Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms

This game is beautifully made, voice overs are great, quests, loot, crafting. But what is at the heart of every game like this, combat. Now I will say, combat in itself is just as well done as the rest of the game. However, someone on the dev team needs to understand the importance of mob spawning and placement. For me this is where the game literally falls apart. there is almost no space to manuver in this game as it is, then add the mob spawn logic. Take two steps and mobs spawn in around you in a circle and attack, This is a game where tactics do not exist, its simplhy a matter of stepping forward, getting encircled with spiders, taking boat loads of un dodgeable damange and spamming pots, lots and lots of pots. I find in annoying enough to stop playing even though the rest of the game is literallh a masterpiece. All I can ask is that as you redesign and update your game for the re-release, try to create a more fluid combat dance between the player and the mobs. Dont rely on cheap spawning tactics to create articfically difficulty. There is also an abundency of console type boss fights, tiny little rooms, no where to move, lighting fast bosses that do tons of damage. There is no pacing to these events they are just pot swigging marathons, or as suggested in the loading tips, over level your character and go back to fight bosses. Unfortunantely I will have to give this game a thumbs down. I am the owner of just about every top down Diable style game available on steams, literally dozens and there is somthing magical about a game when they can get mob spawning, combat fighting spaces, mob and player speeds, functional CC down riight. I just dont think this game has that criticall component. What a shame.

I have played this game for four hours at this point and am unsure whether to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. This may be a product of not playing the game enough but in most games I play, by 4 hours you usually know where the game is going. So this is what I know so far and what I believe people will find useful if they are looking at buying this game. I bought this game because I wanted to try another arpg that marketed itself as being different from the usual model. This game does that. It is story driven and has characters that very much have their own flare and personalities. The voice acting is very good and the dialogue always feels important and interesting. However, I feel that even a story driven game should have fun and interesting combat, or at least cool combat animations. In this game I never found myself saying "Holy (explicative) that was awesome" or "This move is fricking amazing". Instead I found myself mumbling "ok, this a stun/aoe" and "Im not sure why I even picked up this second skill". I tried using both the archer and the barbarian and although the archer seemed a little bit more versatile, the abilities used still seemed lack luster. And maybe this was by design in an effort to make a more grounded game. But in my defense I bought a game where you play as a soul devouring demon who controls/ binds with souls of fallen heroes, and that just sounded a lot more awesome than it turned out to be combat wise. Im choosing to leave out anything dealing with bugs and technical issues because the developers do seem to care whether or not the game runs well and have taken the time to roll out a few updates. For that reason I wont judge the game based on how many times it crashes. But I will say this, when a game comes out of early access, beta, or whatever testing phases it uses and is marketed as a finished game, it should be finished. It shouldn't be released with known crashes or unfinished graphical features (like vsync). With that said the game is under 35 and should get a little slack for technical issues. For me personally it's the combat that kills this game. I plan on finishing the game after the crashes get fixed because I spent money on the game and because it does have a really interesting story line. But if I had known now what it plays like then I woulnt have spent more than $10 on it. So in conclusion, if you dont care too much about combat or gameplay and mostly judge games based on story and concepts, then this is a game you will love. However if you are like me and want a visceral combat experience where you can feel progression at every skill point, then you will be underwhelmed by this game. As a general piece of advice, give this game another month or so to iron out tech issues. This will be a good game for some and a poor game for others, unfortunately for this reviewer it just wasn't up to snuff. The only reason I chose "No" is because I had to choose something and I wouldn't tell my friends that this is a must have. If you need a number this is a 60/100 and thats assuming tech issues get resolved. I hope this review was helpful(:

