(Moonlight Sonata playing) What happens to us when we...die? It is the eternal question that’s
rattled the brains of philosophers, thinkers, and clerics
across every school of thought, faith, and
denomination for Millennia, and if you know the answer to it,
you are either Keanu Reeves, -[Keanu] (exhales) I know that
the ones who love us... will miss us. - or you’re probably a
fan of Shadow Man. By that, I mean either the Comic
series or its 1999 video game adaptation- –not the shitty direct-to-
video Steven Seagal movie. - [Renowned Warrior-Poet Steven Seagal]
But I... I guess you guys know that... - Because avid readers of Valiant’s
dark, gritty antihero comic series are aware that every person’s soul,
without exception, ends up in Deadside. The spiritual purgatory underworld
where “the true darkness The spiritual purgatory underworld
where “the true darkness - [Michael LeRoi] ...at the heart
of all things is made real. What we see in death's dominion
is as void as a dead man's gaze, as cold as the light from a dying star. - From the early-90s on,
the Shadow Man comics, which revolve around a lineage
of chosen voodoo warriors who can freely travel between the world
of the living and the world of the dead, became one of Valiant’s most prolific
and successful flagship titles, quickly outselling even
long-standing industry stalwarts from the big
two, Marvel and DC, and serve as a central fixture
for Valiant’s Shared Universe. In its original run, the first
Shadowman series, with the protagonist Jack Boniface, ran from
1992 to 1996 and sold over 5 million issues until Acclaim
bought Valiant Comics in 1996. With their acquisition, writer
Garth Ennis, of Preacher fame, renewed the
series for its second run, in which the former zombie-hitman Michael
LeRoi assumed the role of Shadow Man through his "alliance" with the centuries-
old Voodoo priestess Mama Nettie. And this generation of comics would
be the one that Acclaim adapted into the 1999 video game
of the same name for the Nintendo 64,
PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC. In both theme and gameplay, Shadow
Man turned out to be a non-linear, maze-like action adventure
that put many a clever twist on a lot of common game
design tropes of the time: it was an outstanding
early 3D platformer, a surprisingly ahead of its
time 3rd person shooter, and a dizzyingly complex 3D Metroidvania
that’s incredibly satisfying to unravel, if you bring the patience. It’s a dark and epic antihero
adventure based on a refreshing, underrepresented
mythological backdrop, in which we hunt down a
cadre of sadistic serial killers through the Underworld to save
the world and defy fate itself! Shadow Man is a game in which Jack the
Ripper gets reincarnated in modern times, shouts - "For We Are Many!" - and commits seppuku within
the first fucking minutes of the game. And as ridiculous as this may sound, it
makes sense in context, and it hooks you! - "So let me get this straight..." This game cropped up in
the 5th console generation, was ported by GOG in 2013 for PC and
Mac, and recently got to bloom with the beautiful and faithful
remaster by Nightdive Studios. A refurbishment of the original
game rendered in a modern engine, bringing high resolutions, Hi-Res
textures, sleak, modernized controls and many other quality-
of-life improvements, many of which are
completely optional and can be enabled and disabled
at any point in the game. And on top of that, it seamlessly
restores a vast amount of missing content that was cut from the original game
due to time and budget restraints. And the game comes
with the first issur of Valiant’s 2018 reboot of Shadow Man. All of which makes it
arguably the most definitive and complete version
of the game ever made. Now, before we start our nightly dive
into the hopeless and convoluted maze of Deadside, for this video,
I approached both GOG and Nightdive, and I’m super happy to announce that within the
first 7 days from the release of this video, you will get an exclusive 30%
discount on Shadow Man Remastered, the highest sale the game has been
offered for on any platform so far. Just follow the affiliate link that
just popped up in the top right, which you’ll also find in the
description of this video and SNAG THEM DARK SOULS while they're hot! - "The Dark Souls... are MINE!" (Monsters of the Week intro track playing) (somber, atmospheric music playing) Liveside, the world of
the living, is at peril. One night, somewhere in
New Orleans, the powerful, centuries-old voodoo priestess Mama Nettie
is haunted by unsettling prophetic dreams. Her visions warn her of a group of devious
serial killers from all over the world, who banded together via the dark powers
of Deadside, the world of the dead. Their exact goal and motives are yet
unclear, but the omens are unmistakable: something grand and evil, something
truly cataclysmic is at work here. And it needs to be stopped. Luckily, Nettie has us, The
Shadow Man, at her disposal– -the one chosen Warrior
who can travel to deadside and investigate these
ghastly premonitions. So, she dumps a massive
ledger full of police-intel on the killers on us and bids us to meet
her in her hideout-chapel, hidden deep in the swamps
of the Mississippi bayou. - [Michael] "Can't live, can't die. Deadside is the perfect hood for me.
