Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition

I am a big fan of the franchise and am a bit let down with this one. The game focuses on very mild jumping puzzles that serve just to move you from arena to arena. Every arena, almost, has 1 new enemy - so by the end, tons of enemies that noone really cares about and do not serve to make the game better. The most visible problem is the length - I finished it in 6 hours. Not what I expected, at all, and if I didn't have more integrity I'd ask for a refund based on length. Should have read reviews. Ok, that said - the game, what there was of it, was fun. The cut scenes / dialogue were on point and enjoyable. I just felt left down. Its like.. going to read a great book in the series and, after buying it, you find its actually fan fiction written by a 12 year old on tumblr.

While Flying Wild Hog may not have dropped the ball as hard as many people may have said, said ball definitely hit the ground. While I think that Shadow Warrior's 2 attempt to be Borderlands was not ideal I think keeping weapon variety but swapping out looter shooter elements for a fixed group of upgrades that I could slot in like shot splitting and airburst alt fire would have been enough. Instead they've made the choice to try and copy Doom Eternal and every other movement shooter that's gotten so unfortunately popular. And it doesn't work, it's less power fantasy and more you getting your a** beat. While it is nice to quickly switch to a sword I don't like losing aim down sights and I'm furious that I can't quickly pull off my sword combos correctly because it only accepts the second input after swap for no reason, I can literally see the sword being held in the correct position without the boosted damage. And the loss of vortex spin (a side slash is not vortex spin) and most chi powers is horrible. I took much longer than many people playing all but the first and last levels on hard those two being on medium and I took 7 hours 57 minutes to beat the game. The damn cutscenes stutter when they start I presume because they don't allow enough time to prerender on my RTX 2060. Though the game looked just fine with no issues at 1440p 60fps. The writing is pathetic. The first game was a classic buddy adventure with a dramatic and even sad ending, poignant. The second was about how interpersonal relationships are hard. This one is about the horribly generic concept of "hope" and "we can't do it alone." What is this? A shounen anime? Kamiko, Xing, Mezu, Gozu not one mentioned at least by name. The characters here instead are limited and garbage. Ultimately I'm mad because I've had the most fun with the game's vs human katana fights and would love too see a refocus to almost only that. Maybe a different IP with that focus would be a better way to go for FWH.

I loved sw2 and was very excited about this. It's terrible. Nothing like SW2 and a complete backwards move. I am not wasting my money on this, I tried to like it but it's horrible. Really poor Doom copy. Stupid platform timing jumps.. no thanks.

Each of the new Shadow Warrior trilogy have been very different. Shadow Warrior 2013 was a fairly standard FPS elevated to excellence by the superb melee combat, impactful upgrade system, and a plot that whilst simple was excellently executed. Shadow Warrior 2 on the other hand was a looter shooter along the lines of Borderlands, and now Shadow Warrior 3 clearly takes its inspiration from Doom Eternals. There is plenty to like here - the standard weapons are distinct with a great sound and feel, the high mobility combat is entertaining and well supported by the combat arenas, the limited use weapon drops from using finishing moves on opponents are generally fun to use, and I personally think the zany, upbeat atmosphere and vivid colour palette fits very well with this style of FPS. The problem is that there just isn't enough game here. Even if we ignore how short the main story is I am not sure there is enough variation to keep the game interesting past the 10 hour mark. Power and health upgrades are very basic. There are only six standard ranged weapons, each with a single upgrade path and no alternate fire mode. The katana takes up what used to be secondary fire, and whilst it has some added complexity you likely won't use it much as melee combat is more dangerous and ranged weapons cause enemies to drop health, which is the more important resource. If you were also hoping this would nicely tie up the trilogy's story then you will be disappointed there as well, with the returning characters bearing minimal relation to the previous games and a shallow plot that offers little in the way of resolution, both for this game and for the series as a whole.

Cons: -game is short 5h -only two boses (The secend one in not intresting) -after 3h there is no enviromental traps (closer to end there a lot of enemys so it would be cool if there was some) -slow frame rate then cutscene start playing -minor bugs Pros: - enemys design are great in my opinion, especially the first boss - great gunplay (for me all guns were great to the end of game) - platformin sections (they not hard but i like the fast jumplling from one wall to another and sliding sections especially) - joggling with barrels are pretty fun - takedown animations In short you can get a lot of fun thanks to gunplay and possibilites that game give like joggling barrel that frozen enemys, using buttons that activete traps or grapple hook. Unfortunatlly after first boss, there is less traps so it makes killing monster in the end exsosting