[Review] Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered

System: Switch
Release date: October 31, 2024
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture / Engine Software
Publisher: NetEase

When a game is given the label of “cult classic,” in my experience, this is typically due to one of two possible scenarios occurring. The first is that the game itself was generally deemed above average in terms of quality, but for business or marketing reasons never found a huge audience; this is the optimistic perspective. The second, more cynical perspective is that the game itself ended up as a middling experience due to creative or technical decisions, but managed to find a small fanbase in spite of these issues. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered boldly labels itself as “a cult classic born from the most creative minds in the industry” on its store pages, so it begs the question: exactly what type of cult classic is this 2011 third-person shooter, and how does it hold up 13 years after its initial release?

When Shadows of the Damned originally released during the seventh generation of consoles, it was entering an already crowded-market of third-person shooters at a time when Gears of War was still the king of the genre. It was also the victim of a well-documented and somewhat tumultuous development cycle during which the genre, narrative, and mechanics were substantially changed multiple times (something that original publisher EA was partially responsible for). When the game did release, it sold very poorly despite generally positive reviews, not to mention the star-value of the names at the helm – this was the next big project from Suda51 and Shinji Mikami, after all.

This little history lesson is important, because I entered my playthrough of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered with some of this knowledge (despite never having played the game before) alongside a genuine sense of curiosity. I figured that, hey, if the gaming powers that be are deciding that this title is worthy of a remaster on modern platforms, there’s probably a good reason for it! “Maybe this is the good type of cult classic,” I wondered. I didn’t have many expectations beyond that, other than that I could probably expect some of Suda51’s signature weirdness and perhaps some interesting gameplay mechanics. By the time I rolled credits, I had certainly found both of those things to be true, but what I also found was a largely unremarkable third-person shooter that didn’t really leave me feeling much of anything.

Shadows of the Damned focuses on the journey of Garcia Hotspur, a needlessly crass demon hunter, as he ventures through the Underworld to try and rescue his girlfriend Paula. She has – perhaps unsurprisingly – been captured by Fleming, the Lord of the Underworld, a sex-crazed demon whose sole desire is to – er – force himself onto Paula. And so, for the next five acts, Garcia wanders through the various regions of hell, mowing down various forms of demons with different weapons, and occasionally solving some light environmental puzzles along the way.

Garcia is accompanied by Johnson (yes, that is a euphemism), which is a talking torch that can shapeshift into various weapons for reasons that aren’t explained. At the start of the game, Garcia only has access to a pistol, but eventually can utilize a shotgun and a machine gun, both of which gain additional functionality over time. For example, the shotgun eventually is capable of charging up to four shots at once, allowing for increased damage output, and even further down the road gains the ability to launch rolling explosives at foes. The machine gun eventually gains a very helpful feature that almost feels like cheating: hold an enemy in your sights long enough and you can eventually launch a volley of homing shots at them, even from a great distance. While it’s not a huge selection of weapons on paper, each of the three weapons has distinct utility in different situations and against different foes, and part of the fun for me was learning how to best utilize their ever-expanding functionality against an increasingly varied selection of demons. While the weapons have a good sense of power and heft behind them, I found them a bit finicky to control on the Joy-Con’s smaller control sticks (something I feel is more of a hardware issue than a game issue, in fairness.) Turning on gyroscopic aiming and adjusting sensitivity helped with this, and the optional aim assist setting provided what I’d consider the perfect amount of aid to help increase accuracy without removing an overall sense of challenge.

That said, there’s an additional element of difficulty in combat that comes from controlling Garcia himself, and not in a way that is satisfying. Garcia is significantly less agile than the majority of enemies he will encounter, and doesn’t exactly turn on a dime either. He has a dodge ability that is critical to master, because he’s otherwise a fairly large target with few means of physically getting out of tricky spots. At times, this imbalance can up the tension of combat, but it also oftentimes feels like a less-than-ideal fit for close-quarters scenarios. As an example, there are multiple battles where Garcia will essentially get swarmed from all sides by foes in small circular arenas, and situations like these left me feeling like I didn’t always have the tools I needed for a fair fight. Even Garcia’s quick 180-degree turn is only mildly useful in cases like this, leading to times when I felt my only option was to take some damage as I try and use my torch to bash my way out of the horde.

Beyond the combat itself, which is decent, Shadows of the Damned’s big gameplay idea is how light and darkness affect both Garcia and enemies. As Garcia explores, he’ll often need to venture into pockets of darkness, which over time eat away at his health the longer he’s engulfed in it. Additionally, enemies are invincible while they’re covered in this darkness, making dispelling the shadows a top priority for the player. When Garcia is in a darkness pocket, the only way to do this is by hunting down the obnoxious bleating goat head mounted on the wall somewhere in the immediate area, and blasting it with a light shot – not always an easy task when the player is also being swarmed by foes. Alternatively, sometimes Garcia will encounter darkness-covered enemies even while exploring an area bathed in light. In these cases, it’s necessary to shoot enemies with a light shot blast or a swing of his torch to break their shield and be able to deal damage. While it’s not the deepest system in the world, it does add a gentle but appreciated level of critical thinking to what otherwise would have been a fairly mindless shooting gallery. The shadows and how they affect combat don’t really evolve over the course of the game as much as I would have liked – fundamentally, each venture into the darkness plays the same as the one that came before – but I’m glad it’s a part of the gameplay loop.

