Shadows of the Damned – Video Recensione

A HELL BETWEEN LIGHTS, SHADOWS AND NICE BEATS

Called a "psychological action thriller" by Suda 51 and Mikami, Shadows of the Damned for us turns out to be more of an action puzzle with a punk rock soul. If style and plot are definitely the works of Suda, the gameplay is instead taken with both hands by the works of Mikami, but with appropriate changes that make the title more fluid and full of action. First of all, aim and movement are no longer unrelated to each other, we will be able to aim, change weapons and fire by moving and dodging the attacks of the enemies. What does not change is instead the interaction with the environment always linked to small QTE phases, be it the opening of a door or climbing over a wall. The camera is then placed behind Garcia, in an extremely similar way to Resident Evil 4, only a little further and to the right.

We will always move in particularly small environments in which our task will be from time to time to understand how to continue. In some cases it will be enough for us to find an object to feed to a soul guarding a gate, other times we will have to solve puzzles - which Garcia hates - exploiting darkness and light at the same time. As the main condiment of these settings we have the damned souls who will do everything to send us to the ground lifeless.

Different environments and also different enemies, in fact we start from the weak demons that we can eliminate with a few hits, to then move on to the armored demons of darkness that we will have to eliminate with a secondary shot of the weapon or a melee attack. Finally, to these are added bosses and semi-bosses, the first are immense demons to be killed by hitting the weak points until destruction, the second demons halfway between the normal ones and bosses with generally a single weak point to destroy.
There would be no enemies if there were no weapons and this is where the game offers its unique and original aspect. Throughout his adventure Garcia will be accompanied by Johnson, a cute demonic skull - the three-headed monkeys screaming Murray shut up - who with irony and a continuous exchange of jokes will change form and substance to give the demon hunter what he needs to move or fight. Johnson can therefore change shape continuously, in addition to being Garcia's demon and motion, he will also be a torch for melee combat, a powerful pistol, an even more powerful shotgun and a quick and lethal submachine gun. All of Johnson's weapon skills, in addition to Garcia's life, can then be upgraded with the collection of red gems that will increase the amount of damage, ammo supply and reload speed. Other gems will then allow us to unlock other powers or buy alcohol that allow Garcia to recover the level of health.

The adventure of Shadows of the Damned will take us no more than the, unfortunately more and more canonical, about eight hours to complete the five acts, something more if you try to collect everything and complete various objectives and trophies as well as raise the difficulty. . It's not a lot, but luckily it's not too little either.

SIMPLE, BUT DEFINITELY DEMONIC

Excellent soundtrack completely curated by the third pole of this triptych, Akira Yamaoka, former Sound director at Konami dealing with titles such as the Silent Hill series and No More Heroes 2. Punk rock music pairs excellently with the graphics and style of the game. Excellent characterization of the voices with a dubbing, only in English, not always in sync but never banal.

CONCLUSION