in comparison with its contemporary rivals within the role-playing and first-person genres. Johnson went on to say that the cancellation was "by far the hardest thing for me to accept and I did everything possible to fight for its release". A petition to SCEA was unsuccessful. Instead, Agetec went on to publish one of From Software's other games, Echo Night: Beyond, in the United States in 2004. == Reception ==

The Japanese gaming publication Famitsu gave the game a score of 30 out of 40. ==Legacy==

In 2009, From Software revisited the dark fantasy role-playing genre with the critically acclaimed ''Demon's Souls on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). As with Shadow Tower Abyss, Demon's Souls'' centres on the collection of the souls of the dead as a means of developing the statistics and equipment of one's character. Also like Abyss, Sony once again declined to publish ''Demon's Souls'' overseas, and instead publishing rights for the American release were obtained by Atlus. While IGN reported that the game had sold out in Japan, with 39,689 units shipped during its first week, the game also fared well in the United States with 150,000 units sold by October 2009 and 250,000 by mid-March 2010. Given its overseas performance, Yeonkyung Kim, a Sony employee responsible for localisation, remarked that the company's decision not to publish world-wide was "a mistake", and ''Demon's Souls should have "come out as a first-party title". As the spiritual successor to Shadow Tower Abyss and the King's Field'' series, the game received multiple accolades, obtaining a Metacritic score of 89. ==References==