A nowhere place. The asshole of the universe. - Back when it was released, Shadow Man was the definition of a
hot summer night’s dream in a cartridge. So many people,
just like myself, could not resist renting it
from the local video store. It was one of the very few
M-Rated titles on the N64, and its cool package with the grimdark
sunglasses-wearing protagonist, pointing his grotesque
firearm at the camera was just too
tantalizing to pass up. It really was the time where tilting
your gun sideways was “the cool way.” Only mustache-wearing
square boomer cops would point a firearm
upright during the late 90s. When I played this game for the
first time, I distinctly remember, as someone who was already
a bit familiar with the comics, being immediately struck
by the game’s presentation. This is a pitch perfect adaptation
of the comics it's based on, both in tone and atmosphere. Our protagonist, Michael LeRoi,
is not some squeaky-clean, chest-puffing, do-
gooder superhero idol. He’s a disillusioned, undead voodoo-slave
who came into his otherworldly powers by being cheated into servitude by
the powerful caplata, Mama Nettie. And his role as Shadow Man, Walker-
between-worlds and protector of Liveside, is far more of a tormentous
curse that was forced on him rather than a blessing
of righteousness. Michael's been sick of it for a long time. - "I hate this shit!" - His connection to Deadside is
his late brother Luke's...teddy bear. A memento that will forever remind
him of his brother’s untimely demise, for which he is partly responsible. And because Luke's soul is forever
doomed to wander the underworld alone, his plushie serves
as Michael’s conduit, through which he can freely
traverse between the two worlds. (Luke's voice reverberating)
"Come on slowpoke!" Much of the story beats
are narrated directly by the protagonist in
voice-over monologues. - As a god, I step forward on the writhing,
suppurating surface of the Deadside Serpent! - The writing in this is oozing with
the kind of pulpy purple-prose you're used to from the kind of gritty
adult graphic novel it's based on, and his portrayal
positively thrives through voice actor Redd Pepper’s
stellar dramatic delivery, making it feel like you're watching
animated comic book panels with the words spelling out
the text boxes that decorate the corners of
the screen as you play. And hey, you could easily argue
that by casting a black voice actor of creole descent to
impersonate Michael LeRoi, Acclaim quietly nailed
"diversity casting in gaming" way before it was a hot and ubiquitous
topic in video game discourse. And what a great choice! Pepper brings the sombre, dark
and bassy trailer-voice timbre that delivers those off-
narration beats to perfection, while making every instance when Michael
gets sassy with one of his opponents, or even his comrades on the
reg, into an extra savory treat. - [Michael] "... how coud I refuse your offer?" "How could I ever refuse you, Agnetta?!" - [Mama Nettie] You can't!
