Shadow Warrior (2013) is not exactly reminiscent of the original game but it is a good, solid effort at an FPS from a studio that's not necessarily AAA. The gameplay is fast and frenetic with most battles being an arena-style affair with enemies everywhere. If you're familiar with the 2016 edition of DOOM, the combat here is comparable. There is a bit of a drawback here in that the battles get repetitve as a result but they're still engaging enough. Although there are several different weapons, the sword is by far the best, the game is built around it and thanks to the available upgrades it remains a viable weapon throughout the entire game. You can perform special moves with it similarly to how you'd input a special move in a fighting game, and it is generally the most satisfying weapon to use (It also mutilates corpses real nice). The other guns have their uses but don't feel especially satisfying to use. Basically if you need a ranged attack, use one of the guns. The game's humor is hit and miss, sophomoric as you'd expect but doesn't commit to it enough to really hit that sweet spot of "so stupid it's brilliant." Level design is mostly linear with a few rooms off to the side here and there to explore for more items or secrets. You also aren't able to travel much outside of the scripted course with many invisible barriers keeping you from exploring much. The game is loaded with easter eggs and references to other games but it happens so often that it kind of cheapens the special feeling. The environments can be pretty beautiful and it's graphically impressive for a smaller studio. I'm running out of characters so I'll break it down: -Pros- Fast gameplay Great sword play Very breakable environment Lots of dismemberment Decent secrets and easter eggs 3 classes of upgradable stats -Cons- Repetitive Linear levels Boundaries not well marked, resulting in death Physics sometimes weird (DON'T dash down stairs) Maybe not $40 good but worth it if you get it on sale.
I read other reviews here saying the emulation was poor so I wasn't sure about getting this collection, but when the price dipped to $2.49 as per a sale, I decided to give it a try. It's true that the frame rate does get choppy in moments of high activity, and I guess if you're very used to playing a version that doesn't it might bug you, Since I'm used to playing NES games, and don't recall the original Raiden games in great detail, I found this to be a minor issue. It didn't stop the games from being fun shooters. It was said that you can get a similar collection, minus the original "Raiden" on Xbox 360 but it's worth noting that version, used, goes for around $30 on Amazon if you want a complete edition. There ARE some qualms, most notably that you can only click to Resume Game on the pause screen, and that IS a problem for a fast paced shooter like this, when you want to get your hands back on the controls in short order. It's said here that it doesn't save local high scores and although I didn't check, I personally don't care much about the score as much as I just care about completing the game, if at all possible (They're VERY difficult, as is expected). If you do care about logging your score, I can see why this would annoy you. At the end of the day though, it's a fast and fun shmup with classic appeal. If you can get over those minor to moderate irritations then I'd say it's certainly worthwhile when on sale. It's not perfect, but for four classic games it's alright to me. If the issues mentioned DO bother you, then I might suggest trying Raiden III and Raiden IV, both available here on GoG.
