In 2011, a very, very crazy game was released. Behind the game were three of the biggest names in the Japanese video game industry: Goichi “Suda51” Suda, Shinji Mikami and Akira Yamaoka. Suda has the craziest brain of the three and is responsible for offbeat games like No More Heroes, Killer 7 and Lollipop Chainsaw, while Shinji Mikami has created games with broader appeal like Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Devil May Cry. Akira Yamaoka is the team’s musician and was responsible for almost all of the Silent Hill games’ soundtracks, as well as Lollipop Chainsaw and the rhythm and dance game spin-off Persona 4: Dancing All Night.
The crazy game is, as you might have guessed, Shadows of the Damned, an action game that shouldn’t work on paper, but does. It was even originally published by Electronic Arts, who clearly weren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone at the time. Games with Suda51 always involve taking risks because they can go in unexpected directions, and that’s the case with Shadows of the Damned.
It is a third-person action game and the developers of the Japanese website Grasshopper Manufacture (led by Suda51) describe the game as “Hell-traversing road movie action-adventure game set in a super-eccentric Hell + Rock & Roll themed world” – It’s a long and convoluted description, but I can’t describe it any other way.
Advertising:
You take on the role of the Mexican García Hotspur, an extremely bland demon hunter, with a purple leather jacket and a belt buckle that says ” “we have”who doesn’t hold back when it comes to exploding the heads and limbs of all manner of demons and monsters while simultaneously screaming penis jokes at them.
Everything starts a little sadly when García finds his girlfriend Paula hanged in his bedroom and before he knows it, the room is full of monsters and the ruler of hell, the ugly six-eyed Fleming, drags her to hell to make her his own make lovers. Of course, fiery Garcia has nothing to do, so he sets out to bring the love of his life back to life and put an end to Fleming.
Advertising:
Next to him, searching for his missing girlfriend, Garcia has a burning skull on a stick, which is called “Johnson” in typical fashion for this game. So… With Johnson by the hand, Garcia Hotspur goes to hell and back to rescue his girlfriend from Fleming’s scary embrace.
Johnson isn’t just a bumbling sidekick, but plays a very central role in the game. Johnson can transform into three different weapons at any time: a semi-automatic revolver, a machine gun and a pistol. Now three weapons, quite traditional on paper, doesn’t seem like much, but like everything else in Shadows of the Damned, nothing is the same anymore, so these are no ordinary weapons.
A good example of these weapons and the game’s overall cheesy, childish humor is that the revolver is called the “Boner” and, when upgraded throughout the game, is called “The Hot Boner” and “The Big Boner” – the latter has a whole mini-game centered around it in something resembling an erotic version of Las Vegas. You have to be prepared for something like that. The other two weapons are just as sophisticated, and even though there are only three weapons in the game, their upgrades are so extensive that they almost feel like new weapons with each upgrade, and that happens quite often.
Time has not been kind to Shadows of the Damned. The weapons are still good, but the rest of the game feels stiff and clunky and the camera can be a bit wobbly at times. However, the good light/dark mechanics keep some parts of the game fresh to this day. Some parts of the hell in which the game takes place are shrouded in a dark fog, in which you should not stay longer than necessary. Garcia’s energy meter constantly decreases when he is in the fog, and the demons there are also invulnerable. So it’s pure survival when you’re enveloped in fog. However, from time to time it is necessary to venture into the fog, as certain doors can only be opened by interacting with certain switches that can only be activated from the inside.
However, the fog can be eliminated by shooting a concentrated ball of light over a goat’s head, which is often suspended somewhere in the fog (typical Suda51 logic), or by setting off some fireworks, which will dispel the fog for a short period of time. This light/dark mechanic means more to the game than it might seem at first glance, adding a strategic layer to an otherwise relatively simple shooter that is so over-the-top in places that it seems almost ridiculous and downright absurd, but that’s also to be expected from a Suda51 game.
For example, you don’t find keys to locked doors, but rather eyes, brains or strawberries that you have to put in the mouth of the screaming baby hanging on the locked doors in order to unlock them. Checkpoints are bats that emit glowing feces when the checkpoint is activated, and the game’s merchant is a ten-foot-tall human-monster hybrid that spits out the items you buy from him. As the game progresses, you move through twisted cities, strange libraries, magical labyrinths, and something resembling a Monty Python-style shoot-’em-up. Yes, there are lots of bells and whistles.
The graphics have their own style, there’s a lot of violence, naked women and phallic symbols everywhere, and it’s not a pretty game, even when it was released in 2011. Since it is a remaster and not a remake, it is not a beautiful game. What we have here is practically the original graphics, expanded to 4K and aiming to reach 60 fps, but it is not always achieved.
One of the game’s strengths is the excellent soundtrack. Akira Yamaoka’s soundtrack consists of a wide range of strange, crazy and also excellent tracks from different genres that fit perfectly into the game and emphasize its unique style. The voice acting is also excellent, especially Steve Blum (Star Wars Rebels, God of War, Call of Duty) as Garcia and Greg Ellis (Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek) as Johnson. Paul Mercier (God of War, Resident Evil, The Lord of the Rings) as Fleming and Julianne Buescher (Star Trek, Silicon Valley) as Paula, Garcia’s girlfriend.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a great remaster at a great price, costing less than 30 dollars. The graphics have been upscaled to 4K, four new outfits for Garcia are included and this remaster also features a New Game+ mode. A more complete remaster could have been hoped for, and the game hasn’t gotten any better over the years, and it was made by a man with a very twisted brain, so it’s far from being for everyone.
Gameplay is barely kept afloat by the light/dark mechanic that adds a layer of strategy, but the almost childish style might be too much for some. However, like most remasters, this remaster is probably aimed primarily at those who remember the original with great fondness and get what they expect.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is an updated version of one of the craziest games of all time and the fact that it will potentially reach new players who have an experience they’ve never had before can only be a positive thing – and like me already said, It has a very reasonable price.
If you want to try something new in gaming and don’t care about pretty graphics or ray tracing, then you should give Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered a try. I challenge you.
