Shadow Warrior 2 review: Prepare for a tsunami of stupid – but the fun won’t last forever. In a way, the 2013 reboot worked because it brought back the retro shooter style at a time when. It may seem like the bad outnumbers the rad but Shadow Warrior 2013 is a fun ride as long as you’re not looking for the next blockbuster game. The reboot is great for taking out the day’s. Shadow Warrior review: six-demon bag. By Arthur Gies on October 09, 2013 at 3:30pm. 2013's Shadow Warrior eases up on the former, and commits more fully to the latter. At first, anyway.

To Demon Slaying! (cont.)

Character progression is loosely tree-based. Power boosts come in a number of different flavors, from the self-explanatory Protection tree to the crowd-control-based Flux, but only a small handful of choices are available in each. The total amount of powers is impressive but choosing between one tree and the next felt less meaningful than it should. Your choices make a difference in battle and absolutely bolster your preferred playstyle, but therein lies the rub. Very little exists in Shadow Warrior's skill trees to incentivize trying something new. Choosing abilities from each path just doesn't feel that interesting. Rather than explore and test new ideas, you are more likely to stay with what you enjoy and simply make yourself better at it.

Presentation and Polish

The presentation of the game is slick. Over its twelve hour campaign, you will travel through some of the most colorful, varied levels seen this year. I am a sucker for over-saturation and Shadow Warrior has it in spades. Enemies are also well-varied. They look great and some of the bosses are downright astounding. The graphics might not compare with the latest and greatest but they are certainly pretty and easy to enjoy. This is all bolstered by some quality voice acting from Lo Wang and his pet demon Hoji. Even the menu system, something which usually only stands out in a bad way, impresses with an uncharacteristic amount of polish.
For players looking for added replayability, Shadow Warrior continues to deliver. Two additional gameplay modes come packed with the game, including EX Mode and Heroic Mode. The first allows you to restart the campaign with all of your unlocks and upgrades in tow making you a veritable killing machine right from the start. The second, Heroic Mode, is the now expected new game plus option which increases the difficulty substantially.

The Devil is in the Details

So where does the game fall short? The long and short of it is that combat begins to feel repetitive before even halfway through due to an overemphasis on the katana and too many samey enemies. The guns in the game pale in comparison, and it seems evident that sword play was what this game was designed for. The sword is tight, varied, and personal. By comparison the other weapons feel, well, rote. Blowing up lesser demons with grenade blasts and crossbow bolts is ticklishly fun but is also familiar. The katana is unique and a shining example of what Shadow Warrior does right, but even with its multiple attacks, you can only cut down so many enemies before they start to blend together. The sword-game is strong enough to remain fun but by the end feels a bit played out.
The motion of combat can also be problematic, especially when using the sword. Lo Wang moves startlingly fast, even when he is not sprinting. When he does rush, it feels almost too fast, like he has been given super speed. Time and again I found myself getting hung up on bushes and boxes, or accidentally stuck in a corner because I over compensated when dodging enemy attacks. The direction-based special moves add to this problem. With so many enemies and both ranged and close quarters attacks coming all at once, precision movement is important. This too-fast (sometimes jerky) pace of movement frequently undermines this need.

Final Thought

Shadow Warrior is the reboot nobody seemed to ask for but we are lucky to have gotten anyway. The game is good, bloody fun, and a bloody good time. Shadow Warrior retains the simplicity of its 1997 roots in its kill-many-enemies approach but adds the depth of a 2013 first-person shooter. Guns feel under-developed compared to the katana, this much is apparent, but the rapid exchanges of blade, spell, and trigger work well to create a continually fun experience, even if it becomes a tad repetitive. The super-fast pace of movement and the direction key-based attacks take some getting used to. At times they can even feel clumsy, but also provide the game with a unique feel all its own. At forty dollars,

Shadow Warrior 1

Shadow Warrior

Shadow Warrior 2

pushes the lines of acceptability for an indie game, but it also offers an experience that is high on fun and rich in content. Even if you only come for the gore, you are likely to find much more to keep you playing long after you expected to stop.