Shadow Complex Remastered Review

The story is B-movie at best, the characters are soullessly dull, and yet there's something so enjoyable about the moment-to-moment gameplay that really gelled with me.
  • Gameplay
  • Journey
  • Hidden Depths
  • Resonance
3/5Overall Score

Shadow Complex is a legitimately fun, brainless little Metroidvania-lite. The story is goofy, the gameplay can be janky at times, and the bosses are dull and forgettable, but the way you scale in power from initially just a regular guy running and gunning to a triple-jumping, hook-shotting, rocket-firing machine is a joy.

There’s no sugar-coating it though, the story and writing in this game are bad, and I think the main issue is that I could not quite tell if it was just badly written in general, or badly written on purpose in a nudge-nudge, wink-winksort of way. Generally, though, if it’s hard to distinguish whether it is satire or not, it’s probably not.

Shadow Complex begins with a guy wearing a stolen set of power-armour, disobeying orders and going on a killing spree to save the Vice-President, who is under attack by a shadowy cabal of unknowns (I do genuinely wonder why it’s always the Vice-President, who, to a Brit, seems to do fuck all. Please correct me if I’m wrong). After shooting down a helicopter, the armour is then hacked and shut down, and a voice tells him it’s all too late and the Vice-President is now dead. So far, so schlocky.

One of the many lifelessly dull bosses / Shadow Complex Remastered

Then we’re on to the main character, Jason, a completely generic, characterless everyman, who is on a climbing date with a woman he recently met called Claire. Again, a character so bland I can genuinely only describe her as a MacGuffin to get the main character into the eponymous Shadow Complex. From then on, there’s an eye-rolling B-movie plot about Cobra Commander The Restoration trying to take over the USA by inciting a civil war, which somehow involves murdering the Vice-President and also building a big airship.

Melee takedowns are meaty one-hit contextual kills (even if the animations are often quite janky), which I absolutely adored using as often as possible.

But I guess we’re not here for the plot, are we? We’re here for the gameplay, which is actually a hell of a lot of fun. The movement and shooting are smooth, and only a tad wonky when you’re shooting people in the background rather than on the same plane as your character. Melee takedowns are meaty one-hit contextual kills (even if the animations are often quite janky), which I absolutely adored using as often as possible. Once you have your power-armour, you’ll be smashing guys as hard as possible across the room. You slowly upgrade from a pistol to a machine gun as you go, as well as gain power-ups such as grenades, a goo-gun, and a rocket launcher. The steady trickle of upgrades never makes the game feel boring.

Melee takedowns are a hell of a lot of fun! / Shadow Complex Remastered

The general gameplay loop is a lot of fun, and I had a genuinely good time traversing the complex’s various corridors and outdoor areas. However, I could have done without the boss fights. There is nothing interesting or original here; they are completely unremarkable robots, feeling almost as if they were tacked on at the end. They nearly all involve dodging a barrage of bullets and then popping out to repeatedly grenade or rocket them in the face.

Apart from this, though, I had a good time with Shadow Complex Remastered. It does nothing special, the story is B-movie at best, the characters are soullessly dull, and yet there’s something so enjoyable about the moment-to-moment gameplay that really gelled with me. I will give it one thing story-wise though: there’s a moment where you reach the surface again, and as I was pressing B to melee what I initially thought was an enemy, Jason got in his jeep and just drove home, leaving Claire and Cobra Commander to their fates. I just think more games should give you this option, really.

Format / Steam Deck
Release Date / 03 May 2016
Played / 13 Jul 2024 – 14 Jul 2024
Played Time / 4.4 hours
Achievements / 11 of 39

Ashley Mills
Ashley Mills

Hello. My name is Ashley, and I have a hoarding problem. None of this is physical though; my hoarding is entirely of a digital nature. I have nearly 1,000 games in my Steam library, and yet 95% of those have been completely unplayed. That's not even everything either—there are games I own on GOG, Epic, etc. as well!

So what's the point of all this? I guess it's to hold myself accountable, to finally plough through my gaming backlog of shame. With the advent of handheld PC gaming (the Steam Deck truly is one of the greatest ever creations), I'm finding it easier to make my way through what originally felt like a Herculean task. I'll be writing a review of each game, some of which will be triple-A (quadruple-A even!) mainstream behemoths, whilst others will be niche little novelties, but I'll treat them all with the respect they deserve (or don't, in some instances).

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