How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

I think about it plenty. Largely thanks to games like this being my bread and butter in my formative years. Was this irresponsible on my parent's part? Probably not, but I'm thankful for that. When I started playing this in 2024, I was worried that it wouldn't have aged well and that I was a spectator in my blissfully biased youth. I'm over the moon that isn't the case.

Narratively, the game is a 2005-era PS2 game, wherein you play as two characters, one with stealth-focused gameplay and the other with heavy combat focus. It has shoddy voice acting and laughably bad dialogue, which adds to the game's charm.

The game stumbles through one of the characters' stealth-focused gameplay. However, thankfully, the game's AI is potato-brained, and you'd have to try hard to find yourself stuck in any area for too long. That said, the different gameplay suits the narrative well and never feels like it drags on.

The Colosseums are where the game truly shines, though, with various modes to keep the player engaged, such as the arenas being littered with traps, different rules to each match, whole-ass chariot races, and even fighting elephants and lions. The game has a reward system wherein you complete feats such as dismembering your opponent to gain crowd praise, like a Devil May Cry-esque Style Meter, where you're rewarded with weapons and health. Through this system, the game actively encourages you to mix up your fighting style to get maximum points. Thanks to this, I was rewarded for thinking out of the box in ways such as slicing an enemy's arm off and beating them to death with it or breaking all the bones in their arms so they can't use any weapons.

Towards the end of the game, it doesn't quite hit the heights of the middle section of the story; however, it finishes strongly with me thinking about future replays.

TL;DR: Game fucks.

An alternate history heightened reality retelling of Julius Caesar’s death with capcom anime shit? And you play as both Agrippa and Augustus in different gladiator games and stealth puzzle sections? YAY!

I really like the combat in this game. It’s so ahead of it’s time that it’s still ahead of our time. Cutting off your enemy’s limbs and picking up said limbs and beating them to death with it is fun and all, but try german suplexing an enemy into a pit of spikes or a pit of fire or into a tiger. Breaking arms, toying with them til they beg for mercy on their knees and then decapitating them and showing their head to the cheers of your adoring audience. The audience in the gladiator parts was sick, because it’s like a gameplay mechanic that ties into the DMC style meter this game has. You keep your meter high, and you do a taunt, the audience will throw you weapons or food for healing. Certain tricks get you more points on the meter, and they can get really specific and they have fun names. Yes, the names are fun. There’s one for letting a female enemy stomp on you repeatedly. I looked that one up. I swear I didn’t do that ingame. Lol.

The different modes can get VERY intense, and many times I actually screamed out loud like a caveman upon finishing a level. They also just added a chariot mode that completely changes everything, used it for like 5 missions and dipped. Games like this just used to do shit for funsies, yknow? I’m sure theres some funsie parts in new games that i haven't played but i bet they were like “yo we should do chariots” “that sounds sick lets do it.” The boss fights are also all super unique and fun, mostly the ones in the gladiator games. Cause the ones outside there’s no audience to throw you cheese. But the non audience ones happen near the end so you’ll be big and strong.

The stealth is very hit or miss and it’s mostly miss. It usually has a very specific and obvious predetermined path you gotta take, it’s linear, the guards are braindead, but there’s something really special about this stealth that I haven't seen in any game, really. This does have a simple hitman-style disguise system, and this game does the suspicion/enforcer mechanic better than ANY hitman game. These words come outta my mouth like sandpaper but I got to give flowers where flowers are due. Sometimes when you’re disguised, say, as a soldier. And you pass another soldier, he isn’t just gonna do the absolution onward thing of being an enforcer and seeing through your disguise immediately. He will be suspicious and ask you a question. They can be something personal, making an awareness check on the player, or on rare occasions just a quiz on roman history lol. Depending on your answer you could talk your way out of it, raise the suspicion meter, or just give away your identity. I thought that was so involved and fun. This one time, you’re disguised as a thief and you’re trying to go past, but this guy won’t let you, even if you’re disguised. I saw one of the thieves had a facemask and I knocked that one out and took it. When I went back he thought I was him, and let me through. I thought I made it til I heard the “WAIT.” That’s what guards say when they wanna ask you a question. But he just called out and said “be careful, okay?” I’m very glad I only just knocked out the mask guy because these two must be very very close friends.

This game’s approach to stealth seems almost pranky and mischievous. Sometimes you need to access an area that’s off limits to you, and you have to distract the guard. There are some hilarious puzzles you need to do, like throwing an apple at a guard and framing some innocent apple eating bystander and getting the guard to chase the innocent apple eating bystander. There’s more but I won't go into it. Oh, one more thing, this game’s slipping mechanic is so funny. There’s banana peels and jars of liquid you can smash that leave a slippery spot. For some reason if you yourself slip on it, then you’ll fall and get back up instantly. Guards, however, get knocked out. So this one time I just smashed a honey jar by a doorway, got myself spotted, and waited til they all ran in and slipped and fell. I just realized this about myself but I love prankster stuff. My favourite movie is dirty work, my favourite show is impractical jokers, my favourite game genre is stealth, which i guess is evil pranks. Something this reminds me of is neighbours from hell, where you sneak around a guy’s house and just do stuff to him. You hide in his closet and wait til he goes to the bathroom and get an egg from his fridge and put it in the microwave or on his chair. And in the sequel he goes on vacation and you fuck with him on there too. If anyone has prank game recommendations let me know.

