Shadow Complex

The Good
Read full review below.

The Bad
Read full review below.

The Bottom Line
2009's Shadow Complex came at the start of the Metroidvania gold rush that is still leading to superb titles today; Axiom Verge, Dead Cells and Ori and the Blind Forest being fine examples. Although many of these games are now created by indie developers and smaller studios, it's good to see outside of the Metroid / Castlevania franchise this sub-genre with a strong cult fan-base managed to get some attention from a larger developer. It's a game that stays cripplingly close to the formula that made Super Metroid the classic it is today, but if nothing else that shows how well the pacing and progressive structure of the Super Nintendo classic has aged.

Chair Games eventually have gone on to greater things thanks to the wildly successful Infinity Blade trilogy, as well as a forthcoming collaboration with J.J. Abrams on as yet unreleased strategy RPG title Spyjinx. However, it was Shadow Complex that put the studio on the map, a download-only Xbox Live Arcade title that felt like full-scale triple-A production. It's worth noting that back in 2009 downloadable titles were still something a novelty, Xbox Live Arcade was advertised by Microsoft as a place to play smaller, more throwaway titles like Zuma and Hexic HD. This mentality was imposed by Microsoft with their restriction on the size of each games file size (as low as 50MB at one point), as well as the 200 achievement point limit developers could add to the title, compared to 1000 on full console releases.

The game sees you take the role of Jason Fleming, who loses his girlfriend whilst out climbing together. In an attempt to find her, he stumbles upon the sprawling underground base of a shadowy organisation attempting to throw the United States into civil war. Of course, Jason's girlfriend has also been captured and interrogated by this faceless group of super-criminals, so it's up to you and your ever-expanding arsenal of futuristic weaponry to save her - and the world. It's clearly a highly contrived set piece, but it creates the perfect narrative for a hero (voiced by Uncharted's Nolan North, no less) that enters the game world completely unequipped, before powering himself up with stronger weapons and equipment during exploration of the facility. This is standard fare for any self-respecting game in the Metroidvania fraternity, the retrieval of incrementally more powerful items allowing access to previously unreachable areas being a trope of the sub-genre that Shadow Complex sticks to.

In order to make this design pattern work, the world has to be engaging enough to make the player want to explore. It's fair to say that Chair Games have been successful in this endeavour, the complex could have quite easily been an exhibition of nondescript corridors and laboratories, but the full 3D backgrounds have allowed the designers to add plenty of ancillary details that make each room feel unique. The game uses a '2.5D' perspective, meaning that whilst the player only ever moves left-to-right on a 2D plane, the stages are actually fully 3D - watching enemies pour into rooms from corridors in the background adds an impressive - yet very literal, depth to the game world. 10 years after the release of Shadow Complex I still can't think of another game that has used this mechanic so effectively. The danger with a technique like this is that the screen could easily become cluttered and confusing, with many things going on in the foreground and background at the same time. I never found this to be an issue however, clever lighting techniques and a lowered depth-of-field have ensured that the players eyes are focused on and around Jason when they need to be.

Whilst the game progression and exploration are straight out of the Super Metroid playbook, the game also has an emphasis on fast-paced gun play. Some of the larger rooms contain dozens of enemies and it's great fun flinging grenades around and firing off machine gun rounds to pick off enemies on the opposite side of the stage. The right-analog stick is used to aim your weapon whilst moving with the left-stick, although sometimes it can be a little disorienting to do both at the same time. Enemies can attack you from the background as well. Your player will automatically point into the background as long as you are pointing in their general direction, although sometimes the game can get a bit confused keeping up with your actions. There were a few occasions where I ended shooting blankly at walls whilst being shot at in the open by a foot soldier that I couldn't quite manage to aim at.

Having finished the game on the default difficulty, I wouldn't say that the game poses too many problems for seasoned veterans of the genre. Although there are a few occasions were the difficulty spikes, this was usually because the game had auto-saved at a point where I had very low health. This meant that on the occasions I did die I occasionally got stuck on sections where I've had to manage my remaining health carefully before eventually finding a safe route through the tricky section. This was a rare occurrence though, for the majority of the game I never really had to worry about checking my health bar. This will no doubt change on higher difficulty settings, but having finished the game the first time I imagine subsequent playthroughs to be much quicker. The bosses, while graphically impressive never posed too many problems, in fact I ended a little disappointed with how easy the boss fights were in relation to their obvious size and firepower advantage over the player.

