Shadow Labyrinth - Review
I will be honest, when Bandai Namco revealed Shadow Labyrinth, my first thought was quite simply, Pac-Man as a series is clearly done as they have no decent ideas left. Now having put a few dozen hours into the game, I am more than happy to eat those words, because this is one of the best Metroidvania games that I have played, ever.
For those who have watched the Prime Video series Secret Level, there was a Pac-Man short included there, which was actually a prequel to this game. You don’t need to have watched that in order to enjoy this, it just adds a little more context to the opening events of the game. Speaking off those opening moments, you begin the game by playing as Puck, a soldier who is aiming to stop a big nasty from destroying everything, but he fails. Eventually Puck uses a bit of technology to create Swordsman 8, the Secret Level short was around Swordsman 7. With Swordsman 8 by his side, Puck is confident that he can complete his mission and the pair push out from the opening area.
I would love to tell you more about the story, the characters or even the location, but Bandai Namco have been quite serious about not spoiling those details. Which given what those things are makes sense, I can’t even say why I can’t say as even that could spoil something. Needless to say, without detail I can’t say much about the story, but I will say this. The pace in which story beats are rolled out feels off, there are times when you get a good amount of detail and then you will get another crumb later on, before it gives more. Now I was not expecting the game to drop all the lore at once, the first time Puck said anything, but the frequency of how often it gives you so little is annoying. Don’t get me wrong, the game does have a fun story, it just takes its time in giving it to you.
Thankfully, the gameplay on offer here more than makes up for it. Now with a surface look, you might just think that the game is nothing but a Metroid clone, you have a character that is on an unfamiliar world after all. But that would be doing everything a disservice, as it quickly stands out as something of its own. Your character is the Swordsman and as such you have a sword for your attacking option, and early on it is just basic attacks. However, as you progress you will unlock new abilities for your sword and even ways to make it do more damage. What truly made for an interesting game is that after a while of playing, I unlocked a parry skill and that expanded what I could do in combat. Without that skill, every attack had to be dodged and while easy in single combat, boss fights or rooms with a few dozen folks, make that a challenge. The reason why is that all your dodging and special attacks use ESP, use it all up and you go without while it recharges. So, not only are you having to deal with dodging attacks, taking shots at enemies, but you also need to manage the ESP gauge and let me tell you, it takes some practice.
There are two reasons why you need to ensure that your ESP gauge needs to be available to you, the first is because without it, you are basically at the mercy of your enemies attacks. The second and more important reason is that you can’t summon the ghostly form of Puck’s GAIA suit, which you use to eat your defeated foes. Yes, in Shadow Labyrinth you eat the bodies of your foes in order to power up, at least power up the GAIA suit. The suit can be summoned once the power has been filled, but it only lasts for a limited time, so using it at the right time is ideal. There were times when I was avoiding eating enemies, just to try and get clear of a room and I got to a boss fight with that gauge half full, so no special GAIA suit for me. Upon realising the error of my ways, I made sure to nom nom as I explored and it made some fights workable. There were more than a few occasions where I had to use ESP to defeat some foes, but was left without enough to consume them and by the time it recharged enough to do so, the bodies went away.
The final form of gameplay is around Puck, sure the GAIA suit is technically his, but it is only a limited time option, the D-line however are everywhere. These tracks turn the game into a somewhat more traditional Pac-Man experience, you ride around on them, eating the Ora that dots the tracks and make progress. These tracks are usually inactive when you first encounter them, so you first have to find out how to turn them on and once you have, you can ride the rail. Later on in the game you will discover a way to power up these Maze tablets that are dotted around the world and those are another challenge all together. Each of these mazes offers a familiar look, especially to those who have played Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, but the gameplay within is all new. I won’t say anymore about those, as they are really something you should experience and when you first unlock them, the events that happen are interesting. I will say that you will want to complete the mazes you find as doing so unlocks new perk slots for you to use and you will want those.
