The original remake of Shadow Warrior from 2013 was a nice throwback to the 90's shooters with a modern twist. Shadow Warrior 2 on the other hand feels like a mix between Borderlands and Diablo, where you spend most of your time looting boxes and collecting trophies. Let's start with the good things: The graphics are great and the soundtrack's kick-ass. The bad? The humor is juvenile and most of the time pretty cringeworthy. The story is non-existent. The levels are much bigger and less linear, but are procedurally (=randomly) generated, which means you'll see a lot of the same assets being reused. One moment you're fighting Zilla gangsters and the other some yokai looking freaks. The weapons (except the swords) still feel underpowered, despite the fact that you can upgrade them. The environmental powers are confusing en the menu interface is terrible. There are also quite a few glitches and bugs, like getting stuck on terrain. This game is enjoyed best when you play it moderately, because after a few hours of hacking your way through the same enemies and listening to Lo Wang's terrible jokes it gets extremely repetitive. I bought this game because it was cheap and for those couple of bucks it can be good fun, but I would be pissed if I would've paid full price for this.
This was a fun little game, but it could've been so much more. The graphics are nice, the soundtrack is good and the voice acting is phenomenal, but all the different choices you make don't matter in the end. I wish they would've just focused on the chores per day instead of introducing a lame mystery halfway with a cop out ending. I knew the game was short, but you run through it in about 4 hours and that's with exploring every inch of the map! Also, where's all the wildlife? I saw a deer, some birds, a turtle, a bee, a raccoon, a dead elk... that's it. I paid a fiver for it and that's a good price, but I wouldn't recommend it if the price was any higher than that. Then you'd be better off with buying something like The Long Dark, which is a game with similar graphics, but with more focus on survival.
