Shadows: Awakening

This game made me realise that when I play a mediocre game, I should accept I'm not really enjoying it and move on, instead of painfully trying to complete the game at the expense of my limited personal time.

Shadows: Awakening is a very unexpected product, in a way. As a Diablo-clone made by a small studio, you might expect something like Grim Dawn; tons of lore and mechanical depth and equipment and build variety, in a game that, production-wise, is fairly cheap. This is generally how it goes. Instead, you get largely the opposite; the game is quite beautiful and detailed with a ton of quality voice acting (including The Doctor himself, Tom-freaking-Baker). However, it is also fairly basic as an actual game. As I said, the game looks and sounds great. Of course it's not Red Dead Redemption 2 or anything, but for the genre, it's very detailed and vibrant, with a ton of smooth animation. The music is decent, the voice acting is great, the overall presentation is certainly better than what I expected. The game does have the occasional puzzle that, while never complex, does at least break up the "walk through hallways and kill things" gameplay loop of the sub-genre. The story is interesting, for a while. It also runs fairly well, except for surprisingly long loading times between areas. The negatives, however, come in for the core of the game. I'm still recommending the game, it's not trash even in this area, but it's surprising basic. The first thing to understand, and this is quite unique, is that it's a Diablo-clone with a party...sort of. You have up to 4 characters to play as, swapping between them in real-time as you fight and explore. Cool. However, the result is that each character is fairly restricted; they each get 8 skills and fall into basic categories--tough warriors who engage in melee combat, archers, 2 melee fighters who focus more on speed and critical attacks, and several mages (oh, and then our main character, "the demon," who is a jack of all trades). Many skills are very strange, and feel like they were meant for a game that actually was a party-based game, doing things like weakening all enemies in an area for 10 seconds or something, which is fairly difficult to capitalize on with just one character, and really isn't superior to just using another damage-dealing skill instead. Probably half the skills in the game have questionable usefulness, yet skills are the main thing differentiating, say, one warrior from another. You get 3 warriors minimum, up to 6 possible with the DLC, yet they all feel only modestly different, and there is very little room for experimentation with them on a repeat playthrough. The only real choice is to simply use different characters, but even then, the simple system doesn't really enable many differences in how the game "feels." Let's look at everything besides skills. Stats just raise the damage you deal, your health, and your mana, more or less. Simple. Talents are various boosts you can unlock, but most of them are just doing things like raising stats again, or directly raising damage done, or giving you defense against specific enemies or elements. All very samey. Gear? Gear is mostly just raising the attack/defense stat, and then if you're lucky, getting an extra boost here or there. However, these boosts are far too minimal; 5% ice resistance on your armor and 5% fire resistance on your helm is barely noticeable and hardly counts as real min/maxing. You will occasionally get something neat like reflect damage, causing attacks to bounce back against opponents, but even this tends to be in fairly modest amounts--you can't reasonably build a character around this as a base. All of these extras are just that, extras. Gear is also surprisingly sparse; it may not seem like it compared to other genres, but in a Diablo-clone, you expect to be wading through it. Yet there were long stretches where I had characters wearing white "common" gear for hours, because nothing better would drop OR show up in one of the game's few shops, which is almost unheard of. Interestingly, accessories like rings and necklaces, which in most games are where the most unique boosts are found, are almost entirely the most boring here; even at the end of the game, most of them just raised ONE thing for me, like 5 strength or 10 armor against "beast-type" enemies. I would say there should be a full order of magnitude more unique items in the game than there are at present. Speaking of characters, there is a very odd and disappointing distribution in them. You will recruit quite a few but several of them are optional or semi-optional (as in, you are forced to take SOMEONE but you do get a choice as to which one). and they are basically completely silent and do nothing but fight. Yet, the choices are odd; if you do not choose to start with a mage, then there is not a single speaking mage to recruit in the entire game, ALL the other ones are just kinda there. If you don't choose the archer, then there is only one "hunter" you MIGHT recruit who speaks. But we get several fighters. Each of your three starting characters does have unique dialogue and slight variations in quests, but it's fairly minimal as well, and they get surprisingly quiet as the game goes on and other recruitable characters sort of take center stage. In short, I wish the game had fewer actual characters, but then made them more unique, with more build variety, more ways to use them. As it is, you get alot of very repetitive recruits. And that's the biggest problem with the game; it's repetitive. This is somewhat expected with Diablo-clones but this one really drags over time. As story segments get more and more spread out, with larger and larger areas to explore and kill everything in, using the same characters and same attacks, it becomes a bore. Perhaps I could have spiced it up for myself by switching characters around more often, but even that can be hard with the limited equipment, and the differences aren't THAT pronounced. I liked the story and characters early on, but alot of stuff doesn't really get explained or it's dragged out for a LOOONG time, and by the end of the game, I was rushing to just finish the dang thing. The game is simply too long for what it offers; there is not enough story, or interesting side-quests, or fun dialogue, or unique gear, or varied builds, to fill all that time. There is a great basis here, something I would still recommend fans of the genre play and enjoy for what it does well, but it is 100% clear that the artists and level designers were given more time and budget to go wild, while the guys writing lore, dialogue, making mechanics, crafting each piece of gear, were rushed. Heck, some gear even has a description that just says "Description of long sword" or whatever--they literally didn't finish all of the flavor dialogue, and grammatical errors are still somewhat common. I really like the presentation, I like the idea of swapping between multiple characters on the fly, the lore is the start of something interesting, but this is definitely a product that floundered in delivery. It's worth playing once, but it certainly is no Grim Dawn, much less a Diablo 2.

