Hell of a Dame - Shadows of the Damned Review

Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture | Platform: PS3 |

Playtime: 9:35 | Platinum: 24:40

While corporate meddling has always been a problem, it feels like a long time ago where games in the AAA space were allowed to be games rather than thinly veiled money making schemes for executives. The PS3 era was a haven for the linear 10 hour game. Legendary video game Auteur Suda51 had a couple of these in as many years, both of which are seeing remasters this year. In honour of that and just wanting to play them, enjoy a two part pseudo series of reviews, starting with the first game – ‘Shadows of the Damned’

Shadows of the Damned has a story as simple as its premise – you are Demon Hunter Garcia Hotspur. Together with your ex-demon-now-skull-gun Johnson, you dive head first into hell to save your girlfriend Paula from the clutches of the Prince of Hell – Fleming. There’s very little else to it, which may sound like a negative point but it just means the game can focus on its action – of which there is a lot.

The game is carried by the banter between Garcia and Johnson. Despite Suda’s association with overly sexual content and let’s not pretend – Johnson is his partner’s name, the content here is more juvenile and silly rather than extremely graphic sexual that a demon setting could have been. There’s no dick monsters, Paula is only naked once. It’s oddly homoerotic at times, with a very funny scene talking about how hard a fellow demon hunter is.

I mention Paula, who is just a damsel in distress, I can’t argue that. I will argue that her appearances in various bits of lingerie are by design of the villain. Sure it’s “Mutually beneficial” for audience, designer and story alike, but I will say it never feels over the top. She’s scantily dressed and doesn’t actually get to say much at all but she’s never shown as anything other than the victim – she’s not enjoying what’s going on. Any further discussion would require its own article so back to gameplay.

The game is spread over 5 acts and 2-5 chapters within. Apart from three on rails 2D Shooting sections and a chapter based on tower defence of sorts, the game is squarely focused on the gameplay of getting from Point A to Point B, killing everything in your path. Shinji Mikami is credited with working on the game, and his influence can be felt in the gameplay as SotD plays like a faster Resident Evil 4, with the specific limb decapitations and the like. There’s not too much in the way of puzzles. As Garcia says “I fucking hate puzzles”. That’s not to say there isn’t anything, as there is - based around the games Darkness mechanic.

Similarly to Alan Wake, enemies can be coated in darkness - taking no damage from your weapons. To render them vulnerable, the player must use a light shot or a melee attack, freeing them up to be slain. Unlike the aforementioned Alan Wake, SotD doesn’t take ammo or resources to use these light shots - it certainly helps the games more action like feel. Enemies can return to Dark areas (which drain Garcia’s health) to get their shield back. The puzzle element comes in the form of switches that can only be activated from within the dark, and bleating goat heads that dispel the darkness in an area. The game manages to make good use of these mechanics, with it never being frustrating and always offering fresh scenarios. The enemy variety isn’t massive by any means, but there’s enough to keep things interesting. The end of each Act has a boss fight, and they’re all alright. Nothing particularly special honestly - they’re all designed around having big obvious weak spots.

You’ll be killing these enemies and bosses with one of three weapons - Pistol, Assault Rifle and Shotgun. After each chapter you would receive a Blue Gem, each of which upgrades one of the weapons to it’s next stage - the Shotgun gets a grenade like add on, the Assault Rifle gets lock on, the Pistol gets a sticky bomb. The former and latter are used for puzzles, strangely the Assault Rifle doesn’t.

I mention the guns getting upgraded at the end of each chapter, but there is also the normal upgrades. These upgrades are done via Red Gems, which you use to upgrade your health, weapon damage, capacity etc. These Red Gems can be found throughout the world or bought from the Merchant by using the normal currency of White Gems. I didn’t click at first, but the Merchant - a charming human/demon hybrid called Christopher - wears a backpack of lights. This is to fend off other demons, the same way the RE4 merchant has blue flames to keep the Plagas away. Just a little something I thought was neat.

This brings me to my one criticism - the game has a cool system where the Red Gems cost different amounts based on the difficulty. That’s fine, that’s not a problem. My problem is that the game doesn’t stack difficulties for trophies, meaning you need 3 playthroughs. I did a normal run, an easy run for all collectibles and then my final run being the hard run. I just wish the trophies stacked is all.

Over three playthroughs, I found myself enjoying the game more and more. It’s a simple game, straightforward and not too long but an incredibly fun experience. If the remaster fix some of the technical problems - stutter, freezing, texture pop-in then it will be a great pallete cleanser experience between the big releases at the end of the year.

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