Every now and then, Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered gets a little weirder in the way that seasoned Grasshopper Manufacture fans love to see – like when the game turns into a side-scrolling shoot ’em up for a few levels, or when Garcia finds himself walking across a giant version of his love interest’s body in a trippy, nightmarish sequence. These moments are great because they’re such a change in pace from the rest of the experience, and it’s here where I feel like I was finally able to catch a glimpse of the game that I presume was what Suda51 wanted to make. The boss battles were also genuine highlights, as they introduce intimidating new foes who need to be taken down in different ways compared to those that came before – my favorite was an early battle that had me sprinting through the stalls of an open-air market as I was chased by a stampeding demon. I gladly would have taken more of these, although the regular enemy variety is no slouch, either. New foes are introduced at a consistent cadence, from rolling creatures that can only be damaged after you get them to collide with an object, to electrically-charged demons that will blast you with lightning until you manage to destroy the transistors in the room that power them.

Where I think most players expect a Suda51 game to really differentiate itself is in its story and characters. Now, Shadows of the Damned’s characters have the emotional depth of a puddle on the sidewalk, and that’s fine, because this game doesn’t need to be that. It’s trying to be a “road movie” adventure, to quote Garcia himself – and sure, I can see the intent. The pacing is there, and the feeling of going on a wild, unpredictable journey is kind of there. The problem is that frankly, Garcia is one of the most unlikeable video game protagonists I’ve played as in a long while, and his little demon-torch-gun thing Johnson is even worse. The writers clearly want players to think these are just some goofy dudes, but the reality is they come off as just kind of gross and juvenile. Like, pretty much every other sentence out of these character’s mouths is either a crude “joke” about male genitalia, or some other type of sex joke. That’s all they talk about! You guide Garcia through the underworld, and pretty much listen to exclusively that 7-10 hours. It got old for me in about five minutes. It’s not that I find it offensive necessarily – it’s just cringy and obnoxious. And when you combine this with the fact that I’m playing as a shirtless, tatted-up demon hunter, with essentially zero other information about who he is, why antagonist Fleming has such an obsession with Paula, or literally any form of character development – I just ended up not caring.

It’s not just Garcia and Johnson, either. Anytime this game has an opportunity to flesh out its world or try and build a unique identity for itself, it instead decides to lean even harder into the middle-school humor. Why come up with an interesting name for the protagonist’s signature handgun when you can just call it “The Boner?” Why take a standard game mechanic – a locked door with vines on it preventing it from being opened – and give said vines an in-game name like “Demon Pubes?” Why are the two female characters in this game wearing basically zero clothes, inexplicably? I get it – this is supposed to be comedic take on hell, amped up to the extreme – but it’s just not funny or interesting. Yes, I know, humor is subjective, and I’m sure some 12-year-old out there will think all of this is edgy and “mature”, but it frankly just made me tune out of the game’s plot entirely.

I’m also a bit disappointed at how static and bland this take on the Underworld is. Countless games have taken place in this type of setting that try and add a creative spin to it, from Afterparty’s vision of Hell as a college town, to Dante’s Inferno nightmarish journey across the nine circles. Shadows of the Damned, on the other hand, often doesn’t feel like it’s taking place in the Underworld at all. Most of the time, Garcia is wandering through dark and bland interiors or lifeless city streets that just as easily could have come from a b-tier Resident Evil knockoff. Setting aside the mind-numbing linearity of about three quarters of these environments, they’re just not interesting places to explore. Granted, you’ll still need to do so, as crucial resources like upgrade gems and healing items are often sitting in boxes that are just waiting to be broken – but if you’re anything like me, you’ll feel nonplussed while doing so.

Setting aside the game itself, Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered performs quite well on Switch. While I wouldn’t say it’s a massive upgrade from the original – it looks almost the same beyond the higher resolution and some moderately crisper textures – it definitely has smoother, more consistent frame rates than other action-heavy Switch ports from this year. There are a handful of added features, like a New Game+ mode that lets players carry some progress forward into subsequent playthroughs, and some optional costumes as well, but that’s pretty much the full extent of the changes made. Overall, this remaster is simply a way to play this oddity of a game on more modern hardware at a reasonable price, which is all I really needed it to be.

The Verdict

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some fun playing Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, at the very least because its third-person shooting is fundamentally solid. The game’s handful of boss encounters are creative and engaging, and I enjoyed the novel take on having to free an area of its darkness to progress through combat and puzzle scenarios. What I didn’t enjoy was feeling like I was walking through the halls of my old middle school every time anyone opened their mouth; this is definitely a game with 2011 teen humor sensibilities in terms of its writing, and while Garcia Hotspur may be an edgelord, I am not. If that approach to humor doesn’t put you off, you’ll likely appreciate at least some of this game’s ideas if you enjoy action games, and especially if you have a taste for the surreal or are interested in digging deeper into Grasshopper Manufacture’s gameography. Call it a “cult classic” if you insist – but don’t be surprised if it’s not quite of the caliber that label sometimes implies.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.