I'm simply irresistible! - This constant sass is something
that’s fun to witness for any newcomer to the setting,
but it’s an extra satisfying delight for those familiar with
these characters and their personal dynamic through the backstory
established in the graphic novels. (Shadowgun shots) Once we arrive in deadside, we immediately land in a cesspool
crawling with abominable zombies. We fight our way out of it and make
our way to the gates of the underworld where we’re greeted by
Michael's old friend Jaunty, the foul-mouthed, Irish, tophat-
wearing Guardian Serpent of Deadside. - [Jaunty] "Whatever Mick,
it's good to see you again!" "Seems like simply AGES since I last
set me eyes on your happy, smilin' mug!" - [Michael] "The feeling's mutual!" - I won't elaborate on the
absurdity in Jaunty’s gestalt here. He’s really funny on his own-
-read the comics if you’re curious. It'll make more sense, and you’ll
get some truly tragic backstory to further enhance your encounters
with him during that game. From him, we learn
that the monolithic, industrial cathedral that’s
looming over this deprecated, purgatorial wasteland has
just recently cropped up almost out of nowhere. - [Michael] "Any idea
what's going on in there?" - [Jaunty] "Nope! And I shan't be knockin'
on the front door to find out neither! "All I''l say is: if there's somethin'
wicked headin' this way, "it'll be comin' from in there!" - So, we've got our
work cut out for us. We stride into the maze-like catacombs,
valleys and canyons of Deadside to uncover a path to
the dark cathedral that serves as our constant
orientation point in the distance, to investigate what's
really going on here. Down here in the underworld,
Michael is no longer of his mortal form, because in Deadside, the
Shadow Mask in his chest begins to glow and pulsate as he
assumes the role of his alter ego. - [Michael] "I... am the LORD of Deadside!" "Shadow-born at the confluence
of worlds to walk between!" - He is stronger,
faster, more agile. He doesn’t need to breathe, and his firearm turns into the
soul-stealing Shadow-Gun, with which we defend
ourselves against all kinds of evil abominations lurking
in this putrid purgatory. Now, the Shadow Man,
an immortal being who came into his powers
through being betrayed, who reluctantly takes on
the fight against the undead in order to challenge
megalomaniacal villains that pursue a grand and evil scheme, and who on top of everything
else, replenishes his life force by vacuuming up the souls
of his defeated enemies? If this made you think of Legacy of Kain:
Soul Reaver, then I commend your taste. The parallels between these
two games are so striking, both thematically and also mechanically,
that they could easily be lost siblings. It definitely begs the
question if one game did not serve as inspiration for
the other in some way, but having been released mere
months apart from each other, it really is one of those strange
cases of incidental pairing in media. Just like in Soul Reaver (Which I’ve also covered on
this channel before by the way), Shadow Man's underworld is a
labyrinthine 3-dimensional Metroidvania that gradually opens up more
paths and areas as you collect new and ever more
powerful skills and abilities. It’s also one of the best
examples of early 3D platforming, all neatly wrapped
in an open-ended, character- and story-driven
action adventure. And maybe more so than in
any other game of the era, the mind-twisting, maze-like qualities
of Shadow Man’s Deadside Overworld are probably one of the secretly
most important aspects of what makes this game so fascinating, grotesque,
and, once it grips you, addictive. See, there is a lot to
discover and a lot to overlook in these dark,
meandering corridors. Endlessly twisting paths,
crevices, tunnels and hallways, dizzyingly branching canyons,
caves, temples and serpentines are the fabric from
which Deadside is woven, and getting lost here is as guaranteed as
the sun rising in the east each morning. Well, okay it doesn't do
that down here, but it's- -it’s just a metaphor, right? My point is, you’re gonna get lost. Period. (dark, epic fanfare) A little while ago, I was browsing
through game stores when I stumbled across the Bard's
Tale Remaster from 2018. The original was a huge
entry-drug into RPGs for me, which is why I've toyed with the idea
of giving the remaster a try for a while. For Nostalgia’s sake. I skimmed a couple
of user reviews, when this line here took
me unexpectedly off-guard: Listing as a Pro for the Remaster
is the quality of life improvement, specifically mentioning
the addition of an automap. Now, for anyone who has no clue
what I'm babbling about here: the classic Bard's Tale from 1985
was a hugely influential early grid-based first person dungeon crawler,
also sometimes referred to as "Gridder." Back in those days of the early
Wizardry, Dragon Quest or, in this case, Bard's Tale games,
due to old hardware with just 64 *Kilo*Bytes of Memory, or even 48 if
you played on a humble ZX Spectrum, an automatically
updating map was simply not yet a feature that
was feasible in RPGs. So, for pretty much everyone who
played those games back in the day, the memory of having a graph
paper notepad and pencil next to you to manually cartograph the dungeons
while crawling through them was... a central part of
the experience. Now, I absolutely get and respect
how automapping, these days, is considered a necessary
