Shadows: Awakening

This is not just another stale loot clicker. It's actually a full-fledged RPG with an interesting hook, complete with numerous recruitable characters, side quests, puzzles, and hand-crafted levels. Swapping between the Devourer and your chosen set of puppets during combat is an interesting twist on this style of gameplay, though class balance is a little skewed.
A crucial point is that unlike most games in this genre, Shadows does not waste your time by expecting you to sort piles of trash. Your inventory is fairly large and is laid out as a list, not a grid. Loot hell is not an issue here. Some treasure is randomized, but the best equipment is unique and hand-placed, often behind side quests or optional puzzles (some of which you may not even notice if you're paying attention).
Shadows had a very troubled development history, so it's impressive that it all came together as well as it did. If you enjoy the Diablo lineage of action RPGs, but want something more substantial and less tedious, get this.

I’ve just finished the game, and while I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, there’s something that leaves me unsettled—namely, the pacing. The game offers a decent amount of content, yet it lacks the open-world experience that it's often advertised as having. Players need to be prepared for significant limitations when it comes to available areas. What frustrated me the most was the frequent use of artificial time extenders, such as needing to find a lever on the opposite side of the map just to open a door. If the developers were confident that exploration was fun and rewarding, they wouldn’t force players to backtrack just to experience repetitive elements and waste time. Unfortunately, this makes exploration feel tiresome rather than engaging.

The puzzles are abundant, with some being genuinely interesting, but it doesn’t take long before they start to feel repetitive and lose their appeal. The character-switching mechanic, where we only see one character at a time during gameplay, is intriguing. However, even if we have, say, eight characters to choose from, we won't utilize them much because they lack meaningful dialogue or compelling backstories. This same issue extends to the three characters available at the start of the game. While we do learn more about them as the game progresses, it feels forced and isn’t particularly engaging.

Although the number of characters is decent, the lack of interaction between them—aside from simple in-game dialogue—provides no real satisfaction from having these characters (or their souls). I also found myself missing any kind of romantic subplot or flirtation—something that could have added depth to the experience.

The combat is solid but won’t appeal to everyone, but I personally enjoyed it. The graphics, however, have aged, and it’s noticeable. There aren’t enough unique mechanics to keep things fresh, which, as I mentioned earlier, leads to boredom after a while. The same goes for the towns in the game. While there are a few people around, they don’t feel like a living, breathing part of the world, as you can’t interact with them—they’re just there, standing still.

The game also has a few bugs that are hard to ignore, but I won’t go into detail about those here. Overall, the experience feels underwhelming. Still, I’m giving the game a positive rating because it’s been a while since I’ve played an RPG, and this title rekindled my interest in the genre. My final score is 6/10.

A good ARPG with some nice game play mechanisms, a good amount of content and a decent story.
Definitely worth it.

I played the game through normal difficulty and still finding myself dying. Well it's a skill issue in my part.
This game revived my motivation and passion playing 3D isometric ARPG games.
Story is solid 8/10, you play as a demon who acquire souls and make it as a host. Apparently this demon is the only one that can manage to use multiple host. game has 3 endings and i got the good ending and trying to start a new game the reach true ending.
Gameplay is simplified 8/10. The system is somewhat similar to torchlight 2, basic stats, basic equipment system, and equipments that can be modified depending of the essence you insert to said equipment. Essence are like gems that you put in equipment sockets to put additional equipment skills.
Soundtrack was on point 9/10. Not too much and not too over the top.
This game also needs some QoL update. some quest are buggy(kiri quest). if you talk to her as Carissa, you will get teleported to kyallisar and quest is stuck back to the firstr encounter (i had to restart whole game for this). Quest mark also seems to not display properly sometimes leaving you thinking the quest is bugged.
Overall is a fun game and definitely check it out.

This is one of those B-list games you breeze through, then forget you've played. However, it's an okay one as far as B-list games go.
There are three possible characters for you to choose at the start, each with their own game-spanning quest, so it features replayability of sorts. You can also play as a good guy or as a bastard, and there are several choices throughout the storyline that produce different consequences depending on your decisions. It's not really deep, meaningful change, but it's there.
What is cool about this one is that you control 4 characters at once, and switch them in and out on the fly. They all have their own attacks, skills, and buffs, so there's a lot of combos you can pull off. Most of them are also kind of interesting, the ones included in the story at least.
Shadows: Awakening is also one of those games where you can play your own music in the background and just dilly-dally around as it doesn't require too much brainpower (despite controlling 4 characters).

Poisitiv:
The idea of a demon taking over other souls and to bring them back to life like that is awesome.
the Characters/Companions have funny conversations and it is a joy to walk around with all of them, every companion has that one ability/spell, that makes him unique and strong in either defense or pure offense.
The Game is easy to understand such as the combats
The Talent Tree is all right and gives some extra boost
Negativ: I hate puzzles in any Games, a few here are easy to understand, the others, I had to watch a video of another Gamer to get a few puzzles done
The Story feels rather short, I would have hoped of some more conversation and Story about the Demon that gets Summoned itself.
What is he exactly? Where was the Demon before he get summoned? Why are there just a few Characters react to the Demon and others don't seem to be interested or surprised at all?
End Word:
While I was amused by the Companions and they are though good written and have nice Personalities, their impact on this World was excpected to be bigger, but sadly it felt rather that these Companion are either 100% welcomed without hesistation or 100% denied without even thinking about for a second.
I'd wish if there is another Shadow Awakening, a little more depths in the Story, and Companions such as more depths about the Demon.
I hope there will be somewhen in the near future another Story with all the fellowchios from here in more intense way.
I realy want to be recognised as a Demon walking around with his pupets. If the Puppets were big in a manner of speaking before they unalived, I want the mysterious and mythic behind it bigger and the suprising part by their allies even more intense.
All in all it is rather a shorter but funny Game to Play.

Uff, that was nice run. Really enjoyed, very nice driven story it's like diablo just much better.
Nice hidden gem and very surprisely good quality game!
Beautiful rpg that i'm happy didn't skip.