Shadow Warrior 3 - Review
The Shadow Warrior series began way back in 1997, but it was in 2013 that developer Flying Wild Hog and all-around weird specialists Devolver Digital got their hands on the licence and remade the game. This, as the name implies is the third entry in the series, though the fourth game overall, so the question is, does Lo Wang still have some fun adventures to enjoy, or is he better left in the past?
The first thing that you need to be aware of with this game is that it is direct continuation of the story that took place in Shadow Warrior 2, with Lo Wang and Zilla attempting to stop Kamiko from opening the Outer Gates, they fail and unleash a dragon. The game begins with Lo Wang attempting to explain to a mask how he attempted to stop the dragon and failed, now with his friends dead, his enemies dead and him being left alone, he has lost his mojo. But all is not lost as Zilla, the former billionaire first hired Lo Wang back in the first game, walks in to recruit him for one final mission to save the world and while he is hesitant at first, he does agree. After a little bit of explanation as to what is going on from Zilla, the pair are making their way towards Motoko, a witch who is going to use the remaining power from within the mask, that Lo was talking to, in order to attempt to kill the dragon. But as the spell begins, they discover that Hoji, Lo’s friend and a god, is still alive and connected to the mask, not willing to risk the death of his friend again, Lo steals the mask and makes a break for it. From that point there is an entire second story about the friends reconnecting, getting Hoji a physical form and more, but that is best discovered as you playthrough the game.
What is interesting is that the series was well known for some of the less, shall we say politically correct phrases, in the past and while some of the lines that Lo can say this time, could be taken the same way, most of them are more akin to pop culture references. Running around and shooting Yokai and hearing lines about enemies being knocked into a coma, may not be your thing, but they are represented in context of the actions, which is a welcome condition. As for the other characters, you end up spending more time with Hoji himself and while the pair have a love to hate each other relationship, the conversations that they do have, provide a sense that when all is said and done, they are really the best of friends. Zilla and Motoko on the other hand essentially go quiet after Lo makes off with the mask and you won’t hear from then again until the very end. Nothing is bad about that, but it just seems like a wasted chance to have them chime in every now and again. Overall, the story is decent, you are going to get a tale that has a clear start and end point, even if the start point began a few games back, but while it is not going to win any awards for its writing, it has fun with the characters and is entertaining.
On the gameplay side of things, there are essentially two distinct games being offered, the first and the one you have likely seen the most in any promo material, is the constant shooting of enemies. Almost all of those encounters take place with large arena-like locations, meaning that if you can see the arena coming, then you know you are in for a fight. The locations of these fights varies quite a bit, some of them are large and contain a plethora of levels to climb around on, some have the ability to swing out from one side and around to the other as well. And there are some that are filled with traps, that if you activate it at the right time, can decimate some of the enemies that have spawned in to take you down, the catch there though is if you get the wrong time, you can take the hit. The arenas themselves are not all that exciting, sure there are walls you can run along, but it is the enemies that become the most interesting as you progress through the game, by the time you enter your sixth arena, you have seen enough of those.
The enemy design is what makes those encounters fun, early on you meet the most basic design, a standard human looking Yokai, but pretty soon you will start to encounter some very larger foes and the difficulty ramps up from there. Each time you encounter a new enemy, the game has a fun little reveal of them, but going forward you have to be aware of which ones spawn around you, some of them can be quite deadly up close and others from a distance, so you have to keep moving around, in order to avoid taking any sort of hit, because some of the attacks can be quite dangerous to you. Lo Wang might be a fool at times, but he is a master with a sword, the game actually treats the sword as your best weapon, especially as you upgrade it, but while it is powerful, I found myself using the guns that he carries far more often. The guns are pretty average for the most part, a pistol, a shotgun and so on, but some of the later weapons that you pick up are quite different. Upgrading the weapons is something you will want to do, at least for the first level of each, as it lets you carry more ammo of each type, but honestly beyond that, I kept forgetting to do so, so it isn’t something you have to do.
Character upgrades are also possible, increasing the amount of health that you can have, enhancements to your Chi push and more, some of the upgrades occur as you progress through the world and find the orbs to pay for them, others can be obtained via completing challenges. The end result is that as you move through the game, you will constantly be earning points to upgrade yourself and your weapons, so the game is balanced in that regard. The times when it is not though, really only occur if you fail to take advantage of the sword you carry, because as you run out of ammo, there are ways to pick up some from the world, but those take time to respawn, but if you slice enemies with your sword, they act like pinatas and replenish, health, ammo and special attack juice. As long as you are making proper use of the arsenal that Lo has access to, you should be able to survive almost any encounter, even when the game does through a few dozen enemies at you, each with their own devastating attacks.
