Unfortunately, this carries over to the humor of the game. Despite this, the character development has to be one of the most shallow examples I’ve ever seen. By the end of the game, everyone was supposed to undergo character development. Sure he had his snide remarks with characters such as Gozu, but at the very least much of it is because they had an encounter with each other already. Everyone is a jerk, therefore he shall be too. Meanwhile in Shadow Warrior, many of his direct insults are far more reactionary. In this game, he has a really bad habit of insulting characters completely unprovoked. Despite being a selfish and thickheaded protagonist, I could at least support Wang in his endeavors during his previous adventures. At the same time, in previous games there was this attempt to flesh out this world of demons, humans, and ancient gods without being too ridiculous. Of course, the plot is not the main focus of these games. The dragon sort of just flies around and looks intimidating half of the time. It destroys a gate, takes a chi laser to the face like a champ, then proceeds to freeze over a forest however, it is not like it is a sapient antagonist.
The dragon doesn’t even do much towards the protagonists. He supposedly died in the first game, why is he here? Even Wang himself is a shell of his former self, even when considering his doubts in himself. Hoji is practically shoehorned in presumably because he was well-liked. Zilla and Motoko essentially disappear from the plot entirely once Wang decides to do his own thing until the end of the game. I’m going to be blunt here, the narrative and writing in this game feels exceptionally hollow. Thus, the story of Shadow Warrior 3 kicks off proper. Sensing that the ritual would kill his long lost “friend,” Wang decides to steal back the mask and runs off, hoping to find a new solution. Once there, as Motoko is unleashing her power upon Hoji’s mask, the ancient being himself actually comes back in a fragmented existence. Thereafter, the two go off to find Motoko, who has the power to allow the team to defeat the evil-doing dragon. As he recounts his failure to the mask of Hoji, Orochi Zilla arrives to begrudgingly team up with Wang. Months later, he is lamenting that he lost his mojo. However, his quest fails unceremoniously as he stabs the eyelid of the dragon and is then flung right off. The first thing it did was eliminate all of the ancients, leaving essentially Wang himself the only one at the time to take it down. To summarize the story, Lo Wang accidentally unleashed a dragon of extraordinary power and proportions. As a disclaimer, unless specified, when I mention Shadow Warrior, I’m specifically referring to the reboot, not the classic game. After my playthrough, I can say with confidence that the new title feels much less like a Shadow Warrior game. Even when Shadow Warrior 2 went for these open areas with Diablo-esque elements to its progression, the flow of combat was very much in line to the other games.
While not perfect, those games have a certain direction and flow that was distinctive.
This actually befuddled me, as I played parts of classic Shadow Warrior and the first two reboot games. More specifically, the level design and combat echoes Doom Eternal, the biggest hit in modern FPS history. Lo Wang is back with a new adventure in tow however, the formula once again changed from looter shooter to a more linear, arena-based encounter set up. Here we are, after many long years since the cliffhanger that was Shadow Warrior 2.
0 kommentar(er)
