Shadow Warrior Review (It's a me Mario :D)
A truly back to the franchise roots remake!
Shadow Warrior(2013) feels so right weather you're stepping into Lo Wang's boots as a first timer or revisiting as a faithful fan! I can say with confidence this remake offers an amazing time for both players.
Finished it initially years ago and revisiting it twice, in 2021 and at the moment of writing my review.
I don't have a strong connection with the original title, though i casually finished couple of stages and i really liked it(unfortunately i remember having a problem with the mouse sensitivity which split in x and y axis and for some reason same amount didn't amount to the same cursor movement).But this title has its own spirit and personality.
You're either gonna love or hate Wang, the series protagonist a yakuza guy with some of the funniest yet cliche catch phrases.
The combat really grasped me early on as I had never experienced such a smooth combination of first person Katana sword play with your typical Doom gun arsenal.It feels so smooth and right like free styling with your mouse and keyboard.Can't emphasize how smooth it feels,with the unfortunate exception of the revolver gun.No matter how precise i'd be the crosshair felt off and shoots were either missed or didn't get them sweet headshots.But anyways perfect stereotypical arsenal of chaos with surprisingly awesome sub actions for each gun(f.e. i loved the crossbow which shot bolts which higher damage output the more charged or secondary explosive ones).
Moving on graphics really hold on for today's standards and it's a treat playing it in high resolution/ high refresh rate.It runs very easily and without any graphical or performance issues on my ancient computer.
Audio engine is well made with clarity and good spacial separation.Gotta love the opening song "You've got the touch"
Story is fine i guess tries hard to make you invested and does it's best with what it's got.Unfortunately if you tried SW2 or the latest installment, the series have taken very different takes with each release.
My only big complaints would be the following ones:Trying to finish it on insane difficulty the Boss fights are ridiculously repetitive and to make matters worse high difficulty=more bullet sponge bosses with proves to be a huge turn off for my max difficulty run.
And a minor second annoyance of mine is that hero mode for example which is like an arcade version of the game with 1 death allowed per stage of story is a pain to go through the first stages with the into stuff and lack of skills.
Oh also the dash sometimes even with a small height gap can prove lethal,which is a huge deal breaker for these game modes.
All in all I don't think any game made me wanna replay it more than 2 times!The replayability is there which proves how fun the game feels and plays.And it's lengthy campaign around 15 hours if I recall well,that will get your moneys worth putting to same the latest title in the series which has a 5 hour campaign(very well paced and fun as well to be honest) but at full price...