The special attack juice that I mentioned before, is basically as one hit kill for all enemy types and by the end of the game there are three levels to it. The first level is for the basic Yokai, those human sized ones and while you can insta kill them, a quick slash of the sword will mostly do the same as well, so it is wasted on them. The second level though, that is where the fun comes in, as you encounter more and more deadly Yokai, if you have a full gauge, you can unleash the insta kill and take them down. Doing this on any enemy, that isn’t the basic guys, will net you their weapon, letting you unleash a wave of devastation across all who would oppose you, this can turn the tide for many battles, especially if you pick up some of the long-range weapons. The downside to all of them though is two-fold, the first is that each time you enact one insta kill, the game basically comes to a halt, while you see the death animation play out, the first time it’s fine, the second time is entertaining, but by the 15th time, I don’t need to see the according enemy look sad as I am eviscerating them. The other part of that, is that basically stops the flow of the game, you can run around, zip line around, dash and slide and feel like liquid mercury, but the moment you hit that button, you stop in place. DOOM 2016 and its sequel had the same problem, but this takes that stop to an extreme and because some of those animations can be quite lengthy, it does grow tiresome quite quickly.
Speaking of quick, the second part of the gameplay is Lo’s ability to move around the place, I mentioned before that he can zip around now and that is because he obtains a rope launcher, letting him use special hooks to get around. When you are not in an arena fight, you are basically going to be running from place to place, jumping, wall-running and more. It is surprising how quickly Lo Wang can move around, when he has an ego as large as he does but move he does. There are some portions where you are limited to a platform that is moving on its own, or you are in constant motion because stopping means death, but with how fluid the movement options are here, it never felt like a chore.
On the presentation side of things, the game is really well done, at least when you can see things, because far to often the game is doused in so much blood, that it can get hard to spot the spectacular, but there are sometimes when nothing stops it from shining through. While the first game, at least the reboot, had Lo Wang looking more like an extra from the Matrix, here is has more personality, he has quirks in his face, that can provide a little more expression than other game characters get. Zilla and Motoko look fine, but as I mentioned earlier, we rarely get to see them, so it is hard to get a sense of just how nice they look and Hoji for the most part, is a mask. While the human, or human-adjacent characters look ok, it is the enemy design where things shine, from the giant troll looking Yokai, to the mole ones and the portable kitchen dude, they are all wonderfully designed. The locations themselves are also great, though they are mostly ruins with the whole end of the world thing, there is still a lot of detail to enjoy. One weird thing was with the cutscenes, as they were rendered externally from the game, there was a lot of compression in the video, which caused a lot of artifacting, especially in the darker shots, not a game breaking thing, but weird to see in a modern game.
The audio is a little different, from the performance side of things, Mike Moh does a great job as Lo Wang, but for long time fans of the series, hearing a different voice may feel weird. Alex Dobrenko is returning from the first game to voice Hoji, which is nice, but there are times when the voice is so quite that without subtitles on, it can be hard to hear what is being said. Andromeda Dunker and SungWon Cho as Motoko and Zilla, respectively do good jobs, but again for fans, hearing someone else voice Zilla may be a little weird. The only real issue I have the with dialogue, apart form some bad puns, is that the lines Lo calls out when he is killing enemies, do repeat, so you will hear them quite often and after hearing the same line more than a few times, it does get irritating.
The games soundtrack is interesting, it keeps the blend of modern rock, but spliced with Japanese elements and does a solid job at never getting in the way. When the action heats up, the music does as well, matching the intensity of the action on screen, the only problem, the fights require so much focus, that paying any attention to the music was the last thing on my mind. I really only noticed it was playing, when it would swap back to the calmer music that was played, once the fight was done.
Shadow Warrior 3 was a fun ride from start to end, it had some interesting story elements, even if some were predictable and while the characters that Lo Wang talks are rarely used to their full potential, when they do show up it is fun. The combat is the star though, it is fast and chaotic, but has layers of depth, that if you choose to embrace them, will reward you in turn and being able to whip out the sword at anytime is a move Lo Wang will always enjoy. If you are new to the series, it can feel a little like being throw into the end portion of an epic series, but even without knowing how the world got destroyed, there is still plenty to enjoy.
The Score
8.0
Review code provided by Devolver Digital
The Pros
+The end of a tale that started years ago, is satisfying for fans and newcomers alike
+Combat is fast, frenetic and perfectly balanced to keep you on your toes…
The Cons
-… though the insta kills that you can do, grind the game to a dead stop, while the animation plays out
-Some of the lines from the characters can be hard to hear, especially when the action is intense