convenience feature for a remaster, but I've always considered the act of
charting the dungeons you traverse a big, and to some degree even integral,
part of the appeal of these games. Having the map fill itself out
automatically, in the remaster, left me weirdly disappointed. The reason I went on this
tangent was because this reminded me of
how Shadow Man's (if I can use Zelda
terminology here) overworld, dungeons and
palaces are structured, and what the developers consider an
engaging challenge for the player. In the beginning phase of
the game, Michael is weak. His limited abilities and toolset
prevent him from reaching or entering many places that are
clearly, theoretically accessible, but currently just out of
reach or sealed off, teasing future progression that awaits
us over the course of the game. In the distance lies the dark,
towering behemoth of the Asylum, and our first task is to actually find a
way to it, through the maze of Deadside. Because we quickly discover the
path is not so straightforward. The pathways, valleys, and caverns
of Deadside twist and branch in ways that throw off
our sense of direction. Navigating this labyrinth with
neither map nor compass is a challenge that many people
entering it may not be prepared for, especially when rushing
in blindly and expecting contemporary design
conventions to spoon-feed players. - "There is no spoon." - Admittedly, back when I played the ported
version that came out on GOG back in 2013, its confusing overworld
did throw me off, but also, I admit that
back then I approached this game with the
completely wrong mindset. I craved fast and instantaneous
nostalgic gratification and brought neither enough patience nor the
will to meet the game on its own terms. The expectations with which we approach
a game are often the deciding factor between enjoying it and being
thrown off like an amateur at rodeo. Nowadays, when a game does not
prevent players from getting lost for too long through its design,
it's considered a fail-state. Video games are commonly expected to
make you feel like you are very smart, figuring it all out on your own,
while the game's systems are actually nudging you in the
right direction all the time. Ideally without
you even noticing. Which is...fine, there’s nothing
wrong with that approach; it takes a shitload
of skill, patience, experience and dedication
to handle that well. But back in ye olden days, a
convoluted, open-ended overworld that you were guaranteed to get
LOST in was literally something that would be printed on the back
of the box as a selling point. Not that different
from how every single - "DARK SOULS" entry and its many
derivatives proudly herald HOW MUCH YOU WILL DIE IN THIS GAME as a key marketing point. Because yeah, if you know
what you're getting into, getting utterly lost but not giving
in until you eventually start successfully untangling the gordian
knot a game puts in front of you can be immensely cerebrally stimulating
and satisfying unlike anything else. The beginning hours, when nearly every
door mechanism and branching path is sealed off or placed just out of reach,
it felt frustrating and disheartening, daring me to just throw
in the towel and give up. But Shadow Man really is one of
those examples of games that get good if you stick with it for
more than the average playtime. Because the more I got into it, the more
it clicked and the more I got hooked, eventually to the point
of near-obsession. I can't stop thinking about it,
and I haven't played a game that I wasn't able to put
down like this in a good while. One aspect that strongly
contributes to this is the way in which Shadow Man
employs the act of "collecting" stuff. Not just as a tacked-on,
extrinsically motivating mechanic, but as a central gameplay
element that is linked to the game’s progression and
moves the narrative forward. Throughout Deadside, we regularly
encounter large gates with symbols that correspond to our radial
health and magic energy meter. The amount of symbols highlighted on
these Soul-Gates indicates how much Soul Power we need to harness
before we can burst it open. And to increase our Soul
Power we have to collect - "DARK SOULS" which we can find hidden all
over both Deadside and Liveside. Oftentimes, they’re
placed in tricky-to-reach key locations or places
beneath some obstruction or skill gate that requires
additional powers to overcome. And if we collect enough souls, the
circular magic bar increases one notch, Michael will exclaim that - "The Power of the Dark Souls...
I... embrace it!" - and from that point on, we have
access to soul gates of one level higher, as well as more power
for our Shadow Gun. Plus, our mana pool also increases, for
the use of magical items and weapons. So story progression, skill
progression, and open world traversal progression
are all interconnected. Aside from that, we regularly find Cadeaux
scattered all across the game world, many of them are in plain
sight and right on your path, while others are hidden
more intricately in places that encourage you to really
scavenge every nook and cranny. Which you will automatically
adapt to doing over time, because these Cadeaux pretty much
work like the Heart Pieces in Zelda games, only that you need a lot more. Instead of 4, like
in Zelda games, you have to collect a total
of 100 Cadeaux and then offer them at the altars
of the Temple of Life, which increases Michael's life
energy by one additional slot. - "Oh generous Loa!
