The new and the old combine in this reimagining of the '90s era shooter. The mix of retro arena style action and modern sensibilities makes for a solid game even if it doesn't live up to the titles of yesteryear it is trying so hard to bring back fond memories of. Dated graphics and random loading screens that occur when playing the game keep it from being amongst the more technically impressive games on the system.

The best thing this new incarnation of Shadow Warrior borrows from it's inspirations is the more open level design. It allows for combat to move at a more frantic and chaotic pace complete with destructively satisfying results. It even opens up the occasional side paths with hidden secrets just like back in the day. You have a nice selection of weapons at your disposal. I was particularly impressed with how well the melee combat is handled. This is something the FPS genre has struggled with for years outside of a handful of noteworthy titles. Yet, Shadow Warrior makes the katana one of the most enjoyable and effective tools in your arsenal.

While all of this does give the game something of an old-school feel the nostalgia that would otherwise be there is offset by the linear level design that funnels you from one combat encounter to the other with only the occasional opportunity to secret hunt in between. The game also goes for a more modern approach with it's storytelling as well. While I personally found the plot boring I did appreciate how the developer tried to do something with more depth than one would expect from a game like this. The original Shadow Warrior's personality is something Flying Wild Hog tried to recapture, only more politically correct. While I got the occasional chuckle from the fortune cookies scattered throughout the game, I found protagonist Lo Wang and his demonic sidekick Hoji to be more annoying than humorous.

The biggest flaw though is the length. Believe it or not Shadow Warrior is a little too long. The later levels feeling like padding as they have you fighting the same enemies in repeated or identical feeling environments over and over again ad nauseam. The worst offender is chapter 13 which seems to go on forever with no end in sight. While the action stays fresh throughout and the stages at the very end of the game change things up enough to inject some new life into the experience right before the credits roll, I was ready for Shadow Warrior to end quite a bit sooner than it actually did.

Flying Wild Hog's modernized version of of the 3D Realms title is worth a look for those who miss the days of Doom, Duke Nukem, and the like. It doesn't reach the same heights and has some noticeable issues, but can still provide a unique experience in a time where every other FPS wants to take the Call of Duty and Battlefield route thanks to it's throwback style. It's bloody combat can be an absolute blast. Especially thanks to an upgrade system that will grant you with new abilities and weapon power ups. It's the one modern addition I couldn't have done without and allowed for the inclusion of a new game plus option. It may not blow you away, but at least it's able to stand out from the pack.

7.5/10

Game #69: Shadow Warrior

If there was a rating between 7-8, I definitely would give it to Shadow Warrior. Gunplay is meh but using the katana is really fun. If this game was shorter or had more gun/sword upgrade options, it would have been a masterpiece.

7/10

Not a terrible game, but certainly not as good as I recalled. The melee feels fun and fluid to use, until you've spent half the game slicing up the same enemies because the gunplay is extremely flaccid. Any encounter that necessitates pulling out a firearm just causes any fun to immediately come to a full stop, just like the aggressively shitty boss fights. It's a fun enough game but really everything after the halfway point is just an immensely steep drop in enjoyment, and the game just keeps dragging on and on. It's worth a single playthrough, especially at the price one can find it at, but I can see why I've never replayed it till now.

This game makes much more sense if you have played Hard Reset before (I played it after). It shows the failed evolution of a studio which brought in another uninspired setting, upgraded the graphics, while the gunplay is still awful. Both because of the lack of recoil or any effects and the enemies being bullet sponges, it feels tedious to even try to use them. Once again, melee is the solution (makes sense, epic katana action) but in contrast to Hard Reset, it gets so powerful it's just too easy, and you don't have many options besides just running to the nearest enemy and killing it. Also le whacky humor haha hihi.

Plays just like the beloved 3D Realms classics (Painkiller and Bulletstorm) except with less novelty/variety, but now there's three different upgrade menus requiring three different currencies full of exciting choices ranging from +10% damage against lesser demons to weapon alt-fires necessary to make them actually worth using. Lo Wäng being a kooky and salacious old man constantly flinging out action movie one-liners or pure puerility is unacceptable in The Current Day, hence why he was upgraded into a kewl young self-aware & hip d00d who collects comic books and exchanges smarmy quips with the Borderlands 2 character demon possessing him. The most impressive part about this Hard Reset total conversion mod is how much it blatantly inspired DOOM 2016, down to the secret retrö areas that're there to remind you of the titular game you would be better off replaying for the dozenth time, but at least in this they aligned the old textures correctly.

A hot take of mine is that the first (specifically only the first) Shadow Warrior reboot is very good. So much that I like it equally as much as the original Shadow Warrior. Sure, Lo Wang's character was sanitised political correctness etc etc, but ultimately those elements are superficial to the actual gameplay experience.