Perks are the way of upgrading either the Swordsman, Puck or the GAIA suit and can range from permanent Ora buffs to temporary health buffs. The first one that I unlocked and used, you will to, is Ora Gain. This basically sends Puck out to eat up the fallen Ora that enemies drop upon their death, you need that for upgrades after all. Without that active you have to go and pick everything up manually and while it is easy early on, with lava filled rooms and giant holes, it can be a pain later on. One of the Perks that I bought from a trader gave me two more health segments to my life, but the catch was if I died, I would lose the perk and that did happen. Perks are not rewarded to you like candy, some of them require some big amounts of Ora to buy, along with materials you get from eating your fallen foes. There are also upgrades that you can obtain for your ESP skills, some are found in mysterious rooms filled with red crystals and some come from a mysterious swordsman.
What I liked about all the above is that when you get into the groove you can truly make some epic moves. Dodging enemies and being able to fling yourself across the stage while doing so and avoiding other elemental hazards, it made me feel powerful. Where I felt less powerful however, was with the games health system, it is just a pain. So, much like a Metroid game, you obtain energy boosts, which give you more energy to restore your health and that last part is important. In any Metroid game, if you have 3 health canisters, you get three full energy bars, once the first is emptied it refills and you are on your next one. Here you have to manually do that, no matter where you are, if you’re on your last segment of health, the game does not automatically fill your health back up. Triggering the recharge is easy, you just pull the Right trigger in, but that takes time and while you are doing so, you are open to being attacked, which interrupts your recharge and if your health is low, will kill you. There might be a Perk that unlocks an auto-recharge, as there are a few that I did not find, that is entirely possible, but even still that should not be an option. The game is challenging enough on its own, and I do like that challenge, but I just wish the health worked a little more like the Metroid series.
Something that I am very happy with is the visual style of the game, it took me a bit to get used to it as I was looking at the characters and wondering why it all looked familiar. At first, I thought they were comic looking, stylised in such a way, but that didn’t fit what I was seeing and then it hit me, the NES manuals of old. In almost every sci-fi based game on the NES, the manuals would often have art of their enemies contained within, so you could see what they were truly meant to look like. Obviously, they did not look like that in-game, but the same idea was there and now it lives on here. This does not mean that the designs come from those manuals, but rather the style and it looks great because that same style is applied to the world and not just the creatures. Just think of the art from the 80s, give it a modern upgrade and then make it appear in game, that is what I get from this games visuals. Character design is something I would love to go into more, but sadly outside of Puck or the Swordsman, talking about any other characters would spoil things.
On the games audio side there is something wonderful here, yes the game includes a number of iconic Pac-Man sound effects, riding the D-line and eating Ora gets you the classic sound. The characters don’t speak in full words, but they um and ah in sound bites, which give them a little more life. Where the audio really shined for me is in how often the music dropped away and left the soundscape of the world around me to shine through. I recall walking through a crystal themed area and the music died off and I came to a stop because I was honestly thinking a boss was going to appear, but it never did. Instead, I just got the sound of my own character running and enemies fluttering around me, it was such a cool moment and really gave a sense of isolation to the game. Don’t misunderstand, there is music in the game, usually around boss fights and when it does kick in, it sounds great but the games strength is when it stops the music and lets the world be a character all on its own.
Shadow Labyrinth is a game that I figured would be ok, it is hard to make a bad Metroidvania after all, but I honestly found myself really losing time to the game. Puck is an interesting take on the Pac-Man character, he is snarky more than anything, but he fits the world around him. The gameplay takes a bit to fully open up, but once it does and you understand how things work, you will find a fun, fast and rewarding experience waiting for you. While the upgrades are great, it does take time to unlock a lot of them, so for some players, it might feel like the game is dragging its feet, but stick with it. If you are a fan of the genre, this is one of the best additions to it in a long time and even if you are not, the game is just fantastic and worth playing, without a shadow of a doubt.
The Score
9.0
Review code provided by Bandai Namco
The Pros
Gameplay is smooth and fast, resulting in some great encounters with bosses and enemies alike
There is so much lore to the world, that discovering it is great, I just wish some was given how more frequently
The Cons
The games health system is weird and just seems designed to be different, rather than useful
Not having a mini-map on screen makes little sense, given how much you will need to open the map