A spiritual trade for life beyond!" - This is, of course,
completely optional. You can choose to ignore
the cadeaux completely, but by giving you a very
real and powerful payoff, and by constantly having you
pick up enough of them to trigger the
compulsion to look for more– -complete the next set of 100– -it automatically nudges players to adapt
exactly the kind of situational awareness and collecting-fever that’s required
to untangle this convoluted mess. And with each new ability,
item or soul level you unlock, you suddenly recall a plethora
of doors, pathways and previously barred passages
you had to pass on before, and you feel
compelled to backtrack (luckily with a generous
transportation feature) and check them out
now that they’re in reach. (flame burst) It’s an immensely rewarding
and invigorating cycle. A wonderful example for this is
how lava and lava pits serve as instant death barriers and roadblocks
for large parts of the game. Lava and fire makes traversal challenging
and many places completely unreachable. But then, you eventually
acquire powerful, uh... bioluminiescent Voodoo tattoos that
gradually render you more immune to fire. First they allow you to touch fire,
then you learn to WALK on Lava, and eventually you’ll even be able
to dive into the forbidden hot tubs in good old Metroid
Varia Suit fashion. Once you unlock one of these abilities,
your brain goes into hyperdrive, remembering the
many places across Deadside and the Asylum that
were covered by Lava before. And you just can't wait to
traverse it all over again, more powerful than ever, in your hunt to
uncover every corner of the Underworld. Rinse, repeat. It’s really neat. This is, to me, by far
the best way of making backtracking in a
video game exciting- -classic Metroidvania
level design. The more you unlock, the more
you learn the lay of the land like the back of your hand, which in
turn makes you feel more and more powerful and knowledgable
of the place you're exploring. Like, the drive to
uncover everything (and this is me coming full circle with
my Bard's Tale tangent from earlier) eventually got me to pull out
my physical notebook and pencil to start jotting down every
single spot in the game-world I came across that I couldn't
reach yet, using crude mnemonic instructions that helped refresh my
memory several hours down the line. Because drawing an actual
map of this termite-colony? Forget it. Ah see, another spot
that I might be able to climb once I acquire
the ability to scale WATERFALLS OF BLOOD. Another thing that makes an initially
inaccessible and janky experience like this gradually work in the player's
favor is that Shadow Man is a formidable example of a
GOOD early 3D platformer. I often bickered in the past
about how platforming in the first major generation of 3D
gaming put so many design challenges on the table that a lot of
developers were outclassed by. I replayed (and made a video on)
Majora's Mask last year, and I had a great time with this
pensive, out-of-line N64 classic, but oh boy, did I not enjoy virtually
every passage in the game that relied on 3-dimensional
platforming skills. There are many other beloved
games of that era that relied on 3D platforming, whose solutions,
in my humble opinion, for navigating a 3-dimensional
space, have aged like fine milk. Which makes them unforgivingly
hard to unconditionally enjoy if you didn’t play them back in the day and
lastingly conditioned your muscle memory. Shadow Man, to me, is one of the
best examples for strikingly good 3D platforming from
that console generation. The camera is
never a hindrance, level design always gives
you a great sense of scale and distance to
intuit where to go, which jumps and obstacles
are within your reach, and which ones you don’t
even need to bother with. Michael's movement patterns
are always predictable enough to maneuver him
intuitively and accurately. You’ll rarely make a
mistake that you’ll blame on poor motoric systems and
lacking environmental signposting. Granted, the improved and modernized input
system provided by Nightdive's Remaster unquestionably played
a big role in it, but the biggest reason why Shadow Man’s
platforming segments aged so well compared to many of its
contemporaries is first and foremost smart level- and game design by people who brought great
amounts of experience to the table. Multiple key members, for
instance, previously worked on probably one of the best
early 3D platformers in history: the original Tomb Raider
by Core Design from 1996! This expertise can be
thoroughly felt in Shadow Man. The team’s experience
bundled with their fiery passion for the dark graphic novel-
inspired setting made this gem a timelessly tight, fast and engaging
open-world action adventure. (dark, epic fanfare) Now, if you feel that I've been talking
about this game for a very long time already without actually
going deeper into the story, then that is, incidentally,
pretty similar to how Shadow Man leads players
through its story as well. Because not just mechanically, but
narratively, Shadow Man doesn't spoon-feed its story to the player
in neat, bite-sized chunks either. Instead, it almost force-feeds you
a large chunk of information up-front that you’re unable to
fully make sense of. At first. Mama Nettie shares her prophetic
vision and leaves us with both a large ledger of police
intel on all five serial killers that are somehow connected to the
supposedly impending end of the world, as well as a lengthy tome of
prophecy that serves as a clever manual-in-disguise as well as a
cryptic piece of further exposition. Because at the
beginning of the game, we don't know nearly
enough to make sense of it all. Which is why our only
option at this point is to follow in the path that
the prophecy foretells. Even if, as we can see when
we skip ahead a few pages, it doesn't exactly instill
a lot of confidence. There’s a lot of info being dumped on
us, which we can devour all in one go, or leave parts of it untouched
until we feel like we need it. We still won't be able to see
the bigger picture until way later. All we know at this
point is that somehow, The Five share a
connection, via Deadside, and the Cathedral of Pain plays a