[h1]Warning: Stream edition is missing retail gameplay[/h1] I’m not talking about the game being release in two halves. There’s actually locked doors and three quests in part 1 that can only be opened in the retail edition. It’s not available on the steam version, even to earliest of the early adaptors like myself. And there's nothing in the game to tell you this, so expect to waste time backtracking because you don't know which bits you were supposed to come back to with your new shiny, and which bits were never meant for you at all. Chapter 1 is great. There’s a good mixture of combat and plot. Chapters 2 & 3 and the other hand is just combat. The combat’s not bad, but that’s really all there is to Chapters 2 & 3 so if you looking for something other than grind, stay away. I played through to the end, but wished I hadn’t bothered. [b]Pros:[/b] [list] [*]Excellent art design. Each level is both pretty and functional. The ability to switch to a ‘ghost world’ gets twice the millage out of each level without it feeling tired or forced. [*]The ability to switch between characters is quite cool and well implemented. All characters receive XP whether they are in the party or not, so there’s no penalty for trying one out. The characters each have a distinct feel even though they all fall into one of three classes (ranged, magic, melee). [*]Bosses are varied and feel special. [*]In the configuration settings, you can change the ‘highlight loot/interactive area’ key from push-and-hold to toggle-on-and-off. [*]Tom Baker voice over. [/list] [b[Cons:[/b] [list] [*]There are no movement keys. It’s right click to move, left click to attack. This makes most combat stationary and a battle of health bars rather than something dynamic and exciting. There is some ability to kite by switching between ghost and meat characters (and you’ll be doing that a lot in chapter 3). [*]Some of the later levels have you backtracking across multiple levels without fast travel no apparent reason. [*]The game engine does not support multiple CPUs or GPUs (source: dev posting in the comments). My 4 core, GTX 970 SLI config could barely manage 40FPS on max settings. Mob difficulty level is all over the place, typically at the start of a new chapter. [*]Skill are unbalanced. [/list]

Updated Note: The developers seem to have the rights to the IP now and by all accounts are working on getting the second half of the game! When it comes to ARPGs, Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms travels down the road less traveled, managing to not only deviate from what has become a tired and overused model but to do so with style. ARPGs very rarely have a captivating story but I found Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms to be an exception, that's not to say it's as good a story as found in story-driven games, but it does it's job well and draws you in. Add in exceptional voice acting and great aesthetics and you have a game with a lot of good components working together. I found myself quite immersed with this game and had more urge to play through this game start to finish than any other ARPG since the Mass Effect trilogy. That's not to say this game is flawless, it does have it's problems but I found that the pros far outweighed the cons. I had some crashing issues on a single map, I found the developers use of foreshadowing was a bit heavy-handed at times, and the game started off a bit slow due to the nature of how combat works. The game does start out with a fair amount of story telling, but once you get through that you are left to delve into the combat with a fledgling group. Combat revolves around the demon you play, who can bind the souls of deceased beings, making them a part of your party. At the beginning of the game you have just the demon and the main hero in your "party." You only control one party member at a time, but each party member is unique and brings something different to the table, this is a very interesting dynamic that makes combat a lot of fun...when you actually have a full party to choose from. Fortunately after a few hours of play you should have a full team and from there on out combat is generally well paced and far more fun to play. There is a party limit of four, but you can always travel to your home base and change the roster. During combat you can switch to any of the active party members. I found this to add a lot to the combat, you can change the unit you are playing on based on situational factors and also rotate characters based on their spells cooldowns. I thoroughly enjoyed the combat once I had a full party. Individual spells might not be the most exciting but the fact you can switch characters at any point more than makes up for it. All in all, I really enjoyed the experience in Book 1. I was definitely eating this game up and was only putting it down to play co-op games with friends. The story was a lot of fun to follow throughout and I enjoyed going through most of the dialog, I didn't even skip over the voice acting by and large (just about all dialog is accompanied by voice acting). The combat was equally enjoyable once I got into the core of the game. Add the two elements together along with everything else the game does great and you have the exceptional game that is Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms (Book I). I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that Book II sees the light of day, it would be a shame for the series die after such a strong start. P.S. The game has an awesome orchestral soundtrack, here is a sample: https://youtu.be/IeTPR0teXZw

It's very nice game. Playing it was fun, but the most important thing is that this game is NOT FULL version. It ends in the middle of the story. To play next chapter you have to have Shadows: Awaking and start that game from the beginning. It's not worth buying, it's better to buy Shadows: Awaking - the same game with better graphic, it includes Shadows: Heretic kingdom story and gives much more.

This game is another example of why review bombing exists. I purchased this on sale a while back so it's not as bad for me as it will be for others. You see this is titled Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, not Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms part 1 or chapter 1 or book 1. You think you are purchasing a full game, but despite buying the game I got to a door in chapter 1 only to find "that's it until you buy part 2". In no way is a couple hours and 3 character levels of game worth 40 dollars. The best part is nothing in game or out of game tells you this is designed as intended and the developers and Steam said NOTHING in reponse to posts about it. It wasn't until other helpful people mentioned how they intended to sell the game that they finally chimed in. Do not buy this. This is the most consumer unfriendly development team I've ever seen by virtue of the shadiest practices I've ever seen. Do not support them. Castigate them as much as possible. Bomb their games with negative reviews. These people had thier chance and proved to be abusive of the market and dishonest in business. If I weren't so busy I'd slam them with a lawsuit for this egregious display of fraud. As is I suggest we see them out the door of the games industry so as not to give larger developers any ideas.

