RIDE WITH SHADOWHAND
Shadowhand is a strategic RPG card game. Duel powerful enemies with unique solitaire-style turn-based combat. Build mini-decks and equip your character strategically to sneak, slice and blast through foes!
SET IN LATE 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND
We follow the story of Lady Cornelia...
RIDE WITH SHADOWHAND
Shadowhand is a strategic RPG card game. Duel powerful enemies with unique solitaire-style turn-based combat. Build mini-decks and equip your character strategically to sneak, slice and blast through foes!
SET IN LATE 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND
We follow the story of Lady Cornelia Darkmoor, a beguiling young aristocrat who masquerades as the notorious highwaywoman, Shadowhand. Fleeing a crime scene and forced to act under the cover of darkness, Shadowhand's mission to safeguard a woman she holds dear leads to a web of corruption, smuggling and blackmail.
IT'S TIME TO STAND AND DELIVER - YOUR FORTUNE AND FREEDOM ARE AT STAKE
Combining an historical visual novel narrative with a card-driven RPG, Shadowhand's story spans 22 chapters of atmospheric locations including stormy coastlines, mysterious woods and gloomy manors. Featuring over 150 levels of elegant and intense single-player card action, players must dodge the law and brawl with outlaws in turn-based combat, gaining experience to customize their character and collect new weapons, gear and loot.
If you like Dead Man's Draw or Solitairica, you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of this. Presentation is great, atmoshphere and music are great, art is wonderful... lots of weapons, abilities and gear to unlock, points to spend... really neat mechanics throughout that add twists and new tactics along the way... the story is decent and an added bonus to keep the game moving along... I'd say my only gripe is the art on a 1440p display, you can tell the art is being upscaled a tad, so it gets slightly pixelated but not a deal breaker... overall a fun, relaxing game and well worth the price... it definitely gives me that "one more round" urge!
As far as hybrid games go, this is a spectacular effort by Grey Alien Games. It combines all the best bells and whistles of previous solitaire games (Regency Solitaire), and adds an intriguing story with light RPG elements. I like that you gradually unlock special abilities that you can choose from, and you also collect weapons and items that you can equip to help you out in the combat levels. I also like how you can allocate skill points to different attributes that each help you in various ways, allowing you to tailor the main character to your play style. Boss fights are a joy to play and in later levels you really need to use everything at your disposal to dispatch your foes. Highly recommended.
I loved Regency Solitaire, which this game iterates on. There's something about it that really clicks with me, even though I normally play FPS games.
I completed Shadowhand last night. Same addiction. I found it hard to resist loading it up for another stage. One stage becomes multiple stages. I never felt that the game was unfair: even when I did lose a stage and replayed it, I enjoyed it, because I find the central game so pleasant. I like the additions and subtle changes to the Regency Solitaire formula, without breaking anything: duels are a great addition. I like the choices of equipment and gear - no bad choices ruin it, and you don't have to pore over details, so it never becomes a chore, and the game forces you to try new things sometimes. The stat changes also have more noticeable effects the longer you play. I like the gear element because it becomes an impromptu difficulty changer. I sometimes pick the best tools for the battle, but I also sometimes pick bad ones, or random ones, or whatever I last won, and just see how it goes.
I love the way it is like an enhanced Regency Solitaire. Not just re-treading the same ground, but keeping the best bits, then adding even more fun bits. I even enjoy the way dragging weapons and clothing on to the character immediately changes the appearance - it reminds me of Might and Magic VI The Mandate of Heaven, where I loved dressing the characters up. I was impressed when I noticed that Shadowhand's current outfit is how she appears in the cutscenes. It shows how much care went into the game.
There's something about this game that makes me excited to load it up. Very few games do that for me (I have 370 games on GOG, maybe the same again on Steam, all sorts.) So there's something really great here. For the right person this is a totally absorbing and fun game that fits into short or long play sessions nicely. Maybe it's for anal retentives who like to tidy things up? That kind of fits my personality.
Not based on GOG version; review written at 50% of game completion.
Pros: nice graphics and story, interesting solitaire & card combat mechanics, variety of items.
Cons: repetitive, very repetitive.
This is a solitaire game. It has items represented by cards, but it's not that kind of card game. It also has combat versus enemies, but the mechanics of the solitaire are the same. If you're ok with that, then keep reading. The game has nice graphics and an interesting, albeit somewhat cliché and damp story, divided in chapters. In each chapter, you have to clear up either solitary challenges, or combat against an enemy. The mechanics are more varied than e.g. Freecell, but the strategy and depth are much lower.
The card game itself is a simple solitaire of cards numbered 0 to 9 (warping around) and having to put a card higher or lower over the one you're playing. There are a variety of effects and items to play that affect the play. In versus combat, you take turns on that, and each card you put on your play card charges your weapon. But in essence, it's a turn-based solitaire played by two at once, not much more depth.
Despite the large variety on gear, items, effects and whatnot, sadly the game gets somewhat repetitive. The solitaire is the same all the time, and it's too simple. The changes come in new items to use, different weapons used by enemies, and the arrangement of the playfield cards to use. Other than that, and the evolving story (which might be the best part of the game), at 50% of the chapters completed successfully, it feels more like a chore I have to end rather than a challenging game I'm thriving to complete.
Recommended if you like a solitaire game with vs combats using the same mechanics, specially if you played Freecell endlessly.
Not recommended if you don't like playing basically the same game endlessly, with not much variety beyond a certain point in the story.
The game is based on Regencysolitaire, upgraded with different mods&challenges for Solitaire and a small rpg&adventure part. The Story is ok, the arts&atmossphere and the puzzlechallenges are nice, the fights and the rpg-part are a mixed bag because it's very luckbased, taking into accaunt that most enemies are stronger then you can make it quite frustating. Lets explain...the attributes give you a very small chance that something happens while you remove card...for me it is a 5%to remove a randomized 2.card and a 3% chance to find a joker if you reveal cards, the active abillities allow me to remix the cards once every 40 removed cards or to destroy 2 random cards every 48 removed cards. My last fight was a duell..you and the enemy get both a rapier and have to score 80 points (normal hit does 10, if you remove 6+ cards in a row you get a bonus), but i start with -8 points and the enemy get a stungrenade that stuns for 2turns. Until now the Ki never made a fault...so it's mostly which card is revealed for you and the layout of the deck.
The game is nice for a few minutes inbetween or if you don't mind restarting a fight several time until you get a start that give you a chance to win.
