Shantae Switch Review

 Shantae (Nintendo Switch)

Developed By: Wayforward/Modern Vintage Gamer

Published By: Wayforward

Date of Release: April 22, 2021

Price: $9.99

 

I can't believe it's finally happened! After all these years, the entire series of Shantae is playable in one place, in particular the Nintendo Switch. The original game, previously only available on the Gameboy Color and 3DS has received an amazing switch port created by Modern Vintage Gamer. The original Shantae was a game that absolutely pushed the Gameboy Color to it's limits, so to emulate it so faithfully is an amazing feat in my opinion.

As this is where the series started, you can pretty much expect how Shantae will play. It's an action platformer like the rest, with mild metroidvania elements thrown in. However since this is from back in the days of the GBC things are a fir bit more primitive. For one thing there's not even a map feature, which can make the dungeons and backtracking a little bit tricky. Not only that but the levels are more than a fair bit more primitive than the later games. However the controls are snappy and responsive, and with a bit of practice you can git gud, despite the harsh difficulty in the beginning of the game.

Not that any of that makes this a bad game. The chiptune soundtrack by series veteran Jake Kaufman is a treat for the ears, and the crisp pixel art, now blown up to a much larger size than the original version, is quite nice to behold. These were some of the best graphics back on the GBC, and even featured palette swaps to show the day/night cycle. Shantae truly was a showcase of how to make a Gameboy Color game back in it's time, and no collection is complete without it in my opinion. Furthermore at $10, it's not going to break the bank either. I'd recommend it for anyone who is a fan of the series.

ShadowMan Remastered Review

ShadowMan Remastered

Developed and Published by: NightDive Studios

Date of Release: April 15, 2021

Price: $19.99

 

In the beginning, there was Acclaim. Maskers of many good games, and seemingly as many bad ones. Masters of the licensed tie-in game, they weaved tales of dinosaur hunters, foul-mouthed children, and roid-raging police officers alike. Then came the game that in my humble opinion put Acclaim on the map, ShadowMan. Released in 1999 on the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC to moderate fanfare, it was a sprawling third-person shooter of metroidvanian influene. The scope of the game was quite massive for the era, despite having a large amount of planned content cut out to ship it in time. Regardless of any cuts, the Nintendo 64 version was amazing, quite easily one of my favorite games on the system. I don't think I've ever played a game that just drips with so much atmosphere, with the dark ambience just oozing from every pore of this game's being. 

The voodoo-based trappings of ShadowMan's story paint a colorful backdrop to the game word, and the visual presentation is very unique. The visual aesthetic is wonderfully twisted as gothic architecture gives way to rusted industrial brutalism, and structures made of stitched skin with bone supports. The whole world has a real lived-in(or died-in) feel to it, and you can almost smell the blood and corrosion caking the surfaces. The soundscape of ShadowMan can simultaneously be a treat for the ears, but also nightmare fuel at the same time. The haunting ambient melodies that play as you traverse Deadside give way to the horrific sounds of torture and surgical machinery as you traverse the Asylum.

Now there original game holds up pretty well, but NightDive wasn't satisfied with that. They got Kaiser to rip out ShadowMan's soul and transplant it into the KEX engine, with all the modern conveniences that such a process entails, and on top of that they have restored the majority of the cut content, had the composer remaster the original soundtrack and compose new tracks for the cut areas, and then reskinned the entire package with HD textures, uncensored the models, and added improved rendering. As if that wasn't enough, they then updated the control scheme, re-did the physics, and then shoved a SECOND Violator up it's arse (hope it fits!). This has resulted in what is IMO the definitive way to play ShadowMan on PC, and there's console versions coming soon as well. all in all NightDive, Kaiser and the KEX team have outdone themselves. The Loa smile on this remaster, and I cannot recommend it more highly.