Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms

Slovakian developers, Games Farm, have attempted to bring something fresh to the action-RPG table, and although their attempts in some aspects are admirable, Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms fails to impress on many fronts. If you enjoy heavy and detailed plots, then struggling through the awkward game-play will be well worth it, although it requires you to pay strong attention to dialogue. 

In the world of Heretic Kingdoms, the cruel Theocracy rules no more and multiple rebellions have freed the people from one tyrant to the next. As a result, Heretic Kingdoms is left with no one clear ruler, which causes hostility and conflict between the citizens of Corwenth, the wolf-folk of Taymuria, and the great ogres of the Sura Wastes.

In Heretic Kingdoms lies two dimensions, the mortal world and the shadow world. You play as the Devourer, a demon that has been summoned by a mysterious ‘hooded man.’ You consume the souls of the dead and bring them back to life as your puppets in the real world, allowing you to choose who you play with depending on the situation. You play as the Devourer in the shadow world, and your puppets in the mortal world, allowing you to explore two sides of the game. You work with the Krenze, the ‘hooded man,’ to restore peace and order.

The plot is, without a doubt, very cumbersome and takes a great deal of concentration to follow it closely. You will be bombarded with an endless amount of lore, and you may need to consult external literature about the game to understand everything that is going on. This does not mean the story is bad, however. In fact, it means the opposite.

Gamers are becoming more interested in the story side of things, rather than actual gameplay, and developers are catering for this by placing more emphasis on story telling. Shadows is an Action RPG however, so it may seem odd to have such an emphasis on the plot, but ARPGs have the ability to become very boring very quickly, due to the potentially repetitive gameplay. To counteract this, a strong emphasis must be placed on the story to keep the player intrigued. This is what Games Farm have done with Shadows. The gameplay is very average (more on this later), but the story is good enough to push through it. 

But what makes a good story? The characters. Characters are the driving forces in any story, whether it be in a book, a play, a movie or a videogame. You will find all sorts of different characters in Shadows that all have completely unique personalities. You will find yourself wanting to ask more questions in dialogue situations just to find out more about the character you are talking to. 

The gameplay is easily the biggest disappointment of Shadows. The mechanics are very basic for an ARPG. It’s similar to Diablo, in the sense that it just involves a lot of clicking. This, in itself, is fine, but it is very poorly executed in Shadows. In the early stages of the game, the gameplay seems reasonably solid. It is when the game starts throwing more and more enemies at you that the gameplay mechanics start to become a serious problem. The fact that you have to click each time just to do a basic attack is what makes it so unbearable at times. An auto-attack feature would go a long way, especially if you are using a ranged character.

The gameplay, although fairly typical for an action-RPG (click and kill), is the biggest drawback for this game. During the early stages of the game when there are only few enemies to fight at one time, the gameplay seems fairly solid. It is when the game starts throwing more and more enemies at you that the gameplay mechanics start to become a serious problem. The fact that you have to click each time just to do a basic attack is what makes the gameplay so unbearable at times. An auto-attack feature would go a long way, especially if you are using a ranged character.

Another problem with using a ranged character, like an archer, is that containers – baskets, boxes and vases – which can be looted, get in the way of your arrows when attacking an enemy. Considering the angle of the camera, depth perception plays a big role. So when you think your arrow is enemy-bound, it actually just disintegrates a harmless basket. This can be considered to add a new challenge to the game, but more often than not, it is just a major annoyance.

What is nice about the gameplay however, is the party-system. This allows you to switch between the Devourer and any one of your puppets, depending on the situation. Each character has its own separate levels of health. For example, if you are overrun by enemies in the mortal world and low on health, you can swap to the Devourer at full health and finish off any enemies in the area. This feature adds a nice sense of strategy, but other than that, there is not much else to think about. There is the occasional puzzle, where you may find a locked door and have to fiddle around between the two worlds until you work out how to get past it. The ‘puzzles’ however, have no depth and just seem like a way of trying to spice up the gameplay. They won’t leave you feeling accomplished after completing one, you will just find them to be an unnecessary annoyance. Combat gameplay aside, the party-system is very well executed in Heretic Kingdoms and is a concept that shows a lot of potential, and should be built on in perhaps another instalment of Heretic Kingdoms.

The party-system also means that each time you gain a level, you are essentially gaining a level for each of your characters. So you will need to remember to assign your skill points to all of your characters, otherwise you will have trouble in combat situations.

Another redeeming quality of the gameplay are the combat animations and graphics. I never encountered any major animation bugs during my play-through and everything ran smoothly. This is an advantage of releasing a game on early-access. The developers are able to jump on bugs as players notice them. The textures in all sorts of environments, whether it be a catacomb, a dungeon, or a heavily populated city, are very well detailed.

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms displays all that an RPG could be. The key word here is ‘could.’ The story is strong and has great depth, which is helped along by the detailed characters, who are excellently voice acted. Despite its linearity in most situations, Shadows shows the importance of story-telling in video games. The same cannot be said about the gameplay however. The awkwardness and cumbersomeness of it all makes this game a struggle to play at times, but is worth enduring if you are enjoying its story.

Gabriel Polychronis, NoobFeed
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