central role in the unfolding events. But how and why
they're doing this, and by what means they came
into Deadside in the first place– -because mortals are
usually unable to enter it– -is completely
unclear at this point. And so, we meander and fight
our way through Deadside, 'til we uncover a path into the hulking
industrial complex of the Asylum, which alone takes
multiple hours of playtime, and from there we continue roaming
about its various sub-locations. The factory floors and catacombs
of this complex are equally as convoluted and brain-
twistingly arranged as Deadside, but aesthetically and
architecturally they’re more grungy, rusty, artificial
and machine-like. Just like in Deadside, we find many
branching paths that are restricted because we lack the necessary
tools or abilities to pass through. Many parts, for instance,
are sealed off by fire and lava, so our trek through the Asylum (in which we collect other
important upgrades like - "DARK SOULS" that can, in turn, open up
new areas back in Deadside) will regularly lead us back to dig deeper
into the temples and grottos of Deadside, wheeere in turn we'll
salvage more things required to venture further
into the Asylum again. And so we keep oscillating back and
forth between them like a metronome, always progressing a
little further each time. Eventually, we gain access
to the Asylum’s tram system and reach the Cathedral
of Pain at the heart of it. It houses five heavily guarded
altars, each one dedicated to one of the serial killers
we’re supposed to hunt down. But...it appears to be
a dead-end at first. The altars contain little worship-
chambers and a towering ramp leading up to an
impaled corpse at the top. But there’s nothing
we can do with it, really. So, we search around a little. In a nearby chapel room we
find schematics hinting towards a strange contraption made
from these impaled corpses, and how they are somehow linked to
the serial killers' Liveside locations. And even though we can
always return to Mama Nettie and Jaunty to chat
about our progress, most of it we really have to find out on
our own by good old private investigation. I've thought long and hard about how
much information of the grand design of the villains in this game
to disclose in this video, and I came to the conclusion that I'm
going to avoid spoiling too much of it, so that people who have never played
Shadow Man or have never gotten far can experience the intense rush of
epiphany that comes with it on their own. This style of storytelling
is something I've always found incredibly
fascinating and satisfying. In a way, it reminds me of the
timeless appeal of Cyan-games like Myst, Riven, or Obduction,
in which you’re thrown into a foreign world that feels like
it's existed and functioned under its own rules long before
the player stepped into it. Places where you’re littered with
initially unconnected information, that you gradually
have to process– -tapping in the dark with question marks
hovering over your head for a long time. So you patiently start connecting
the dots until eventually things start falling into place in a
sudden avalanche of enlightenment. I called this phenomenon
"cerebral orgasm" in the past, and I’m still
quite fond of that term. I'm not sure if Shadow Man's
epiphany-scale is on par with the intense brain eruption
of a Riven or Obduction, but it's genuinely satisfying to gradually
decipher where those mysterious Retractors are hidden across the various
outliers of the Asylum, and in what perverted and grizzly fashion they
operate as conduits between the worlds. To uncover how those serial killers are
connected to the master plan of Legion, the main antagonist, to subjugate
the world of the living, and, to tie the bow, how
entering The Five’s real world locations and defeating
them will help you on your quest. The beauty of it is, as I said
before, how the discovery part of Shadow Man is intricately tied to its
underlying Collectathon world design. There are not just the - "DARK SOULS" and Cadeaux to collect, but several
ancient Voodoo temples to find, puzzle, and fight through,
in which we harness the powers that make us
increasingly impervious to fire. There are many artifacts to excavate,
which we can wield in each hand individually to adapt and improve
our fighting styles and movesets. And finally, we find this gigantic
machine core at the center of the Asylum, with its pistons perpetually
pumping, and we have to find out how The Five and their Liveside locations
across the world are connected with this. Which we have to do in order to
stop the machine and follow the spectral apparition
of Michael’s brother Luke that keeps pulling him deeper and
deeper into the heart of the Asylum. Shadow Man has so much cool shit to throw
at the player, but it's never afraid of withholding it for a looong time to
keep the game continuously engaging. For example: A narrative hook like
"You are going to go hunt a group of sadistic, psychopathic
and misogynistic serial killers" is something that I'd
expect any story to let the players relish as
early as possible. - [Jack II] "I took
the all to my heart. "Mary-Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman "Elizabeth Stride,
Catherine Eddows, Mary Kelley "and loved them, TRULY loved them all! But in Shadow Man it took me over half
the duration of the actual game until I a) knew where I could find them, b) had everything I needed
to actually enter their worlds, c) understood why I was fighting
them for the progression of the game, d) understood why I was narratively
fighting them aside from "they are evil," and e) make it night in their Liveside
locations, which turns out to be required to take them on in the
first place, as we find out eventually. You're gonna understand
it when you get there. This credit of trust in the player's
attention span has the effect that by the time I'm finally
coming for them, I've been edged to the border of madness in anticipation. - [Spongebob] "IIIII'm reeeadayyyy! "I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm
ready! I'm ready! I'm ready!" - Shadow Man is truly
one of those games that, the further you get into it,
the more it sucks you in. - "The horror... the horror....
