Lost in Shadow Review.
Lost is Shadow subscribes to the theory that less is more when it comes to the look and story. With a look that is similar to the PS2 game ICO, does this puzzle platformer have the capability to hold up next to the aforementioned ICO?
First off, Lost in the Shadow is small when it comes to its story. The game picks up with a boy hanging from chains at the top of a very tall tower. A knight hooded character comes out of the tower and uses a sword to stab the boy. The boys shadow falls from his body. The knight picks then pick up his shadow and tosses him off the tower. This is where the game begins. You get woken up by a fairy, which ends up becoming your support character. You start to ascend the tower with the help of the fairy. That is all you get when you start up Lost in Shadow. They don’t tell you much like what is the boys name or why is he chained up at the top of the tower. The developers keep you confused and curious to help keep the game moving. But even when there is a story sequence in the game they still don’t tell you very much. Even at the end of the game, you still do not know what the hell happened. They did not answer any questions that I had about it. I was very disappointed by the lack of an ending.
The story aside, this puzzle platformer is interesting. You play as the boy’s shadow, and you have to run along the shadows of the objects in the foreground. You run and jump over obstacles like any other platformer but it is the way it is presented that makes it different. You have to train your eyes to look at the shadows and not the foreground. It takes some time to get use to. The game has you pulling levers and moving light sources to collect three k eys. You have to collect three keys in order to proceed to the next level.
The fairy is used to highlight any object you can move to change the shape of their shadow. The fairly is linked to the Wiimote, so at some points you can raise or lower or spin an object to change its shadow. The fairy can also be used to change the direction of the light shining on the background. The game gives you a vertical or horizontal slider bar to slide the light bulbs from one extreme to the other to change the shadows in the background. For example if there is a ledge that you can't reach and there is a vertical slider available to use, you can then slide it up to make the light shine down on the ledge which in turn will make the ledge lower on the shadow so you are then able to reach it. This part of the gameplay is great and very inventive. I enjoyed it for the most and it does get challenging.
Combat in Lost in Shadow is one of its weakest parts. You get a sword early on but you only have three different attacks, well four if you include the jump swipe. The enemy shadows range from insect looking things to straight up what the hell is that thing. Your life is represented as grams. The more grams you have the heavier your shadow the harder you are to kill. And depending on the enemy type you can die in one to two hits. And if you die, you get to start the whole level over again. After you kill things there will be health orbs and experience orbs that come out of them. Your experience carries over after you died and the only stat it increases is your attack. I had no idea that this game had a leveling system incorporated in it. This helped make the combat somewhat bearable.
In order to level up, you come across memories. These memories give you a couple lines of dialog from a previous shadow that came before I would assume. After you read the memory your shadow will gain an x number of grams to add to its total. So it is a good idea to explore every location. Also in each level you come across "Shadow Corridors" these corridors block your path and the only way to get by them is to go into them. The shadow corridors play with the camera. There are pads that you stand on that you then use the D-Pad on the Wiimote to the shift the camera to the right or to the left. It changes your perspective so you are able to proceed on. I did not have too much trouble with any shadow corridors until the end. These corridors are great; they help to break up the gameplay. The level design is amazing. I have no idea how they thought up some of the levels.
The gameplay for the most part is great. But it isn't too great after 15 plus hours of it. Yeah you heard me 15 plus hours. This game was about 5 to 6 hours to long. The gameplay starts to wear on you, and starts to get annoying. I enjoyed it for the first 9 to 10 hours but after that I was getting drained of it. When you get to what you think is the end of the game they give you the task of going back to select levels to collect stain glass pieces. I really hate it when games do that. There is no reason for Lost in Shadow to do that. I couldn’t have collected the pieces on my way up the tower. Instead they tell you what floors the pieces are on and you get into an elevator, but the elevator doesn't take you to the floor you need. It takes you to the floor that is five or six floors away. For example if you need a stain glass piece that is on the 35 floor and the closest the elevator stops at is the 30 floor and the 45 floor. You are stuck choosing the 30 floor. Why would you do that? So you have to run through the levels you have already done to get to whatever level you need and then after you pick up the shard you have to go back track to the elevator. Luckily they don’t make you collect the three keys again in each level. It is the worst; I was having a good time until they pulled that shit. I almost stopped playing but I suffered through it so I could write this review.
This game offers a good first 9 to 10 hours, after that it just sucks the fun and the life out of you. This game had a lot to offer but it just fell short at the end. The visual style is great but can be draining on the eyes after constant exposure. I just wish this game was five hours shorter. This would have made the game a great experience, but instead it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
