- Tested on PC
- Code transmitted by the publisher
- Finished in 9:30 in difficulty mode 3/3
- Home gameplay video captures
- Screenshots artworks by editor
- The game would still deserve some patches to fix bugs
If there is a genus that has been gaining ground in recent years, it is probably that of fast-FPS. Since the resurrection of the franchise Doom With its excellent 2016 reboot, suite and DLC guaranteed in adrenaline, there is indeed a community eager for hemoglobin and frantic action. There is no doubt that the author of his lines is part of this category of players in need of over-flying arcade proposals. After sanding the DLCsID Software (read my review of The Ancient Gods), Shadow Warrior 3 as a humble disciple of the Doomlasyer. Can the ninja rise to the height of the legendary demon hunter?
The world ends, (God)zilla begins
Published at Devolver, which is known for its well-worn proposals, it is quite naturally that the Poles of the Flying Wild Hog had carte blanche to develop this third part of a series still outside the spotlight, for the general public at least. Like all good fast FPS the script is held on a postage stamp. Lo Wang and his acolyte Zilla must defeat a dragon who accidentally woke up. Voluntaryly outrageous in his writing potache sauce "kunfu for the nulls", the bet to modernize the character by tabling on the register of parody is unfortunately missed most of the time.
At first, it must even be recognized that Lo Wang is frankly unbearable to comment on any of his actions and repeat his "hashtags shotgun" and other choruses he sounds a little too willing for our greatest disarray. It's like your little nephew, Kevin, eight years old, who is vociferous from the back baby seat of the family kangou in the hope that you'll see his look in the mirror. Unbearable. And just want to put a pitch in his mouth so he can shut up once and for all! (Temper our vasectomy ardours for this modern video game that wants to be cool)
After the first hour of play, however, we do, worse still, in a repressed regression momentum, we even sometimes smile. It must be said that the game chain the sequences of great anything at a steady pace. Chasing a giant chicken egg, making a raccoon a proton bomb or simmering into a dragon's throat to attack the heart of the beast are all plans that are more like improvisations of Lo than strokes of genius. Back from the medal of the guignolerie, at the time when these lines are written, the title suffers from important saccades of framerate between kinematic sequences and gameplay phases. In the absence of time dead between the two, it is the kinematics that takes a few seconds to load.
A regrettable pitfall while the game maintains a constant fluidity in combat with hordes of enemies who harass you, all with effects of particles on a lot. The first hour of play is not an example of narration either, since it abuses a little too much of the synthetic images to make us get into history. Counterproductive when it would probably have been necessary to choose between a view at the first or third person, rather than to constantly dissect between the two. Fortunately, after the introduction, Flying Wild Hog relaxes on the process. We then chain the fights in arena where we can have fun at leisure with the arsenal of the hero.
Your Affinity For Guns Is Apparent
Where Doom stood out by an elegant stone scissors sheet that required juggling between distance and proximity to recover ammunition, health or armor, Shadow Warrior 3 proposes a much simpler concept, otherwise basic will say the most severe. You have to shoot enemies to get back at times a few points of life and go and try katana on the body to fill a special gauge. The latter makes it possible to eliminate one-shot the biggest demons, like the famous glory kills of the Doom but while recovering a temporary tactical advantage that will allow you to regain control over the crowds.
It can be a vortex that sucks everything in its path, a bomb that will explode like a disco ball, a simili gatling Or a plucked eye that will pierce enemy defenses as an assist. These animations are all very successful, although they may be a little too long in the action fire. Shadow Warrior 3 also has a pleasant singularity. Some arenas offer traps that you can turn against your opponents. Using an electric saw against a floppy of demons makes its most beautiful effect in a well-feeling blood gerbe. Too bad the mechanics are only accessory and not so frequent in the levels crossed.
Rip And Tear
The first quality of Shadow WarriorIt is probably his artistic direction that offers a festival of unbridled enemies. Visually the game displays a palette of cheerful colors in the image of its overflowing good mood and gameplay one can no longer arcade. We will cross circular saw-throwing accordions, screaming suicide bombers, simili Cacodemon equipped with powerful lasers or Mancubus look likes but with an avorton stuck between the bourrelets. A guignolesque treat that gives the bestiary a Chinese New Year's look.
We would have liked more variety even if all the crossed demons remained satisfactory. Another specific feature of gameplay, Lo Wang can also use his chi to repel opponents and expose their weakness. Apart from a few enemies, this mechanics remains perfectly accessory. Same for our sword that can be loaded to deliver an electric shock or ice wave. It's classy, it's very pretty, certainly, but perfectly dispensable. Good ideas that would probably have deserved to be dug for the benefit of the gameplay.
All this arsenal can be improved by recovering orbs during platform phases between arenas. There is no difficulty in any of these, but it remains pleasant to bring some variety and freshness. Problem and not least, however, the adventure ending in less than ten hours in the most difficult mode, it's a little short to get all these bonuses. It's all the more a pity that the game refuses -for the hour - to offer a higher mode of difficulty or a higher one. new game plus which would make it possible to take advantage of all these contributions during a second run. The tree of skills would have deserved more reflection in order to solicit the player other than by the quality of his reflexes.
Moreover, nothing really encourages us to unlock them, since enemies react globally in the same way regardless of the weapon used. Nor are we motivated to alternate the guns, so it is more the lack of ammunition and automatic change that will make us vary the pleasures. Binding bug for the moment, I was forced to finish the whole game without being able to assign the keyboard numbers to my weapons, which gave rise to strange circumvolutions to reach the F1 and conœurs keys. A constraint that is a stain despite the last patch of March. A patch should certainly correct this strange blunder. Where series like Serious Sam seem to be bogged down, Shadow Warrior 3 manages to find its place in the list of unbridled arcade games. We're now waiting for the new license. Evil West firm foot!
Shadow Warrior is a bit of my culpable winter pleasure that ends. Of course, it is felt that the development has had to be hasty and that the studio's ambition has perhaps been constrained by timetable objectives and probably less expensive financing than that of the Bethesda stable. Clearly more permissive and less subtle than Doom in the approach, however, gameplay remains devilishly effective. The weapons are all successful, the shots have impact and the hero's flexibility augurs for beautiful recaptures of the fly. Only the grapple remains a little too shy and lacks impact like speed when you throw yourself at an enemy. The set may seem a little rough sometimes and some collision problems may occur, but not always be brakes to the pleasure of playing intact. Shadow Warrior 3 remains a great fun-mouth before the next game of the ID Software that we should hear about by the next E3. It will only be necessary to close your eyes to a weak lifespan for the gender. A lesser evil for a short but intense experience, to keep appetite for the return of the king. Neither perfect nor failed, Shadow Warrior 3 is the image of his hero: a little bit cabossed, sometimes heavy but with a very good background inside for anyone to dig.
For
- Artistic direction
- Very original and crazy best
- The main theme that slams
- The nervousness of the gameplay
- Gameplay controlled arcade
- The arsenal with punch
- The Glory Kills Revisited
- The boss fight against the giant cock
- The suicide raccoon (RIP)
Against
- Some collision bugs
- Lack of variety of the bestiary
- Discrete OST
- The soft grapple of the knee
- AI that sometimes has strokes
- Lo Wang often heavying
- Very low lifetime
- Customization limited by lifetime
- Platform level CP
- Only two bosses
- Slowing in kinematics
- No new game plus or nightmare mode
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