Shadow Warrior 3 Review: Shadow Warrior 3 continues the series tradition of completely rebooting the style of each game. It goes for a more linear arena shooter style this time around, similar to 2013’s Shadow Warrior, and overall it has the right idea. You play as former freelance mercenary Lo Wang, and you’re mostly trying to get from A to B.
This means jumping through hand-crafted levels and generally fighting your way through the various demonic monsters and mini-bosses that appear in front of you. of you. As long as you don’t eliminate enemies in an arena environment, you’ll either park between them or use your skills to navigate certain stages.
To shake things up, even more, this time around, Flying Wild Hog has added some new movement options. Shadow Warrior 3 lets you run on walls, slide, double jump, dash, and use a grappling hook to swing between areas or jump on an unsuspecting demon.
These enemies are a group of bizarre monsters of various sizes with glowing red eyes and, say, accordion-like bodies that spit saw blades. There’s a high level of precision to the controls as you move between arenas, and they manage to strike a balance between Lo Wang feeling super light and great responsiveness.
In theory, it’s about constantly moving and getting in and out of danger to survive. But we will come back to that. Unlike Shadow Warrior 2 (a game described in Adam Smith’s review as “part Borderlands, part chainsaw massacre interactive”), everything has been streamlined.
You still have your katana and a weapon equipped, so you can switch between them at any time. The developers have also reduced the total number of weapons to six, but whether it’s a revolver you can shoot bullets with or a super powerful sniper rifle, they all stand out pretty well from each other. others.
Lo Wang now has a simple skill tree, and each weapon also comes with its own little tree that develops slight nuances. The revolver, for example, can change from a sniper to an AOE weapon that sets enemies on fire.
My favorite addition has to be the Finisher moves. Located around the game, in addition to being dropped by most demons, is a new consumable called the Finisher Orb. If you collect enough to fill a meter, you can brutally dismember your attackers through animation, kill them instantly, then watch Lo Wang transform his innards into a limited-use Gore weapon. That name really doesn’t do it justice.
Lo Wang will punch a piece of demon meat, rip its bone like a chicken drumstick, then swing its disconnected limb like a giant hammer. Every enemy in Shadow Warrior 3 can have their body mutilated into a unique weapon or tool like this, and it rewards you for planning your finishing moves around the enemies you have left to take down. looks dark,
Speaking of which, Shadow Warrior 3 still emphasizes its story. Each level is booked with a cutscene that ties your journey together, and the stakes are simultaneously the highest and lowest ever.
An interdimensional dragon threatens Earth, because it’s hungry or something, and it’s up to Lo Wang to stop it. Basically, everything exists as a cartoon framework for pranks, and half the time Lo Wang will leave by car straight out of history for the most ridiculous reasons.
It seems that Shadow Warrior 3 focuses more on consistency than complexity. As soon as you enter an arena, it’s obvious what you can do as all areas follow the same rules. You can predict where your grappling hook will go, which enemies will spawn, etc.
But Shadow Warrior 3 soon ceases to present you with new challenges and there is very little to master to hold your attention until the end. It’s so repetitive that it’s impossible to avoid confronting your other negative qualities until, as Lo Wang would say, they fill the room like a wet fart.