I... embrace it!" Now, as always, we're getting
to THAT bit of my videos. You know the drill. (inhale) Shadow Man, a 5th generation
console classic, nowadays, is an abandoned and neglected relic
of the video game industry that is virtually unattainable
through legal means. The only valid way to hop on your
Hispaniola and play it through emulat- (record scratch) Waitaminute, no that's not- (leafing through pages) Huh wouldyoulookatthat? Shadow Man is for once
available for modern platforms. The 2013 Port of the original on GOG and
Nightdive’s Remaster on Steam and GOG. As well as planned to be released on PS4,
Xbox One and Switch in the near future. Sorry, force of habit. I've covered so many classic
and forlorn games in the past, that it’s almost hard to believe
that Shadow Man, for once, is not yet another example of a classic
video game that's been long out of print and that's these days only available
via used-game resellers and emulation. Instead, Shadow Man was pristinely
refurbished by Nightdive Studios. They truly deserve
credit here, because this is how video game
preservation should be done. This remastered version of
the game kept intact the entire skeleton and every bit of flesh
on it that’s still palatable, and replanted it into Nightdive’s
in-house KEX-engine, making it run smoothly and
seamlessly on many different platforms. It's the same engine, by the way, that had
powered the fantastic remaster of Blood (which I've also covered
on this channel before), as well as the just recently released
remaster of the original Quake. This replanting of the original
source-code enhances the game’s visual fidelity with super high resolutions
up to 4K and beyond, optional shader effects such as antialiasing,
motion blur and high quality lighting, as well as faithfully overhauled high
quality textures to smooth it all out (which can also be turned
on and off at will by the way). The absolute and quite massive dollop of
cream on top of it all is that Nightdive, in close collaboration with
the original developers, faithfully restored multiple areas of the
game and seamlessly reintegrated them alongside a shedload of
additional cut content, including weapons, cutscenes,
dialogues and a lot more. All of these were firmly planned to
be included in the original release, but Acclaim was forced to drop
a lot of content last minute due to budget and time restrictions
near the end of the production. Aside from several areas in
Deadside and the Cathedral of Pain that were scrapped from
the original release, Acclaim also had to reluctantly drop two
of the serial killers' liveside locations. Namely the Salvage Yard in the Mojave
Desert, where we fight Marco Cruz, the flamboyant Repo-
Man and Disco-Killer and meet him in his unexpectedly surreal
showdown on a nausea-inducing dancefloor. - "Yeeewhow!" (gunshot) - As well as The Summer Camp in Florida, hideout of Milton Pike, the bulky
vietnam-veteran Video Nasty Killer. In the O.G. release, these stages
were replaced by moving those two bosses in the same maximum
security prison as Victor Batrachian, the Hannibal Lecter lookalike whose stage
is the central and final of The Five. The pathways to their liveside locations
were also open from the get-go, whereas in the remaster you have
to find additional Retractors in various side-locations of the Asylum scattered
across Deadside to pry open each of the five conduits’ rib cages in the Cathedral
of Pain to pay the killers a visit. Yuck. Shadow Man Remastered reintegrates
these stages and many more features and goodies so seamlessly
that I didn't even notice that something was altered
without reading up on it. Though, in my defense, it’s been
a while since I last played it. I honestly wish that this approach was
the standard for video game preservation, and not the abysmal state it's
been in due to copyright-hoarding megacorporations slumbering
on incredible IPs, like a dragon on their
pile of looted gold, doing everything in their power to
prevent consumers from showing too much interest in their
historic backlog in favor of all the shiny new releases that
make the big dough instead. See, whenever I showcase
a great classic game, a chorus of voices inexorably
erupts and screams for a REMAKE. And yeah, in some cases, a full-on remake can be exactly
the thing an old title needs. Honestly, in so many cases I feel like
