Shadow Madness represents the peak of unrealized potential. The world of Arkose has multiple, vastly different societies, some with rich histories, and even the world's Creation Myths are unique. The characters are sharply written, the dialogue is snappy and the tone blends a nearly flawless mix of Fantasy, Horror and Dark Comedy. Oh, and often times, NPC conversations involve the NPC and all party members, giving a lot more nuance in the optional, unimportant dialogue than most games give.
Even just the initial setting works well enough: A handful of towns in the West are hit with a massive blast of dark energy, killing most, and those that survive are insane (like almost Monty Python “loony” levels of insanity) with the titular 'Shadow Madness'; all that remains are ruins, monsters and a semi-sentient ball of lava in the middle. We then follow the main heroes as they enlist the aid of the local citadel, the tower of mages and even a technological society as they begin investigation into the widespread disaster, as well as make ready for war. The story does have a lot of sidetracking, some more interesting (or comedic) than others, but the overall tone remains consistent, and no chapters of the story are ill-conceived. There's also some moments that feel like they were written to be in a pure Horror game, such as the main hero's cousin being stalked at night by a giant eye that comes to his window and talks to him, or another part later on that features a lonely, semi-insane and self-monologuing monster that roams a hall of portraits, waiting for someone else to come in so it can kill them; while you're in the Castle that it's roaming, it sometimes cuts back to it as it begins to realize that you're there, and this is genuinely spooky! { Note that all but the last of these examples are in the first ~30 minutes of the game, and the final one is only about 3-4 hours in, so these aren't really much in the ways of spoilers }
I feel I should also point out that many of the locations are competently crafted from an artistic standpoint, and the musical score ranges from good to excellent, boasting - no I'm not kidding - over TWO DOZEN different battle themes, as well as some really pleasant and moody tracks that only play in one room!
Now, yes - the game got a bad wrap at the time of its release, and there are legitimate reasons for this. The gameplay, while certainly functional, is both incredibly basic AND somewhat constrictive feeling. At the very least, however, this is merely a sluggish annoyance, rather than something that leads to unnecessary Game Over screens. Additionally, while some of the pre-rendered locations do showcase some unique artistic flair, they are actually very low-res, even by 1998 standards, looking like a low-budget version of FF7, barely impressing anyone when it was new, let alone now, 24 years later.. And no, there's no discernible difference between the Playstation version and the Steam version in this regard... in fact this game clearly uses a Playstation engine, rather than an Emulator engine, resulting in character models even more pixelated than in an Emulator (!!!!)
So yes - the game is certainly unimpressive from both Gameplay and Technical perspectives, but if you play RPGs for the Story and World, then Shadow Madness has more than got you covered. There's lots of locations, lots of well-written dialogue, lots of genuinely excellent story concepts, and the game is able to combine Near-Horror and Near-Comedy in a way that no other game ever has (at least that I have seen). Throw in some legitimately solid music and some cute (if primitive) location visuals, and you have quite a decent game (although I'd recommend for no more than $10 if we're being completely honest).
+ Excellent Story & Setting
+ Creative Characters (minus Stinger & Windleaf) & Sharp Dialogue
+ Solid Musical Score & Thick Atmosphere
+ Adjustable Difficulty (as the game can be too easy on Normal)
+ You can sometimes skip random battles by crouching, which is a nice feature if you're in a hurry or low on health
+/- Stiff, But Hardly Broken, Gameplay
- Unimpressive 1998 Graphics, Running on a Non-Upscaled Display (for shame!)
+ But still some of the locations are interesting from an Artistic standpoint
- Kinda Terrible Port.. I mean, NOTHING is different (apart from a Save Anywhere option by pressing the Escape button), Gamepad configuration, when attempted via an Xbox Controller, don't configure very well at all (literally getting inputs wrong)
If there is an actual reason to prevent a recommendation, it'd be that this Port is, frankly, kinda terrible. A real shame as this game, in its original form, is incredibly underappreciated, and this will only deter anyone reluctantly willing to give the game a chance..
EDIT: I actually found that you CAN set the controls fully as intended, but this is something you have to manually override, and not in the normal Controller Setup that the game itself possesses. Instead, you would need to hit the Escape key, go into the controls area, and then set every button (like Circle, Cross and Triangle) manually. Not sure why the default settings inaccurately analyze the controller (it did with 2 controllers on my end, one being a standard PS4 controller), but in fairness, this is something that can be fixed.
For what it does right, primarily create an atmospheric world of intrigue and fill it out with well-written characters, Shadow Madness has a special place in my heart. Here's hoping that maybe someone with an actual budget can try making a story in Arkose again..
{ Fun Facts: The Pre-Rendered CG sequences were done by the artist that oversaw the creation of the Liquid-Metal form of T-1000 in Terminator 2. Also, the musical score is so massive because the game was put on Hold, developmentally, a few times, because they realized they didn't have the budget to complete the game; however, the Composer was still on payroll, so he ended up writing numerous musical pieces without an actual location to match it yet. Both of these were found in the old RPGamer Archived Developer Interviews. }
