Shadows: Awakening

This was a hard game to recommend, it is one of those games that has a lot of great ideas by never fully executes all those ideas in a way that satisfies the player. For that reason I give it a 7/10, however if they actually had spent more time expanding on all the new elements here, the game would easily be an 8-9/10.
The story and lore and environments in this game are wonderful, the graphics are great and well optimized, this will run on most any computer. Every city you encounter is very unique and has its own living breathing story to it. This is where my first gripe starts to come in. Despite all of the work placed in the detailed cities and lore, the game constantly will throw you in "filler" environments that that have an illusion of being open world but are very linear and boring in nature. This is a hard gripe to explain without spoiling much of the stories in the game but I will use the first city you encounter as an example. The game starts in this beautiful desert merchant city called Thole, the city is bustling with merchant activities and quests. It introduces you to a lot of the surrounding lore in the game and grabs the players attention immediately. You quickly learn that Thole is under siege by nomadic slavers who wish to conquer the city for their own gains and this leads to many elaborate decisions for the player. You have to figure out how to escape the city, talk with the city leaders, negotiate with the leader of nomadic slavers so you can get through their siege camp. All of this occurs in the first couple of hours of the game and it hooks you, it makes you wonder how the rest of the game will play out. Well right after leaving the city, the game throws you into a generic desert environment with almost no quests and limited enemy variety, its boring and you will be stuck playing through that environment for about 2-3 hours. This is always the problem with Shadows: awakening and the storytelling environments, you go to this interesting city with detailed lore for about 30 mins to an hour and then you have to play through generic environmental slog for like 3-4 hours right after. I didn't realize the game had so much "filler" content till about halfway through the game, but after awhile you start wishing the game built more on the foundation it created by its detailed cities and well thought out lore.
The second thing Shadows does really well, but falls short on is the unique game play elements. You play as a demon who can quick switch through 3 different "puppets" in real time, it is the games way of balancing real time action with a party of 3 characters that you can control simultaneously. There are 14 different playable characters(more with the DLC) that you unlock throughout the game and this allows for a ton of replay ability because you can't unlock all the players in just one play through. There are 3 "classes" but I'm honestly not sure why the characters are separated in classes because each character is very unique to the point where there is little overlap. For example there is a hunter class(this is like a rogue class) and there is a generic character with a bow and arrow, but there is also a character in the same class that is a flying human sized wasp that shoots stingers and plays way differently than just the generic ranger like guy. They all have unique abilities that really encourages the player to explore and play through all of the characters.
This all sounds really wonderful, so why do I have a problem? My problem lies in the fact the game only lets you have 3 puppets at once, one of which is the main character you are stuck with the entire game. so you only get to choose 2 others to play as and often times you will be playing through a side puppets quest for 5-6 hours at a time which means you will be stuck with that puppet as well. So the game really only lets the player "choose" one puppet to play with, while you find yourself getting bored with the puppets the game forces you to play with. This is a pretty short game, only about 20 hrs to beat the main storyline and most of the side quests. So out of 14 puppets and being stuck with two, you only get about an hour or two with all the other characters in the game. This makes you feel like you aren't really playing through all the game has to offer. Sure this encourages replay ability, but would it have killed the developers to allow you to quick switch through 4 total playable characters instead of 3? Why lock the main character and side characters in play during most segments of the game? One would think unlocking the players might break the immersion, but the characters all talk to each other throughout the game anyways whether they are in play or not. So why does it matter that I am FORCED to use certain characters in combat segments when the game allows characters not in play to interact in story sections anyways.
Not to mention the different classes are wildly imbalanced. The hunter class is straight garbage, half of the enemies in this game have pierce resistance, which is the only damage type hunters have. Switching to a hunter is like throwing un-sharpened pencils at the enemies, its totally useless. The mages have the same amount of health but their spells do immensely more damage and have tons of options for different damage types so you never have the problem of facing enemies with resistance to what you use. The warrior class has double the health of the other two classes and can be pretty high damage as well, but you have to get up close and personal to your enemies with these characters which makes switching to a warrior a fun change of pace. I found myself switching between a warrior and mage most of the game and just ignoring the hunter class. Not because I wanted to but because the hunter class was simply boring and unplayable, I started off with one from each class but had to remove the hunter halfway through the game because half of the enemies and bosses took no damage from the hunter class due to pierce resistance.
Overall, I am walking away from this game with a major love/hate relationship. I loved the detailed story telling, lore, cities and characters. I also loved the new game play elements Shadows has to offer. My hatred settled in whenever those things I loved became overshadowed by the boring uninspired environments, strange game play restrictions and the weirdly weak hunter class making 5 of the characters feel unplayable for most of the game. As I said at the start, because of these issues, Shadows is a 7/10 game that could have easily been an 8-9/10 game for me if the developers had just spent a little more time refining the game.

Maybe not a hidden gem, but at least hidden silver ring.
In a price of precious metal scrap worth a try.