While some level designs are janky and most larger enemies/bosses are way too spongy especially on higher difficulties, the gunplay and weapons in Shadow Warrior are excellent, and mixing up your ranged attacks with dash moves and melee attacks with your katana doesn't get old. Shadow Warrior 2013 is in my opinion an underappreciated reboot that did a lot of the same stuff that people (rightfully) praise Doom 2016 and Eternal for long before either of those games were released.

Eh?

I haven't touched this one in years because my memories of it aren't that great. I remember there were a few weapons that were fun to play around with, the sword was a blast to use, I liked a lot of its humor, and the ending felt surprisingly poignant for a game that spends half its runtime making jokes about rabbits humping each other. But at some point, it became a bland mish-mash of frustrating enemies, uninteresting levels, and me looking up a walkthrough because I didn't know where to go next.

Maybe it's better than I remember it being? I do remember not totally grasping everything that was in the game and did cheat to unlock all of the upgrades because I was too bored to find them myself. But honestly, I don't care enough to find out myself by this point.

Three stars.

Finally got around to finishing this after getting 80% through and stopping due to frustration with difficulty.

A truly solid, fun romp through Japan and the shadow realm as you do battle with yakuza and demons as lovable (but certainly not affable) hitman Lo Wang. As trigger-happy wise-cracking douchebags go, Wang is surprisingly endearing, thanks in part to his buddy road-movie dynamic with Hoji, his reluctant partner in crime and guide through the shadow realm.

The game's comedy is definitely hit and miss, though thankfully the ratio favours the former more than the latter with great banter and cheesy puns. That being said, there are certainly only so many times one can hear Wang-related puns before screaming "WE GET IT, WANG IS ANOTHER NAME FOR PENIS" at your monitor.

Length-wise, the game drags in the middle section and could have done with some cutting and fine-tuning here and there. Platforming sections also were a constant source of frustration, with unreliable jumps and tricky terrain to navigate.

That being said, Shadow Warrior is still a grand ol time with an unexpectedly solid story and great characters backing it up.

7.5/10

Honestly, I'm feeling somewhat drained from playing this game, much like my experience with Doom yesterday. The constant search for keys to unlock doors and the repetitive combat, where I ended up relying mostly on a sword, have left me feeling weary. Additionally, the lack of variety in enemies, especially the absence of mini-bosses or other challenges, contributes to the monotony.

And don't even get me started on the mobs in the final stage – what's up with that?

The only aspect that I find truly enjoyable is the witty banter and humor exchanged between Lo Wang and Hoji. Their interactions add a refreshing touch to an otherwise lackluster experience. Surprisingly, when the story takes a more serious turn, it actually becomes less engaging, further dampening my enthusiasm for the game.

This game is why we need writing/gameplay separation in our discourse. The writing is, simply put, shitty. The gameplay, on the other hand, is fast, fluid, satisfying, violent, at times silly, and all in all, agressively fun.

The game's vast arsenal of weapons, while mostly standard, also features a katana: a surprisingly effective melee weapon and arguably the most striking innovation of the game. Each slash is accompanied by streams of blood, fleshy sounds, sometimes even the occasional severed limb. The other weapons are all also great in their own right, with their own powerful sounds and satisfying effects. In the department of Game Feel, the developers did a great job.

The gameplay flow also (mostly) works - enemies swarm in from everywhere, each one presenting a different challenge in battle, creating a game loop similar to the "Combat Chess" principle that'd later be introduced by DOOM. At every second, the player is confronted with the question of what enemy to prioritise, and with what weapon.
This system, however, does come with its fair share of criticisms: boss battles feel sluggish and slow, the black golem enemy is frustrating and boring, and the protagonist's "powers" swing wildly in effectiveness: three of them are either useless or really situational, while the first one, the healing spell, is ludicrously more important than the rest, breaks the flow of combat by forcing the player to pause and heal every so often and reduces the game's difficulty by giving the player the ability to flee and heal up at almost any time. DOOM's approach to healing with its Glory Kills would've worked way better here.

Finally, there's the writing. Admitedly, it does kind of fit the gameplay - the gameplay is silly and over-the-top, the writing is silly and over-the-top. The problem is, while the gameplay is fun, the writing is cringy, unfunny, childish, and also, weirdly dissonant - just after hearing a joke about condoms in teenager's purses, for example, there'll be an emotional scene with a character sacrificing themselves. It just doesn't work for me.

Still, do I recommend Shadow Warrior? Well, yeah, I do. The story is annoying and skippable, but honestly, it's the least important part of a game like this. This game definitely took a page from DOOM, and it seems to perfectly echo its creators' words - "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."