Game Review: Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered (Xbox Series X)

Originally released in 2011, there was a ton of buzz around Shadows of the Damned at the time, all because it was a collaboration between Suda 51 and Shinji Mikami, two of giants of gaming. Unfortunately, while mostly everyone who played it thought it was a great game, not many actually did play it, and it sold really poorly.

Now, as we live in the time of remasters, remakes, and reimaginings, Shadows of the Damned has been remastered and re-released on modern consoles. It’s a chance for the game to reach a whole new audience and show off just what makes it special.

A linear (isn’t that so refreshing!?) action, adventure, and shooter game with B-movie horror elements wrapped up in psychedelic playground of infantile humour, violence, and gore. It’s so much fun, and it’s played from the third-person perspective, putting you in the shoes of Garcia Hotspur, a cocky, foul-mouthed, and confident demon hunter who has got the attention of the Lord of Hell, Fleming. Sick of Garcia killing his demons left and right, Fleming has gone after the one thing that truly could hurt the demon hunter, his girlfriend, Paula, and dragged her to hell.

Is that the end of it? Not a chance. Garcia isn’t going to let Fleming take off with his girl, so grabs Johnson (his gun, a chattering demon companion) and follows. Hell isn’t going to know what hit it when Garcia fucking Hotspur comes to town.

It’s so much fun, not just from a story perspective (which is just a tongue in cheek, grindhouse take on the damsel in distress story) but from a gameplay perspective. With an array of weapons, varied demons and bosses to blow apart, nonstop innuendos, violent content, blood and guts, and plenty of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, there is no getting bored with Shadows of the Damned, even though it’s not for everyone. In fact, some of the game’s presentation particularly around the character of Paula, might cause an eyebrow raise or two. There’s nothing offensive here, and there’s a dry, dark humour to things, but it’s also fair to say that some of the content is a bit awkward to experience now.

So, let’s look at the remaster part of this remastering, which starts at the graphics and ends there. Higher resolutions, going up to 4K, which does make the distinctive visual style pop off the screen. It’s a gorgeous looking game, but a lot of that comes from the varied and creative level designs as there was a lot of effort to make this game’s version of Hell something quite unique. Which, when coupled with the sharper visuals, makes the visuals of the game stand out. Alongside that, we have the original voice acting (great) and plenty of memorably weird music to enjoy.

Faster load times are welcome, but perhaps the best thing this remaster has to offer is a ‘New Game+’ mode. Allowing players to take all their upgrades over to a brand-new game. Except your difficulty is locked so if you’re thinking about playing it through on easy, getting the upgrades, then playing new game+ on a harder difficulty with everything unlocked, think again.

Alas, while the game has been notably improved in these areas with this remaster, there has been little effort elsewhere to fix some of the game’s niggling issues.

Issues like the ‘over the shoulder’ perspective that has the camera far to close to Garcia, resulting in him taking up a lot of the screen and making it hard to deal with enemies attacking from behind. Although this also isn’t helped by controls that feel quite clunky, especially when it comes to doing things with speed.

Issues like level variations that take on the form of 2D side-scrolling shoot-em-ups, but aside from breaking things up, they’re unremarkable, and issues like un-skippable dialogue and scenes. Many of which become quite tiresome on a third playthrough (necessary if you want to unlock all the achievements).

These complaints are quite minor in the grand scheme of things though, and while Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered isn’t going to win any awards for extra content, it does take a quality game and improve it in several, important ways. It’s a bit a cult classic, awkward with age, but with just enough charm to still be welcome. Grab your Johnson, and ride out.