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.

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.

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