The use of the word ‘shadow’ in this game’s title would suggest we’re in for something stealthy. A lone warrior, perhaps, lurking in the darkness to deal with enemies quietly and efficiently. If that’s what you’re expecting, then you’re in for mild disappointment. This is an explorative 2D platformer with an ancient orient setting, in which enemies are pummelled to death with flaming fists and sword swipes. It certainly won’t disappoint if you’re hankering for such a thing, with this being one of the better designed examples of the platformer genre we’ve seen recently.
From start to finish, there’s a lot of genre expertise on show. This results in an experience that’s the right side of challenging, never feeling unfair. Our main character, a martial arts warrior known as Xiaolang, is a pleasure to control. The double jump gives scope to manoeuvre while in the air, and the ability to wall jump gives the chance to recover from miscalculated leaps. Wall sliding also gives the chance to descend gradually, seeing what lurks below. Complimenting the smooth movement is the combat system. Every enemy – an assortment of samurai warriors, poison spewing snakes and spiders, along with swooping bats and hawks – has a health bar and an attack pattern to watch out for, usually dashing or pouncing before coming to a brief standstill. That’s the opening to punch them to death, with limited use throwable knifes and fireballs being secondary weapons – ideal for dealing with danger from afar.
Rather than scroll left to right, the stages here are multi-directional, each taking around 10-15 minutes to explore fully. They’re peppered with checkpoints that are well spaced, in the way that you’ll often reach one with only a couple of health points remaining. Three different locations feature, including a snowy realm, and each level has three kidnapped children to find and free, with the switch to their cage often hidden nearby. As concealed rooms are in abundance, from early on you’ll learn to try leaping into seemingly solid walls in hope of discovering a secret. Often they contain a platforming challenge to overcome before being rewarded.
You’ll also come across keys and their corresponding chests, sometimes discovering the former well before finding the latter, and vice versa. The gems and coins contain within are used to purchase health bar extensions, new permanent weapons such as swords and axes, and increase the damage of certain items. It is however easy to overlook the in-game shop, as it’s only accessible from the main menu. Upgrades are also rather expensive. Generally, I was only able to purchase an upgrade every three or four stages. With only fifteen stages on offer, I barely had a quarter of the upgrades to my name when confronting the final boss. The dash move feels like it should’ve been available from the outset, and not as a purchasable, as it’s the only way to dodge certain attacks. Remaining upgrades feel more surplus, but never entirely redundant.
This is definitely something designed for repeat playthroughs, not just because of the short (3-4 hour) runtime but also due to the presence of a speed running mode and a final tally of items and locations discovered. Trying to find and free all the children is a challenge in itself due to the sprawling level design. Thankfully, there’s no need to find them all to see the game’s ending or take on the last boss.
Shadow of The Orient proves to be quite engaging, largely thanks to its steadily increasing difficulty. The final location has some tricky platforming elements – partly due to the inclusion of lava pits – and each boss fight takes a few attempts as you gradually learn their patterns and perfectly time projectile throws. It’s also easy on the eyes, sporting tidy pixel art. The backdrops are well drawn and there’s a reasonable number of enemy types, all of which are well animated and satisfyingly explode into a shower of pixels upon defeat.
While not exactly pushing the boundaries of originality, Shadow of the Orient succeeds at almost everything it attempts to achieve, from the super-sized stages to the fisticuff focused combat. The upgrade system could’ve been woven in more skilfully – it’s easy to imagine some players overlooking it entirely, suddenly wondering why they’re dying so often – but other faults are relatively few. To reiterate the opening paragraph, if you’re in the mood for playing an explorative 2D platformer, this comes recommended as most elements are well refined.
Platformers may be ten a penny on the digital storefronts, but you’ll certainly have to scroll through them for some time to find something matching the quality found here.
SpaceLab’s Shadow of the Orient is out 27th March on consoles. Published by Dolores Ent. A PC version is also available.