Another ARPG that asks you to beat the game without dying. Why would I ever want to do that... you know what else is hardcore: REAL LIFE! Why would I want to play a game and treat is like every step is life or death. If you really enjoy hardcore gaming, great, I don't...

Well, 3hrs in and I can already see why this game has a lot of mixed reviews. Firstly, the pace is excruciatingly slow and the novelty of swapping between both spirit & real worlds has worn off. Secondly, there's issues with attacks being delayed, inputs not registering at all or attacks flat out missing their target despite standing practically on top of enemies. The wonky hit registration also applies to breakable objects and anything else you can interact with for potential loot. And lastly, the inventory system is not well designed. The icons to compare loot and toggle other options are just too small, the gear affixes are not explained at all, there are many pieces of armor/accessories that can be used by both Devourer and Puppet that provide absolutely zero benefits which makes sorting through drops a little longer than it needs to be since some bonuses apply only to Spirit world enemies but still get rolled on gear that real world characters can use. The affixes that don't/can't directly benefit either character shouldn't be rolled onto gear they can equip. Aside from those issues the game looks pretty good overall. The armor, weapons, characters, skills, etc.. all look good. The voice acting quality is done well too. The overall concept of having a Demon posess multiple humans and swap between them is pretty cool, I just can't believe that it has become so tedious after only 3hrs of play. Shadows Awakening definitely has its fair share of negatives beyond what bothered me (read the other reviews), but I prefer not to downvote a game unless it's really, really bad, so for that reason, I'm recommending it because despite the obvious jank and some irritating design choices, it shouldn't be outright avoided.

