Let's Talk... Shadow Warrior

In recent times, with reboots of classic franchises haven’t all been exactly what fans were expecting, such as the classic strategy game Syndicate receiving an FPS reboot or XCOM getting a third person shooter (yes, I know Enemy Unknown was the real reboot). So I wouldn't expect many fans of the classic Shadow Warrior to accompany the idea of a Shadow Warrior reboot with strenuous groans, but thankfully, these pained fans will be happy to see that Shadow Warrior’s wacky and bloody mayhem shines through in this visually appealing reboot. I'm glad to say that Lo Wang is back and his blade is sharp as ever.

Shadow Warrior’s story is about nonsensical as its borderline cheesy title but tries to take itself a little too seriously at times, creating a misleading and confused tone. For a game that features a protagonist called Mr Wang who spurts out a dick joke every five minutes, the tone of the story just gets a little too serious at times as it slowly develops into a pseudo-dark tale of revenge and loss. The basis of the story is that you are seeking some all-powerful and unpronounceable sword to defeat the very bad man, or something to that extent. The story also goes on a little longer than it should and eventually out stays its welcome.

The story suffers from a confused tone as it tries to balance dick jokes and a dark story

Thankfully, Shadow Warrior’s irrefutably fun combat is able to redeem some of the game’s pretty obvious flaws. Slicing and dicing demons and watching their respective limbs fly off in all directions is wonderfully fun, and decapitating enemies with one of the dramatic moves is infinitely satisfying. However, the game’s limited set of guns feel too weak and dull to actually warrant using them, and although some of their upgrades make them more enjoyable to use they still fail to match the power of your trusty katana. For the first few hours I didn't mind pretty much solely using my katana, but the fun soon wears off and I found myself longing for another effective and fun weapon. Also, if you use the katana as much as I did you’ll quickly start to notice its lack of accuracy at times, and you’ll notice that uneven terrain easily messes up some of your special abilities.

I found the method of performing your special abilities to be fun and pretty unique; the game has you to input fighting game style commands to perform moves, with commands like D, D, RMB with keyboard and mouse settings to heal yourself. It felt fun and refreshing to have to use these sorts of combos, but my sheer ineptitude at completing them successfully made a little frustrating and often a bit of scramble during combat, to the point where it was easier to simply not use them. Besides, some of the abilities feel weak and severely lacked impact anyway so I didn't feel a necessity to actually use them. Also, all weapons have an alt fire which does make them much more effective and usually much more fun, too.

There's a reasonably complex progression system that uses three different currencies

However, don’t expect the rest of Shadow Warrior’s gameplay to hold up to the standard of its combat because unfortunately it just doesn't  Repetitive and unengaging boss fights segregate each fairly lengthy chapter of the game, whilst the very “old school” tactic of find the key to proceed fills every other area of the game. This would be fun if it didn't just descend into a sprawling nightmare of clumsy navigation and endless backtracking thanks to the game’s lack of a map or mini-map. Not to mention the game’s frustrating abundance of pointless maze-like corridors and endless bamboo forests, just to make it even easier to get lost. Admittedly, getting lost will sometimes lead you to secret areas and hidden money and ammo, but money is in easy to find anyway and it isn't difficult to eventually max out your weapons without having to explore all that deeply and many of the secrets offer very little reward other than base satisfaction.

Level design has a nice variation to it, with settings varying from luscious bamboo forests to snowy landscapes, but often evokes a sense of being linear whilst trying to give the impression of being a larger and much more open game. Although there are some secrets hidden around the world, the world looks like it should have far more, with many hidden paths leading nowhere. Whilst the game isn't full of tight corridors in the typical sense, the game is basically just a chain of medium sized arenas that still manage to create a sense of limiting claustrophobia. However, much of the world looks great and the game features some gorgeous set pieces.

Weapons are decently varied but they all feel weak compared to the katana

Some excellent visual design, especially considering the reasonably low budget, makes the game look pretty great throughout, although I personally had a few performance issues and frame rate drops as well as some major graphical glitches. Sound design is generally pretty good, the voice acting is pretty average all round and some of the guns sound weak and lack impact. The controls work well, but they’re fully re-bindable so there aren't any issues there. One thing that I did appreciate, however, was that unlike some of the reboots of classic franchises we've seen in recent times, be it from Kickstarter or simply popular demand, Shadow Warrior is very faithful to the original 1997 Shadow Warrior and was a ton of references and nods towards the original game.