The Tower on the Borderland [Review]
The Tower on the Borderland is surreal, gritty, lo-fi survival horror.
The Tower on the Borderland. Credit: DascuMaru
DascuMaru’s The Tower on the Borderland is a mysterious and surreal survival horror experience. It combines a lot of inspirations—Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Oni, Killer7, and perhaps more— to create something compelling and unique, with warts that are part of the charm.
Erin is a special ops soldier on a mission to investigate a strange Tower with her team. As a rookie, she’s left on the first floor to manage communications. When she loses contact with the team and goes to investigate, she finds four of the soldiers—now wearing strange animal masks—performing a ritual with a sinister priest after having murdered their comrades. They throw Erin off the tower, only for her to wake up and find she’s now trapped. Now she must stop the ritual from being completed before the priest is able to summon a great evil and find a way to escape the purgatory that is the Tower on the Borderland.
You’ll explore the tower in third person perspective, with a camera that isn’t locked over your shoulder. Erin can run, dodge, shoot, melee with a knife, and climb. You can crouch, but the only purpose it serves is as a button modifier so you can heal, swap guns, throw a grenade, or use your radio.
The Tower on the Borderland. Credit: DascuMaru
You have a limited number of heals and bullets; they can only be refreshed when you rest at a save point, but when you do so all enemies will also respawn. Finding dead members of your team either grants new weapons (such as the assault rifle) or an increase in your carry limit for heals, ammo clips, or grenades.
The entire game takes place in the Tower, a huge structure with many floors that connect with single-story elevators. It was very easy to get lost until I figured out that the tower is circular. Once you begin opening up some shortcuts, it gets easier to navigate. At one point, I spent a half hour running around because I couldn’t figure out where to go next, until I finally returned to a location that triggered a radio message that moved the story forward and unlocked an elevator. I appreciate the minimalism, but do wish there were some map waypoints during key moments in the game.
The Tower is full of monsters—humanoid golems (some armed or armored), giant moths and spiders, demonic insect chimeras, and zombified soldiers from Erin’s squad. There’s a decent amount of variety, and most creatures require slightly different strategies to fight. The boss fights are memorable multi-phase encounters with Erin’s traitorous squadmates that feel different to fight than any of the normal enemies in the game. All of them feel epic and there was only one I found frustrating.
The Tower on the Borderland. Credit: DascuMaru
Combat is a clunky, janky affair, both to the game’s detriment and credit. It can be frustrating but it’s part of the era-authentic charm. Using the knife is essential because of the ammo limits; dodging is essential because the invulnerability window will let you avoid most attacks as long as you time it right. The feel is a bit floaty and can be unpredictable, though. You need to lock on to enemies, otherwise it’s impossible to hit them with a gun or with the knife after dodging causes you to reorient yourself. Even then, the camera can get in the way of success. Enemies aren’t that difficult, but they’re plentiful and hit hard. Fortunately, you only need to kill all of them in areas near elevators or upgrades.
The Tower on the Borderland is presented in a low poly PSX-inspired visual style. Environments are all grey with little geometric detail, with the exception of some grassy areas, plants, and crates. Atmospheric perspective and occasional pink lighting gives the world a sense of depth. The Tower is clearly ancient, but elevators, streetlamps, and other modern fixtures seem to have grown in almost like vines or weeds to join the ancient statues that litter its halls, making it feel like a living place. The effect is very surreal; the visuals and the cryptic nature of the game’s story reminded me a bit of Suda51’s Killer7. The creature and boss designs stand out with striking silhouettes. Erin’s character design isn’t quite as good, unfortunately.
The Tower on the Borderland. Credit: DascuMaru
I had a great time with the game. I completed it in around eight hours, missing just one of the optional collectibles. At first I thought I missed out on a different ending, but the developer has confirmed that the game only has a single one. It made me want a followup to explore some of the game’s more mysterious aspects, particularly around the Tower’s seeming ability to reshape itself and Fleming, an ominous, skull-faced stranger that tells Erin the parallel story of an ancient, shrouded knight that once climbed the Tower in the past. The Tower clearly has a long history that should be explored in a future game.
The Tower on the Borderland will be available for PC on Steam on May 20, 2024.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
