Shadow Man RemasteredReview

Because back then, it was commonplace for a game to offer a stiff challenge, and nowadays we tend to look back with the glasses of nostalgia at titles that punished us because of their limitations. Shadow Man was more than the titles of its time, so much more - but sadly, it didn't have the tools and sophistication to realise its ambitions without bringing pain.

The game tried to squeeze so much into the box, that it's dizzying even by today's standards - for better or worse. At the core of the program, there is a 3D action-platformer, as if Tomb Raider had just been pushed further. The map design operates with huge maps and massive sequentiality, like a prequel to Metroid Prime, with a little Zelda adventure thrown in. All of this is fiddled with huge scale, organic landscaping, and sometimes the opposite, mechanical mazes. And we haven't even mentioned the collect-a-thon-style parts, the TPS-like action, which was easily on par with the best N64 action games back in the day. Shadow Man wanted to be everything at once, but with today's eyes we can see that in 1999, being everything was not an easy task.

This is most evident in the fact that there is very little signposting, i.e. Acclaim's game grabs you by the hand at few points, but it is rarely showing you what you need to do to get ahead. You have to memorise the somewhat maze-like maps and gates connecting them. You have to roughly sort out where you've been and where you haven't. Sequentiality is not as consistent as it is nowadays - you have to find your way forward on your own in the confusion, and often it's a long wander around. The producers of the time probably saw this as a virtue rather than a drawback - nowadays we've become lazy with such shenanigans. You can talk about modern challenge and Soulslike sadism, but Shadowman doses the difficulty differently. The control methods of the character or the potential of the weapons only come to light after many, many deaths, or trial end errors. While exploring dungeons/temples, you fight your way from room to room. If you stumble or bite the curb on the way, the Shadow Man (pardon my French) will throw you out, like a cat who shat in the middle of the room, to the dungeon entrance. Boss fights? Sometimes they're exciting, other times they can only be effectively brought down by cheesing. The icing on the cake is that we're collecting "dark souls" in the story. The game came out at a time when magazines published playthroughs of the game, and it was fashionable to include a map with the disc, or even a more detailed description of each item in the manual. The implementation of the "multimedia" of the time is a bit lacking in the new edition.

Fortunately, the remaster makes up for a lot of this, and it is also keeping the original concept of the game. The most important improvement is the polished control. Shadow Man originally ran around with TANK (!!!) movement, which I don't think any sane person today can accept without cursing - the programmers have changed that. Then the visuals provide a much sharper picture. The gem of the Voodoo 3DFX era offered a pretty washed out image at the time - sharper, completely redrawn textures better distinguish landmarks and help with orientation. The highlights and shadows are nice. Sounds are much improved too, and I had no problem with the loading times on Series X. All in all, the game won't be much prettier than its contemporaries - it looks more like how we want to remember it, and how we can take those graphics on a 4K display in 2022. Not like a buggy high level N64 emulator, or through the filters of a Glide wrapper...

And what are the shortcomings? There is still no map. We're missing a more dynamic lock on, or a quicksave option. The dialogue that outlines the surprisingly cool lore could have been saved to a log, and the somewhat chunky character models could have used a bit more polish. Squeezing previously cut-out sections into the game is also welcome, but unfortunately these map parts are less elaborate, whether it's the boss of the Temple of Life or the previously unseen corners of the underworld.

SHADOWRETRO

Shadow Man is a cult game, and when a cult game is revamped, a thousand eyes are fixed on the craftsmen who do the work. But at Night Dive, it's not just workers, they are fans, and the remastered edition will please old timeworshippers of the game. I can also imagine that if you've been backlogging the game for decades, you're about to get started with this version. Shadow Man can be learned, overcome and conquered! But it demands strength and attention in a way that nothing else has demanded from you in years. While there is a sense of reward lurking at the end of the otherworldly tunnel, it's just a question of whether you'll let your hands burnt in the fires of voodoo magic or not...