This game also has a small bunch of hub worlds that you can go to between big missions. In the market you can buy random shit for Octavian’s room, stuff like rugs and dartboards and tables and couches and tigers and maids. There's the forum where the civilians gather and you can do fun stuff. Idk. There’s fun stuff to do. I'm gonna talk about the story now.

The story is really funny. Classic 2005 bad voice acting, half naked female side character, (tbf the male protag has no shirt or pants for most of the game so she's actually more clothed than he is) and I really liked how it took itself seriously and how well the cutscenes were directed, so it was always engaging. Even if the story wasn’t great. I love Agrippa's dumb ass just kind of standing there awkwardly while other characters are crying cause he doesn't know how to interact with people all he knows is punching. He also punches boulders in this so i'm glad capcom's got a history of that. Octavian is an anime final fantasy twink boy that you can put in a maid dress which makes me mad how accurate it is. Isn't it crazy that in real life, my man had to do his business at nights because older women would just harass him all the time? this was before he became emperor and he was emperor at 19 so this is kind of creepy. NOT COOL ANCIENT ROMAN PREDATORS!!! Next, I’m glad to say there is a dmc1 LIIIGHT moment in this! I wont say when or where so just play it and find out!

Anyways the sequel to this got turned into dead rising, which i still need to finish. But honestly I kind of wish this got a sequel anyways. There’s a lot of cool stuff that's yet to happen. And they set up some stuff for another one. Maybe they could’ve done a mix, shadow of rome 2: dead rising. We only ever see zombie apocalypses in modern day with AKs and hospitals and tanks. What if there were zombies in ancient rome? Anyone ever thought of that? They should do that. But zombies in a mall does fulfill my dawn of the dead fantasy. So I guess I’m fine with it.

THE END!

Capcpom Chrornicles ~ # 4 ~

Never forget that Agrippa was considered for Tatsunoko vs Capcom

A middling combination of a 1v1 Roman gladiator inspired arena action combat recontextualized with Capcom's patented Stylish Action (or Character Action if you prefer) and stealth game that unfortunately is lesser than the sum of its parts. There are some interesting highs in there, but it's best remembered as a curiosity in Capcom's Bizzaritorium of the late sixth generation / early seventh generation of console gaming where they tried to hard to make games look / feel like Western developed games but ended up being uniquely Japanese in their design. With that in mind I can certainly see the appeal for History nerds, as there is more than just lip service to keystone events of the Roman Republic referenced here.

I can see myself picking this up again in a couple of years or so after looking at my shelf and going "oh yeah, that game," maybe a second playthrough when I'm even more lenient on games than I am now it will grow on me a bit.

So... why is this game not talked about more? It's one of the best action games on the PS2 - hell, one of the best games for the system period. And it's made by Capcom even!

The combat looks simple on the surface but there is a real depth to it, every little input you make matters and you won't get anywhere if you try to button mash. The mechanic that rewards you for performing different actions in battle is great, keeping you from just doing the same trick over and over. There is good variation in the gladiator levels and the difficulty ramp-up is almost perfect. Gitting gud at this game is really damn satisfying.

The story is quite enjoyable and engaging for what it is, a pretty silly and exaggerated alt-history tale of the assassination of Caesar and the final days of the Roman republic before turning into an empire, full of imaginative takes on historical figures and events. Think of it as something that you could find in some pulpy comic book.

There are a couple of flaws, the most infamous being the stealth levels jammed in between the action levels sticking out like sore thumbs. While the boss fights are fun, some will make you feel From Software-levels of satisfaction upon completing them (the final chapter of the game is pretty much an epic gauntlet of boss fights) - most of them are won by utilizing the same strategy, unlike the regular gladiator levels.

Shadow of Rome is one of the hidden gems of a console whose library is chock-full of hidden gems. Can't recommend it enough to anyone into a good action brawler!

Fun game, one of the best set in the Roman Empire. I'd like if the game taught you better the different moves or combos (example: you can roll/dash an attack if you press X just before it connects), although it's also fun to discover and learn this stuff by your own, but sometimes I did something cool and had no clue how.

The stealth sections are ok, a lil palate cleanser, but they slow the pacing way down. I think these sections exist solely for the purpose of telling the story, which is nothing to write home about. Also, I believe there's too many cutscenes, some where cool tho. I don't know if this would sound odd, but this game really feels like a Capcom game. This is the predecessor of Dead Rising by the way, at least mechanically (the movement, the combat, weapon durabilty system, you heal eating food, text box)

Ultimately a good game, is fun, very brutal and violent which fit the gladiator vibe. I wish existed a game kinda like this, but only centered around the colosseum fights. I'd love that. I don't know if it's an underrated game but at least is a game that deserves to be better known than it is.

*Abandoned because I had to re-do one of the final sections of the game and got lazy, since I already beat this when I was younger and that section felt reaaaally tedious