There are also several sections were the player can mount a gun turret and fight against hordes of enemies and sometimes larger mechs. In this mode the camera moves behind Jason and you are able to aim into the background, I enjoyed this feature, and whilst ludicrous its good fun one-shot-ing minigun wielding super-droids with a large cannon.

Shadow Complex is a short game, my first play-through took 5-6 hours, and whilst there are plenty of secret items to find it won't take you too much time to get that elusive 100% item collection marker on your save game. Whilst I haven't gotten around to it yet, the game is short enough to entice you to play through multiple times and I look forward to my next attempt at blitzing through the campaign on a higher difficulty. I have played through this game on the 2016 Xbox One Remastered version of the game, which is also available on PlayStation 4 and PC/Mac OS X via Steam. The original game was an Xbox 360 exclusive, so it's nice to see that it has been opened up to more players.

I would highly recommend picking up Shadow Complex, it is a fine example of what makes Metroidvania games such a joy to play and explore. I would also consider it an excellent introduction to the sub-genre, it's lower difficulty and short length make it a palatable alternative to the likes of the devilishly difficult Castlevania games. It also has enough graphical tricks and fun cinematic sequences (although the script is in no way going to push forward the boundaries of cinematic game design) to be enjoyed by players of all tastes.

The Good
Like the games it draws most of its influence from ( Super Metroid, Castlevania : Symphony of the nights ) Shadow Complex features One large world map in which you need to explore. In order to access new areas you must find new items to help you out. There are lots of extra items you can find also to help you out although they are not required to finish the game. It is very addictive to search for 100% of the items. If you manage to collect everything you will become quite powerful and godlike. It is also fun to try and finish the game quickly and beat others times on the Xbox 360 leaderboards. Using the Unreal 3 engine the graphics are great. The controls also are very responsive and the aiming feels natural.

The Bad
The story felt a little bit like it was taken from a G.I. Joe cartoon.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend this game to everyone. There are 4 difficulty modes that will allow anyone to have a good time with this from the casual crowd to the hardcore gamers. Exploring and collecting items is a blast and will have you hooked for hours. For its price this game offers excellent value. After finishing this game, right away I started a new game to see how quickly I could finish.

The Good
+ Xbox 360 exclusive. There aren't too many X360 exclusive games out there, other than the obvious (Halo 3, Gears of War 2), so it's always good to see one.

• Nintendo hasn't released any new 2D Metroids for their non-handheld consoles. Konami hasn't released any new 2D Castlevania games either. Ever since the 2000s, the traditional 2D Metroidvania genre has been abandoned (except on the handheld systems). It's good to see someone trying to revive it.

• The most impressive thing about Shadow Complex is its name. Two of the most badass words in the English vocabulary. Some might even think that it has a "complex" meaning! At least they could come up with a cool name (many games can't. Proof: Call of Duty: Black Ops III).

• There isn't one item that is particularly hard to find. Most items can be seen just from the map. A few items can be difficult to get (you have to figure out how to reach the room, or break a certain obstacle), but none of it is unfair.

• Sequence breaking is in full force here. You can deliberately go in a different direction than your onscreen marker indicates. You can try the speed run, 4% (insurgent) run, 13% (minimalist) run, 100% run, Insane difficulty run, abandon your girlfriend run -- they're all available in the game. You can spend weeks figuring out the different sequence breaking options, if you're into that sort of thing.

• Graphics are cool, with a unique 2.5D presentation that's different from previous Metroidvania titles. 2.5D means that the controls are in 2D -- you only move left/right -- but the enemies and environment appear in 3D. Because of this, enemies can stand on a platform that you will never be able to reach. You can still shoot at them though.
  
