Shadow Warrior 2 (Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed by Flying Wild Hog
Published by Devolver Digital
Available on PC
Coming Soon to PS4 and Xbox One
Rated M for Mature
Looking back on it, 2013’s Shadow Warrior might be one of my all time favorite games. There’s a certain amount of cred I burn as a critic when I state that I’m in love with a game where the protagonist is named “Lo Wang,” but I also think that Spring Breakers is a masterpiece. There’s a purpose to spectacle, and Shadow Warrior’s gallons of blood, gore, organs, and dick jokes wove a beautiful basket to cradle the genuinely emotional plot. Besides, I don’t trust a person who can’t enjoy slicing a demon in half, chin to taint.
An integral part of the Shadow Warrior experience.
A lot has changed since Shadow Warrior concluded and rain returned to the Shadow Realm. It seems that your actions have resulted in a cataclysm of sorts, with the demon and human worlds merging. There’s not a whole lot of sense to it all, with Zilla’s sprawling cyber-city just a few miles away from a traditional Chinese village populated by snake monsters. Lo Wang has returned to his mercenary ways, running odd jobs for the local Yakuza and acting like a manchild. I guess the whole “slaying the lord of the Shadow Realm” thing wasn’t worth all that much in the end.
The game kicks off similar to the first: Yakuza want you to nab some ancient artifact, and demons would rather you didn’t. Lucky for you, Lo Wang is essentially murder incarnate, and spends the next 10-12 hours turning monsters into mincemeat. Just like the first game, you’ll accomplish the slaughter with a mix of gunplay and melee combat, but this time with a significantly expanded arsenal. Also just like the first game, you’ll be joined by a spiritual companion who lives in your head, but this time without as much personality.
It’s like having your mother in your head every time you make a dick joke.
Don’t get me wrong, despite some common threads, Shadow Warrior 2 is very much a different game from the first. Abandoning the linear design of the first, Shadow Warrior 2 opts for a more open, mission based design. You’ll spend your time between missions in a central hub where you can buy new items, forge upgrades, and find quests. So yeah, just like every other ARPG. I didn’t count, but I’m just going to say there were about 25 different levels to complete before the credits role, with maybe 8 or 9 main missions.
Ah, just what Shadow Warrior needed: crafting.
As with all of these types of game, just sticking to the main story will lead you to completion within a few hours. It certainly isn’t sticking to the spirit of the game, but the urge to power through becomes greater with each recycled level. To be clear, I’m certainly not against side quests. I played the shit out of RPGs like Skyrim and Dragon Age, and can appreciate that the non-essential quests are often as integral to the game’s identity as the main story. But Shadow Warrior 2 reminds me of Dragon Age 2. The actual tasks might have been different, but the side quests took place in just remixed variants of the main levels. All said and done, I think there were only 8 different environments in Shadow Warrior 2. Maybe 10 if you count some of the slightly altered variants. To compensate for this, missions are usually two of these zones glued together. You’ll quickly learn the landmarks, and figure out the key areas to search to move on to the next.
The levels are all very diverse and pretty, but there’s only so many times I want to shoot a techno-demon in a neon garden.
The main quests are all pretty awesome. The level design is tight, with the kind of secrets and verticality that made Shadow Warrior so badass. You’ll fight through some bad guys, face a boss, hunt for secrets, and bask in the glorious immature nonsense that is Lo Wang. It’s great, like Doom with more dick jokes and swords. I wish the whole game was like this, but I guess people don’t pay for single player shooters anymore.
The side quests can have some good stories too, but are plagued with issues that make them far less fun. The primary problem is that levels are sprawling and expansive, but lack the clever secrets that make them worth exploring. You can still find the odd alcove housing a cash prize, but gone are the charming retro onsens and throwbacks of the original. Aside from hordes and hordes of enemies, there’s just not a lot to see.
I mean, there are only like three pixelated 2.5D Waifus. Unacceptable.
It winds up just being a slog. These side missions are where a lot of the game’s weapons drop, but only from specific bosses somewhere in the zone. There are so many bullshit, pointless enemies in between, that even the most gleeful of slaughter becomes boring. I honestly didn’t know I could grow this tired of dismemberment. So you’ll wind up jumping around, trying desperately to dash between hordes in search of the the boss’s skull map marker. If I’m avoiding combat in your action shooter, you have done something wrong.
I went a bit off script this time and started with the negatives. I’ll admit, this is due to some personal bias. I love Shadow Warrior too much, and the changes just shrivel the charm of Lo Wang. But this is still Lo Wang, and he still goes, “bang bang.” The combat of Shadow Warrior 2 might be the best of the last 10 years. For a shooter, there’s a surprising amount of tactical depth to the carnage. Elemental damage, loadout specificity, and specialized weapon types can drastically change your combat effectiveness. It’s almost entirely invisible at the lower difficulties, but if you’re playing on easy you just want to see heads explode anyways.
Tactical magma laser!
There are over 70 weapons in the game, which you might reasonable assume are mostly repeats. In most games, “Medium Firearms” just means assault rifles with different clip sizes. In Shadow Warrior 2, a weapon’s classification doesn’t even guarantee it uses that kind of ammo. You can have one sawed-off shotgun that fires two shells, and another that fires four plasma rounds with a chance of an automatic reload. One grenade launcher might be a single shot with huge fire damage, and the next is a toxic rocket launcher that can split into multiple warheads. The weapons in the game are as diverse in function as they are in visuals.
I have decided the best solution to this situation is a power glove that shoots lightning.
What’s more, you can customize each weapon with a suite of upgrade to tailor it to your needs. Swappable at any point, your heavy machine gun can go from a high dps ranged weapon to a deployable turret with a single switch. It’s pretty impractical to switch out upgrades constantly, so your arsenal will generally be set going into a level. You have eight weapons to choose from, so if you run into an enemy with electrical resistance it’s your own fault if you don’t have a solution.
Jumping, dashing, shooting, slicing, and blasting your way through the hordes is a bukakke of violence as vicious and satisfying as any coming out of Japan. Each weapon felt great, with the possible exception of some lackluster pistol options. As glorious as the mayhem was, in the end it all just felt hollow. Shadow Warrior 2 lacks the heart of the original. Real talk, when Hoji paid the price and saved me at the end of Shadow Warrior, I was in tears. At the conclusion of Shadow Warrior 2, I was more confused. They are clearly setting up for DLC/a sequel, and it just feels half-assed. The new cast just isn’t as interesting, and conflict poorly explained. There are mountains of text logs to pour through to figure out what’s going on, but you’re never given a real reason to do so.
Oh, and you have to collect the text logs as random drops. Have fun.
There are a lot of questions I have about the plot, which I hope get answered with time. The game’s entire structure practically screams “more to come in the DLC!” The fundamentals are fantastic, and I really do love just sitting down and playing it. But the structure is poorly formed. There are too many repetitive fights with no reward and no clear objective. It’s cool as fuck to watch and fun to play, but wears thin after a while. Play with friends and have a good time, but it falls short of the original. Hopefully the future DLC will spice the game up where it can surpass the predecessor.
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Game
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