This is a fun game that has unique game play and an interesting story. You will reach the max level by the time you have finished the main quest. I don’t feel that there is much replay value to the game after that, and there is no farming or multiplayer in the game; all the levels can only be cleared once. I skipped many of the side quests, but it didn’t feel like they added much to the story.
Graphics: The graphics still hold up in 2024 even if there are better looking games, this one still looks great, and the interface runs nicely on a 4K monitor.
Story: The story allows you to pick different dialog options which influence the outcome. I can see why some reviews say the game is slow, since it has a lot of dialog for you to read and click though with places where your chose matters.
Puzzles: Puzzles are a big part of the game, and some can be quite difficult, but you can look at walkthrough videos if you get stuck which makes them easy.
Level Design: Most of the levels in the game, even ones that are supposed to be open areas feel very tunnel-like and small with walls of enemies being the only thing slowing you down.
Items: Items in the games are basic and even the lowest tier items can be upgraded with essences to the highest tier legendary. Infect the most powerful item in the game would be a level 30 white item infused with your favorite four essences. You will still find legendary items that drop but they feel less exemptional when you realize you can make them. Since, the game doesn’t allow farming, and mobs won’t respawn this was a good chose that the developers made with their game’s design, but it does make the game feel simplified compared with other action RPG games.
Companions: The way Companions is handled in this game is quite unique. You can have a party of four and switch between each simply by rolling the mouse wheel. They all share XP and level together as well. Each Companion has a bunch of special abilities that are useful in different situations, and you will find you are often switching between them the way you might switch weapons in a FPS game.
Overall, I would say the game is a fresh take on a genre that’s feeling kind of dull and not very new.

Underrated ARPG. I hated the real time + pause in the old Baldur's Gate games, but this game somehow manages to combine ARPG mechanics with a party-based CRPG atmosphere. I don't remember much about the story, but the gameplay was solid.
Basically, you have 4 active party members (you can get more NPCs in reserve ranks - although not all on the same playthrough), but only one is in play at a time. So you can swap while skills are on cool down or to set up a combo with one character and then switch to another for the finisher. And combat continues until all 4 active members die.
There aren't as many options with skills compared to other ARPGs, but since you have many different party members to choose from (I think over a dozen) you do have other ways of customization. Loot is pretty boring iirc, but at least the game doesn't throw a ton of loot at the players. Honestly, I'd rather have boring loot than have to spend time sorting through piles of loot. If I kill a boss or an elite, I don't mind loot explosions, but generally it's not a fun mechanic.
This is easier than their Vikings ARPG game so if you want a challenge, maybe try hard rather than normal. I would recommend saving the hardest difficulty for a 2nd playthrough since there are three main characters you can choose from and so this will give it more replay value, but if you enjoy very tough games like Dark Souls then try very hard. Normal did have a few challenging fights, but I wish I did play on hard. I assume easy is easier than most ARPGs' default difficulty.

This one was really good, it actually felt like an RPG with some branching quests that you may miss all together, I know I missed some quests and also made some choices that altered the outcome of many. Out of all the aRPGs I have played lately this one had some length and real depth to it. It’s starts of really slow literally and figuratively. I chose the warrior class and he was so slow in combat and movement but after I leveled up some he got way better. This game has a nice mechanic of being able to switch to 4 different classes on the fly which makes for some really fun combat variations. You can also, kind of, create your own epic loot with item upgrades or “essence”. I ended up doing this quite a bit because you have to juggle 4 different characters equipment and leveling and the loot drops while good were stretched thin between 4 characters. Having the ability to customize some crappy drops and make them epic was a nice change of pace. This feels like a AA game but after all the hot garbage of AAA right now, that’s a huge compliment.

Anyone looking for an aRPG with some unique mechanics I definitely recommend this.

It's been a while since I enjoyed a game so much I wanted to replay to find all the character lines, quests, endings... *probably* won't go for full achievements though because they are a lot of work :) (yes, I am looking at you, hard with no deaths and extreme difficulty).

Puzzles can be figured out, once you know what to look for and how to roll boulders. combat and character building is rather on the simple side, but that is honestly not a bad thing. don't you hate it when levelling up takes more time than actually playing?

I honestly cannot remember when I bought this game, but I am sure glad I found it in my library. I was starting to think there is no good story games for me to play any more.

A good balance between combat, story telling, character development and exploration. It reminds me somewhat of Titan Quest but with more of an RPG twist and, of course, more characters to play as (including the excellent demon 'puppet'!) Tom Baker does a sterling job as the main narrator but the rest of the voice acting is very much up to par as well. Inventory management is cumbersome but it works. Puzzles are most often easy to work out but not always easy to solve. Some require very fast mouse inputs whilst others don't seem to respond reliably to mouse input at all. There is also some backtracking but that's something that doesn't worry me and often I'll find some loot that I missed the first time round. Having played almost every major RPG out there since 1982 I can say that this compares well with the good ones. I've had a lot of fun with the game so far (just started Chapter 3) and, barring major shifts in the way it runs, I'm looking forward to completing it.