This works best early on - enemies move more methodically then, with a focus on swordplay over guns. Sword strikes are translated pretty well to directional movement during striking and drawing back, and holding a block also readies Lo Wang for a different kind of strike, leading to a decent variety of offensive options up close. That would be unfortunate, given that swordplay is the best thing Shadow Warrior has going for it. With the keyboard and mouse, this is easier, but you're getting a far less interesting sword-fighting experience than with a gamepad. You also need to successfully pull off the correct stick/trigger movement combo to make it happen, assuming you're on a controller. While this allows for similar momentum to other shooters that don't force you in search of health packs after a firefight or two, you still have to find space to cast your spell until you unlock the ability to take a hit and keep the spell moving. This move is fairly clever - instead of an automatically regenerating health bar, Shadow Warrior bridges the gap between modern design sensibilities with its mid-90s roots by tying health regeneration to a spell you receive early on. Lo Wang's got some decent katana skills, and as the game progresses, you'll earn points to unlock new active and passive abilities. Instead, Devolver Digital's point of distinction for Shadow Warrior is sword-based combat. While Shadow Warrior a packs first-person shooter-standard complement of guns, acquired at a slow but steady clip over the course of Lo Wang's dozen plus hour adventure, they're not much to get excited about. Watching the chronologically jumbled mix of memories and mysteries unravel drove me through the game's frustrating failure to capitalize on its mechanical strengths. Their characterizations and motivations borrow from various origin-of-the-world myths, from Chinese to Roman-era religions, and are easily the most consistently interesting parts of Shadow Warrior. There's a backdrop of cosmic pantheon politics behind Shadow Warrior's more immediate concerns - the demons' home dimension is in the midst of an epic family squabble involving a coterie of powerful forces. It's not the most inventive story, but there is, at times, more going on than a simple "idiot on a quest for absolute power for someone else" kind of tale. Shadow Warrior starts well, despite a main character named Lo Wang Dying of injuries, Lo Wang is forced to strike an ill-defined bargain of sorts with the spirit Hoji and sets off after the Nobitsura Kage and the demon army following it. Plans go in the direction of "force" pretty quickly from there, but things get weird when a demonic invasion kicks off and a magical construct flees with the sword. Lo Wang works for a crimelord in Japan and has been tasked with acquiring an ancient sword known as the Nobitura Kage from its current owner, whether by commerce or force. Shadow Warrior starts well, despite a main character named Lo Wang - a half-Chinese half-Japanese bundle of nerd fan-service and dick jokes, because wang. But Shadow Warrior can't quite manage to juggle its melee potential with its shooter framing, resulting in a game that feels like it could have been so much more than it is. 2013's Shadow Warrior eases up on the former, and commits more fully to the latter. The original game was very much of its era, predicated on Duke Nukem-style humor with a healthy dose of racist jokes to boot, but it also added melee combat to distinguish itself from its peers. Developer Flying Wild Hog's reboot/remake/reimagining of the 1997 3D Realms game has an odd collection of expectations and obligations to meet - or to ignore.
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