REVIEW – The remaster of 2011’s Shadows of the Damned (you see remasters quite often these days…) isn’t a big deal, but considering it’s not a remake, it couldn’t really stray too far from the source material. But Grasshopper Manufacture’s work, released over a dozen years ago, is at least available on more platforms, so you can be glad that they touched it…

Once again we can visit the underworld and once again slaughter demons… but is it worth it?

Garcia Hotspur goes after Paula

Our protagonist is Garcia Hotspur, a demon hunter who wants to save his girlfriend Paula, who hopefully doesn’t have a twin sister named Paulina. Beyond the soap opera reference, the villain’s new name is Fleming, who fancies himself the Lord of Darkness. On the surface, that’s the story, but on closer inspection, there are plenty of sexual references. Garcia talks and hears a lot from his companion, a talking skull named Johnson. Judging by his name (which is slang for a specific male body part), it’s no wonder he has such a… phallic sense of humor. It’s no coincidence that the humor is like this, because Shadows of the Damned itself has always had this style. It was great in 2011, but it can be a bit divisive today (but that can’t be held against it as a negative, because it offers what it authentically offered 13 years ago). Some slightly disgusting things happen at times, but that’s part of the core game. But what does the remaster look like? It’s mostly stronger. The character models are better, the lighting is better, the textures are nicer. They also have a higher resolution, so the art style, which can be described as grotesque, is better represented. The atmosphere has also been improved, as the environment looks more vibrant thanks to better graphics.

The soundtrack was originally great (composed by a certain Akira Yamaoka… Team Silent, Silent Hill, need we say more?) and it’s no different now. But the sound effects and voice acting’s quality have been improved, because everything sounds clearer (interestingly, in another remaster a week ago, the sound was one of the weak points, but here it’s one of the positives!). The gameplay has not been touched, which can be divisive. If authenticity was the goal for Grasshopper Manufacture, they’ve achieved it, but it’s an aspect that’s a bit dated these days. The same can be said for the controls, as it seemed quite difficult to handle Garcia. It doesn’t matter what platform you’re playing on, these are points that can be made everywhere. The AI tends to be a bit buggy, and it probably wasn’t noticeable in the original PS3, X360 release that opponents were so prone to getting stuck in the environment. It’s hilarious when a boss gets stuck. In this case, even if the shooting seems to be inaccurate (because it can be observed), we can only hold our heads when the game essentially “gives up”…

What was decent then may not be good today

Due to the lack of gameplay modifications, you should be prepared for the fact that there will be parts of the game that will be slow, because the rhythm of the game will be broken in many places. Either some battles will take a little longer than they should, or there will be some puzzles that are suddenly too time-consuming. However, it is no coincidence that the new additions have not been mentioned so far, as there is not much to say about them. As with Broken Sword a week ago, it’s hard to understand how minimalist the remaster is, as there are no QoL (quality of life) improvements in the remaster. For example, a better save system would have been nice.

The original version had a checkpoint system, which was fine at the time, but it’s not so good now. So if you are short on checkpoints, if you mess up somewhere at the end, you might have to replay a longer section, which can be downright annoying. You can’t expect them to reach the level of remasters like Nightdive that have been ported to the KEX engine (Shadow Man, for example), but we expect more than that. (And the joke is that this remaster theme will continue in a week, and you can already declare that it’s a downward trend, because what’s going to be mentioned there is even more ridiculous in comparison…) So again, the base game itself is still mostly good, but the remaster’s execution makes it worse.

Avantgarde base with fundamental flaws

Shadows of the Damned stands out from other games. This is good. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered does the bare minimum. This is not good. Again, take the average of two reviews. The base game, considering how dated it is, deserves a 7.5, but the shortcomings of the remaster would make it a 5.5. The average of the two is a 6.5/10, but it’s also one of those where it might be a 7 for fans, but not otherwise. It’s a very minimalist remaster, but still not as much of a hack job as it will be next week…

-V-

Publisher: Grasshopper Manufacture
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Style: action-adventure, puzzle
Release: October 31, 2024.