a remake is not really what's needed. Like, the game is right there, and it's still brilliant in
all its classic splendor, and it doesn't need to be regurgitated
and pasteurized for every complacent game design trend audiences have been
conditioned with over the past decades. More often than not, what is
needed is a well-adapted port or, in some cases and the longer it’s
been out, a faithful remaster that leaves everything that hasn't gone
past the expiration date untouched. - "A spiritual trade... for life beyond!" (moans) - And yeah, this is exactly what Nightdive's been laser-focusing
on over the past decade. See, I spend a lot of
time with emulators, to play beloved classics from
older console generations. And emulators allow you to
embellish these games' rendering fidelity on
modern systems, reliably, and Shadow Man Remastered feels
like immediately skipping ahead to the finish-line of a long and arduous
emulation and tweaking procedure. This is ultimately why I’m so
smitten with remasters like this one. Flawlessly working in enhanced
visual fidelity straight out of the box and with a LOT of additional
goodies on top that don’t dilute but enhance the
original experience. Nightdive wrapped the game
in a state-of-the-art engine, providing it with silky-smooth
modernized controls and other quality of
life improvements. Any new player who approaches
it for the first time will find their path into the game's
"zone" to be much more straightforward, than if they had to get
accustomed with a more unintuitive, deprecated control
scheme they didn’t grow up with. Like, try to play any PS1
first-person shooter, and you'll know
what I mean by that. And for anyone who doesn’t like all
new additional shnik-shnak, most of the added or modernized features
can be turned on and off at your leisure, including the
modernized controls. And for hyper-purists, well the
original GOG port is also still out there and it won’t ever go away
due to the DRM-free nature of GOG’s offline-installers
being already out there. You're never gonna be able to flush
that from internet memory, anymore. (kerblam kerfuffle going on) And if THAT’s still not
pure enough for you... there’s always...emulation. - "Weapon in my hand... "The arcing death blow.
The end of all things. "The Horror... the horror... "I... EMBRACE IT!" -So there is a Shadow
Man for all of us. (splish splash) Yeah; Shadow Man Remastered was really
the breath of fresh air that I needed to get thoroughly obsessed
with the universe again, couldn't put the game
down until I had it 100%'ed it and that as someone
who's not a 100%er at all, and now am having a blast
reading through the comics again. So that's awesome! In this video, I hope I could
convey what I loved so much about it and if that made you feel
like you want to give it a try as I said before,
the game is available for the first 7 days after the launch
of this video over on GOG.com, for 30% off if you follow the affiliate
link I've provided in the description. If you're sadly too late
for the snap-deal, hey -- using the link to buy it still
helps me out, because I get a tiny commission for that,
so that's really lovely I think. Now, for... anyone who
discovered me through this video, hey, I'm Ragnar and on this channel
I cover old games, horror games, indie games, or combinations
thereof and try bringing attention to games that have
fallen into obscurity as well as outstanding indie titles
that I want people to not miss out on! I usually showcase an indie-game
in the credit segment here, but there sadly wasn’t
enough time this time around I’m planning to bring Games from Underground back; my series on exclusively indie games, so that’s hopefully gonna make up for it,
so stay tuned! Making these videos and the
financial support of everyone who partakes in making
them is primarily crowdfunded, so If you’d like to help us out, you can easily do that
with a monthly donation within your comfort
levels over on my Patreon. The support makes a
tremendous difference, it’s the de-facto financial
backbone of this channel – so my sincere gratitude
for considering and to everyone who
supports me there already! And here's a special shoutout for
these lovely, generous supporters: www.patreon.com/RagnarRoxShow/ Until next time, ta ta! (machine sounds, stomping) [Nettie] God no... Shadow Maaaaan!
