"Swell." Nemlich to samé co West of Loathing pouze místo westernu se, alespoň tedy na papíře, jede v hávu klasického horroru; o tom však později. Dalo by se slovo od slova zopakovat vyřčené o předchůdci, a byla by to bezezbytku pravda i o následníkovi. Jedno zda by to bylo zrovna o kladech či záporech. Obojí je platné.

Tratí to, paradoxně, na zmíněném horrorovém hávu. Kde minule propojení "RPGčková parodie na westernový žánr" fungovala, tam nyní "RPGčková parodie na horrorový žánr" nefunguje. Ono se to totiž přetvařuje, jak se to ponese v poetice gotického horroru, aluzí na Lovecrafta, Poea apod. Jenže skutek utek. Jsou zde dílčí elementy zmíněného, nikoli všeobjímající pojetí, které by horrorový žánr protklo napříč celým titulem od mechanik po humory. Jmenovat se to West of Loathing 1.5: A Fleeting Forays Into the Horror Waters bylo by to příhodnější.

Že na titul, který hodnotím natolik kladně, kydám tolik negativ? No ano, ale nezapomeňte, že platí, že klady si to ponechalo. To znamená hravost, fenomenálně napsané texty, humor, který není na sílu, každá kapitola se hraje trochu jinak, skvělé objevování nepovinného obsahu (toho je tradičně více než "hlavní linie") a... A viz komentář u předchůdce.

Doufám, že autoři v sérii budou pokračovat. Ovšem ještě více doufám, že půjdou s oním konceptem ještě o krok dále a nebudou jen přešlapovat na místě. Protože ve zdejším podání přešlapování sice mrtě baví, ale potřetí by již nemuselo.

Sights & Sounds
- Honestly, the game isn't much to look at, but impressive visuals have never been the focus of KoL properties. That said, I've enjoyed the visual design since playing the original browser game back in high school in the early 00s
- It's actually impressive how much character and personality the devs were able to infuse into the game despite the simplistic visuals
- Music is pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but there was a decent variety that kept the game from sounding too stale

Story & Vibes
- True to the all entries in the series, the writing is once again creative, witty, and very amusing
- In that same vein, don't expect the game to take itself very seriously. The overall tone is intended to be humorous
- The story is very simple but serves as a nice framework for the rest of the game's writing. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You're going to be doing a lot of reading

Playability & Replayability
- The mechanics of the game will feel familiar to anyone who has played Kingdom of Loathing or West of Loathing. For those who haven't, it's a simplified 3-class turn-based JRPG
- There's also a lot of puzzles. Like A LOT of them. Some of them are pretty fiendishly difficult, but very satisfying to complete
- I'm definitely smelling a replay in the future, mostly because there's so much depth in the game in terms of exploration and hidden side quests. I feel like I touched on 60% of the game in my 20+ hour playthrough. Hell, I didn't even get an achievement until hour 14
- The only real knock on this game I can think of is the combat. It's shallow even by JRPG standards and begins to feel very stale even a few hours into the game. Enemies aren't spongy and I feel like the encounters are well-scaled (even skewing a bit easy), but all you'll ever be doing is spamming your most powerful skill and attacking to end your turn

Overall Impressions & Performance
- If you feel like solving some challenging puzzles and chuckling at your computer screen the whole time, this is definitly a game to put on your radar
- Playing this has really gotten me eager to go back and replay West of Loathing
- The "Deck Verified" rating is well-earned. It ran flawlessly the whole way through, but this shouldn't be surprising giventhe game's very light system requirements

Final Verdict
- 8.5/10. The humorous writing, devilish puzzles, and seemingly endless depth make this a game well-worth paying full price for. If the combat weren't such a chore, I would be recommending Shadows Over Loathing to everyone who likes RPGs. If you're a KoL fan or liked West of Loathing, buy with confidence

"A shadowy figure emerges from the corner of the website. It screeches, and shouts some incomprehensible gibberish at you. Upon further inspection you realize it's a wannabe backloggd reviewer, on account of the Vitamin D deficiency. How you can detect that by looking at it, who knows. In its hand you see a small book.
[TAKE THE BOOK] (Muscle 10)
YOU: Gimme' that.
You steal the book from its dainty hands with expectably low effort. It appears to be an English-GameReviewer Dictionary. It's mostly buzzwords and extreme takes. Not the worst thing you'll read today.
(You have gained the Dewtongue perk)
You explain to the book why Silent Hill 2 is an underrated masterpiece. It flees in horror.
The reviewer gets closer, this time with a small paper in hand. You take it and start reading."
Shadows over Loathing is the followup to West of Loathing, a comedy rpg… "You zone out, blocking out the reviewer nonsense and skipping ahead. Hope it gets good."
After four hours of my playthrough, something was bugging me. I wasn't enjoying it as much as its predecessor. Was it not as funny? Was it more tedious? Or was my memory playing tricks on me?
I booted up West of Loathing. "I'll play it for a bit. For science.", i thought.
Well, dear (potentially zero) readers, i was wrong. I come to you after finishing my second playthrough of West of Loathing, six years after my first. And i can say, with certainty, that Shadows over Loathing is a considerable step down from its predecessor.
The prologue is fun. The way it spreads out your character creation "diegetically" was pretty entertaining. And that's about it.
The crux of Shadows failure, like this very review, is pacing. Dialogues and narrative descriptions are longer. This bogs down the humor quite a bit, mainly because it can't maintain the snappiness of West. There are many merry japes to partake in, but more than a few get lost in the walls of text. The story and characters aren't any better either, so most of the text feels useless.
Combat falls prey to the very same problem. It's more complex than in West, but not any better. It simply takes more time to get through it, and much of that time you're not doing anything. In West you control your character and a Companion, with most of the weight of combat resting on your character. Shadow boasts parties the size of 4 creatures, cause that's how many they have. You, your companion, your familiar, and the ever opportune friendly spider join the fray to help defeat the not so lovecraftian menace. One of the problems is that you don't control the familiar or the friendly spider. And between them and the enemies, you spend most of combat looking at the game play itself which, while charming, isn't anything to write home about visually. Changing Action Points (the resource you spend to use your more powerful abilities) from a per combat resource to a per round one is a good choice, but it isn't followed up by any other interesting design choices.
The game is also way too broken up. The hub based world makes it feel disconnected; especially compared to West. A minor gripe, but a gripe nonetheless.
Character progression feels less impactful and, you guessed it, slower.
Quests follow the same progression style of West, but they take more time.
I could get into more specific examples, but then i would be a hypocrite. That would make it too long. And besides, i know none of you got this far. I see the reviews you upvote. I see the word count.
"You finish reading the review. Now you can be sure you won't read anything worse today.
The creature takes a step forward.
GAME REVIEWER: Everything taking too long!"