In dem Spiel hat man nicht nur einen Avatar sondern kann zwischen mehreren per Tastendruck wechseln. Anfänglich ein ganz neues Spielkonzept, was Lust auf mehr macht. Obwohl das Spielprinzip als RPG genau mein Game ist, habe ich nach knapp 19h keine Lust mehr. Ich nutze bei den Pro und Kontras nicht die Bezeichnungen aus dem Game um keine Spoiler zu hinterlassen. Positives: + ganz neues Konzept für die Party, statt mehreren gleichzeitig, wählt man zwischen den Mitgliedern per Tastendruck aus und wechselt spontan und (fast) jederzeit hin und her. + Die Spielwelt (Map) ändert sich mit dem Avatar, den man gerade spielt, physische Charaketere vs. Geister (kann schweben). Negatives: - Man kann NICHT rennen und die laufen unfassbar langsam (!) - Die Questmarker stimmen nicht oder fehlen gänzlich. Aktuell bin ich in einer Quest bei der in Sonnensteine brauche. Habe mich nur bis zur untersten Ebene durchgekämpft, und dann geht's nicht mehr weiter. Ich habe nur 3 von 4 Sonnensteinen, aber man kann bereits die Quest starten und in den Dungeon runter. Im Prinzip ist das kein Problem, aber WOOOOO ist der 4. Stein??? Der befindet sich auf einer ganz anderen Karte, nicht im Dungon selbst und es gibt KEIN Hinweis im Questlog dafür. Würde bedeuten, alle anderen vorherigen Karten abzusuchen (und das mit unterschiedlichen Charaketern, weil sich die Map ja ändert!! und manche interagierbare Kisten, Gems etc. mit anderen Charaketeren nicht sichtbar sind. Zusammen mit dem langsamen laufen geht's eindeutig auf die Nerven und nun reichts. - Im Inventar sieht man immer nur EINE Chategorie gleichzeitig, z.B. nur Waffen, nur Rüstung, nur Helme, nur Ringe etc. Nicht jedes Teil (Waffe, Rüstung, Gürtel etc.) sind für jeden Charaketer nutzbar und bei derzeit 8 Charaketeren ist es echt eine elendige Rumklickerei um z.B. andere Charaketere mit besseren Items auszurüsten. - Obwohl ich in Kapitel 4 bin, sind andere Quests aus Kapitel 2/3 offen und man muss auch zwischen den Kapitel hin- und her springen. Aber wozu dann die Kapitel? - Je mehr Charaketere desto mehr wird es zu einer endlosen "rumklickerei" im Inventar. Fazit: Tolles Konzept, aber nicht wirklich bis zu Ende gedacht. Leider fesselt micht das Spiel nicht mehr als 19 Stunden.

Core gameplay is OK, but not amazing. Sadly, this game's idea of a puzzle is beyond sad. I had one just completely break and softlock and the main story quest tells you to "control your anger" by killing yourself. 3/10 Dev needs therapy.

Great game, though the final boss made me feel like Chris Redfield pushing boulders..

Эта игра вообще ни разу не великая. Ни разу не идеальная. И точно понравится не всем. Но одно у неё нельзя отнять: ощущение приключения, олдскульной адвенчуры и ощущения, что разработчики пытались сделать нечто новое. Вот просто сделать так, как чувствовали. Веет вайбами Two Worlds, Venetica или того же Kingdoms of Amalur. Криво, но душевно и с чувством, что ты не просто меняешь нолики на единички, а что-то проживаешь. https://youtu.be/pB4po68igA8

Это определённо одна из самых игр в истории. Ну, да, прикольно, демоном бегит, на ходу чубзиков меняттт. В первой четверти игры прям хорошо, а дальше словацкая фантазия кончилась и выдала лишь самый типовой гаемплуай актион РэПоГэ. Головоломки по сложности рассчитаны на учеников лесной школы и только бесят. Особенно шарики и весь сегмент в канализации. Вообще, для бездумного тыкания вполне сойдёт. Надо бы первую игру пощупать, может быть она лучше была.

很早就买了，最近重玩。 一款平庸的俯视角rpg，虽然从一些细节能看出制作组用心制作了，但游戏真的很平庸。 手感稀烂，经典各打各的。 一堆意义不明的解迷，我最讨厌的就是那个滚球的解迷，拼反应力还好，最难蚌的是机关触发要长按，手柄又要自己手动瞄准，经常是球都掉下去了才发现人物在虚空普攻没在触发机关，经历了几次之后再无游玩想法。 漫长的跑图，缓慢的移动速度，本身就是通马桶级别的叙事和任务，结果还安排了巨多又臭又长的跑图，令人忍俊不禁。 有的评论还提到了攻略问题，至少简中是没有一个完整的攻略的，虽然我是扫图玩家没遇到需要查攻略的情况，但还是提一嘴。 优点当然也是有的，凡界影界的随意切换还算有点新意，虽然样样都松但好歹能想到的都有，也能勉强说一句“麻雀虽小五脏俱全”？但反正我是不会为了这个就玩这款游戏的。 总之，不推荐游玩。