  The Bad
  As a big fan of both the Metroid and Castlevania series, I've been on the look out for any new current-gen Metroidvania games that come out. Shadow Complex is one of the most famous and best-selling titles in that genre in the last ten years, and unfortunately it is a textbook example of the imitator being far inferior to the original.

If I were to ask you, what are the main differences between American and Japanese video games, what would your answer be? Here's mine: American games have better graphics, more explosive action scenes, and feel more like a Hollywood blockbuster. Japanese games have a more artistic and lo-fi touch to it, much like a classic cult film.

If you understand the differences I just described, you have a pretty good idea why Shadow Complex doesn't work the way Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night did.

In Super Metroid, sequence breaking is "accidentally" discovered. The various glitches and the little level design touches feel natural. They never intended you to beat the bosses in reverse order. The fan community discovered it on their own.

But in Shadow Complex, you're looking at the X360 achievement screen and say to yourself, "okay, so I gotta beat this game in this order to get this trophy, and beat it again in that order to get another trophy". The whole thing feels artificial and forced. So they pretty much had to keep sequence breaking in mind when they designed the thing. It has become an entirely mechanical process, without any artistic and "human" elements that the Japanese games had. (After all, sequence breaking existed in Super Metroid because of human error -- glitches.)

The level design is a complete mess. The entire game world looks the same. In Super Metroid you have Crateria, Brinstar, Maridia etc., and each one of them has a fresh and unique look. Shadow Complex doesn't have that. It just doesn't. You don't feel excited AT ALL when you enter a new area, because it looks just like the last room you were in.

The level design is just plain bad. You're always running in a narrow corridor. You acquire the triple jump ability late in the game, but there's not much to do with it, because the rooms all feel so small and confined, there aren't many places you can triple jump to. The ceilings will stop you. What happened to the huge rooms with breakable ceilings(blocks) in Super Metroid?

In a completely laughable attempt at changing the Metroidvania formula, Shadow Complex autosaves your progress. That doesn't sound so bad, but it really is, and I'll explain this in detail. Every time you walk near a save room, boom, it's saved. It doesn't matter whether you want to save or not. Maybe you were just trying to figure out a new sequence breaking path, if this path doesn't work, you may want to go back and try another one. But no, the game forces you to save. Once you trigger the autosave, you can't load the previous save. You can't have more than one save file. You can't even start a new game. The only option in the main menu is "Continue". The designers really failed to grasp the core appeal of the old classics, Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, because save rooms were a huge deal in those games: you enter a save room, you manually press a button to save, and it feels like a ritual.

Okay, so we understand this is an American game, we can forgive the autosaving and such, but at least we can expect some cool guns or explosives, like the Needler in the Halo series?

Sorry, the answer is, again, no. NONE of the weapons in Shadow Complex is interesting or fun to use. You have a pistol, that soon becomes a sub-machine gun, and then becomes an assault rifle. Unsurprisingly, the next gun is always more powerful than the last, so that you don't have to choose the gun at all, it's already chosen for you.

You have grenades and missiles, and another weapon called "Foam", which is just a different type of grenade with a mild Ice Beam side-effect. Shadow Complex has the most clichéd weapon arsenal that you can imagine. The excitement of exploring the game world and finding new weapons is diminished by the fact that every weapon in this game can be seen in another shooter, in a more stylish way, and there's nothing unique or memorable here.

Your gun always has unlimited ammo. Your grenades and missiles will eventually stack to the point that you will never run out of them. Also, unless you are going for the minimal items trophy, you probably won't run out of health either. The joy of looking for ammunition and supplies in other American shooters is, again, non-existent in Shadow Complex.

If we can ignore the gunplay and just focus on the Metroidvania platforming, maybe we can see some goodness in this game? I doubt it. Here's the problem: The controls are kinda loose. Well, the controls are not too awkward, you generally can perform the moves you want to perform, and reach the place you want to go. But from time to time you feel that the moves don't work, even though you have definitely pressed the right buttons. To be fair, Super Metroid's controls took a few days to get used to as well, but once you get used to it, it's an absolute beast, with Samus behaving just the way you want her to.

The Bottom Line
Shadow Complex looks like Super Metroid and Castlevania on the surface, but fails to embody the core elements that made the classics fun to play.