\Garbage. This has to be the WORST game I have played in over a decade. Locked doors and inaccessible areas because (arbitrarily) you didn't purchase the retail box. Nothing in game to indicate that this is the case. Yeah, the dev said f()ck you steam owners ("I'm sorry you feel that way"). Update: ignore the help requests pulled up in Google for this issue because they HAVE added the quests, but nothing updated since 2014. Running into other quests that cannot be completed because devs didn't get around to it. AFTER running around in circles in-game with no indication this is the case. Brick puzzles requiring precise character movement when the programmed mouse movement is anything but. Frequently in battle I find my character just standing there, unresponsive to attacking (not sure if I am being chronic stunned through most battles as there is nothing to indicate this has happened, just unresponsive character). Nope, the fighting in this game (even with Shift pressed) is horrid and unresponsive. At some points, the only way to do any damage at all is to just WAIT for the specials cooldown and use them again. WTH? Also, love it when hitting a special and he makes the grunt noise like he was completing the action but does absolutely nothing until you hit the special button again. Plans/blueprints at merchants indicate in no way what mats will be required, nor which party character will benefit from their purchase. Healing does not stop draining soul essence when health is full. Also enjoyed having an NPC interrupt my looting and push me through a door that closes behind me, leaving the loot on the other side. In Hidden Fortress numerous pieces of loot are "stuck" and cannot be picked up (even with auto-loot enabled). Every SINGLE time an item of blue value drops it cannot be picked up. Even tried kiting the mobs to different areas of the map. Saving and reloading still leave loot broken. Oh, that's awesome! Not being able to pick things up breaks the Nemek quest entirely. Not one, but TWO quest items in the same room cannot be picked up (waning moon), so that's two quests that cannot even be done. BRILLIANT! Continue from the main menu doesn't load the latest save. Large numbers of inventory have no image placeholder, so completely blank spots are actually filled. Having crafting ingredients in the accessories and gems listing when they are actually necessary. Sell something to a merchant by accident? You can buy it back, but at 10x the price you were paid for it, so WTF is the point of even having a buyback tab? Just add the sh!t to a merchant's inventory for crying out loud. item tags while Auto-toggle is activated still fade or never show up. Not sure what auto-attack actually does because it in no way assists fighting. demon/puppets still stand around with their thumb up their collective @$$#$. Also forgot to mention random crashes to desktop as Kult3d quits working. So much of this game was poorly thought out and horribly executed.

This game is amazingly well done. Excellent story line thus far, flexibility in how you approach things, and an innovative method of dealing with a "party" type situation without having a party following you. You are able to switch back and forth between playing a soul devourer and his many meat puppets. The game pay reminds me on some levels of the genius of the old game Soulbringer,in that you uncover things and sometimes need to accomplish objectives both on the mortal plane, and on the astral. The environments are stunningly beuatiful, especially when playing using the DirectX 11 drivers. This is an amazingly well-done game. This is not your typical hack and slasher. Some moral grey areas throughout on potential situations. I have not played far enough through with multiple playthroughs to determine how this affects the overarching story or potential endings yet, but I cannot wait to keep on plugging away and explore those sorts of options. A very enjoyable game. Well-done.

There's plenty wrong with this game - more than I feel like committing to a review right now. However, despite all the problems, the game itself would be worth a little bit of fun. IF IT WORKED PROPERLY. I have ~30 hours in on this game as of this writing, and I've experienced every kind of bug you can possibly imagine: input bugs, freeze bugs, crash bugs, audio bugs, and much, much more. Just now, the game crashed during a loading screen when I tried to transition between maps. I've pretty much given up at this point, as I'm convinced that development of this title never actaully completed. Maybe it got halfway through beta and then the devs just said, "♥♥♥♥ it! This looks good enough. Ship it!" This game is essentially a bad Diablo clone, so for your money you're better off playing Diablo 3 or Torchlight.

Game is awesome... but it's only 1/3 of game. Full game is Shadows: Awakening. I ended the game at lvl 17 and there is nothing left to do... And guess what? They didn't remove achievements for obtaining lvl 20 and 30 xD So if you are achievement hunter - thats even more reasons to awoid this one.