Shadows: Awakening

I find this game somewhat difficult to review, and really wish there was a ‘meh’ thumbs sideways option on steam once again. Part of this is caused by my own biases and issues with the genre, and to be honest I don’t want to hold that against the game. Since I use these reviews as a sort of diary of the games I have played, and to inform my own framework for tastes and future games I will go into these issues however. I shall therefore break it down into 3 areas, how the game generally is in isolation, how it functions as a sequel to Kult Heretic Kingdoms, and then my own issues with the game and the genre it sits in. Shadows Awakening is a game I’d come across via a click4gameplay video on obscure and forgotten RPGs, on both the first game in the series, Kult, and on Shadows Awakening, which functions as a remake of the follow up Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms and the sequel/second half of that game. I really enjoyed the dark fantasy story of Kult and had been looking forward to playing the sequel, so grabbed it in the recent summer sale. In isolation, this is a fine enough game, and while I am not an expert or a real fan of the genre, if you are an isometric action RPG fan who has…

This one should be a mixed. It's not a bad game, bad it doesn't do anything particularly good. The combat is clunky, your character will hit but the enemy is too far, and instead of your character walking, it stops in place and starts to hit. The story is meh, it gets better middle way through, but I was already not interested at that point. There isn't a real sense of progression, you level up, put points on your skills, and the same enemy that in the begging of the game would take 3 hits, continues to take 3 hits. There are some light choice and consequence, but I did no bother to reply. The big difference is that you can play with all classes instead of sticking with only one, but none of them fells any good. The items are weird, the "rarity" is based on essence, that you find through out the game, so every item can be a legendary one, making every item you find kind of whatever. For an ARPG, it lack gameplay. For a CRPG, it lack story. Again, not a bad game, but not a good one either. Probably best if you play something else.

This game is amazing!

Fun old school playing style. Old RPG meets ARPG. Also a cool instant switching system for playing with essentially 4 characters at once and a mortal and shadow realm transfer system for puzzles and making each zone feel more full. Worth a buy if you like old school RPGs and ARPGs.

it's fine. a story-driven action RPG. The setting is fine but uninspired. You choose 3 out of 15 different 'puppets' or characters to play as. That's mainly the fun here.

This was fun