Shadow Warrior 3 (2022)

like Doom Eternal but done more free-form and a bit more overall fun for it, yeah, the scripted jumping puzzles get annoying in some area. the soundtrack is pretty good, (and unique) its this weird traditional Chinese type shamisen-music with techno metal. I enjoyed this game for what it was and had low expectations being that it's from the SW series. >.<

A ton of fun. A fast paced fps with silliness injected into every moving part. The art, animations, environment, and characters are gorgeous and detailed. Culture and lore are well executed in support of a storyline where a ninja embarks on a journey to stop a dragon's destruction and thusly save the world. Combat with the hordes of yokai enemies is satisfying. The progression of enemy difficulty scaled well with obtainable weapons and unlockable upgrades. The platforming felt smooth and mostly effortless.

The controls aren't perfectly tuned but are more than sufficient for successful combat and movement. The game rewards experimentation with sequences of weapon swaps, abilities, and environmental hazards, and provides ample room in every battlefield to suit all tactical play styles.

It's a shame to see so many negative reviews based entirely on comparisons to Doom. I love Doom. This isn't Doom. Though it follows the demon horde shooter genre pioneered by Doom, this title is unique enough to stand on its own and be appreciated for what it is: a fast-paced fps with a story and environment rooted in Asian culture, made of equal parts silliness and beauty.

This game was at 110% the entire time. Gameplay was definitely the star of the game- so many fun ways and animations to destroy the demons! Weapons felt great and movement in the game was awesome. Obviously was influenced by Doom a lot, but I actually enjoyed the movement and traversal of this game more than Doom. It's a pretty short game, but I played it through PC Game Pass which is a perfect fit for this game.

The main reason I didn't give this game 5 stars was because the writing and story of this game were just terrible. While you don't play a game like this because of either, the characters are so annoying and talk ALL the time. A few lines were shocking or funny, but often it was just cringy. After playing Hi-Fi Rush earlier this week, which also had characters that talk a lot, I see the balance it requires to not become grating. SW3 was trying to be edgy and over the top, and often it was just too much.

But ignore the story and writing, and you will have a blast with this game!

Tercera entrega de la saga Shadow Warrior, en si la jugabilidad es muy similar a los juegos anteriores, siguiendo con la misma mecánica de juego de matar todo lo que se te ponga enfrente, podría categorizarlo como un hakkan slash pero en primera persona. En el apartado grafico tiene bastantes mejoras con respecto a su antecesor, mejorando tanto texturas como animaciones de muerte, al pasar de gameplay a cinemática el juego posee ligeros desperfectos con bajones de fps por lo que puede llegar a ser molesto después de horas jugando. La ambientación sigue siendo la misma solo que va acorde el lore para que se sientan mas "únicos" los escenarios, combates ligeramente refinados ya sea con armas de fuego o armas blanca, aun que en esta entrega se han fijado mas en mejoras para ciertas armas especificas que implementar una gran cantidad de armas, lo que hace que esta entrega tenga menos modificaciones por parte de las armas y por parte del personaje, aun así, se le agrego una nueva mecánica dando un "uso" a cada enemigo que matas, ya que podrás atribuirte alguna arma o habilidad al momento de usar una hablidad de ejecución en un enemigo, menciono igual la implementación de un gancho (pensé en no agregar esta nueva mecánica ya que hoy en dia muchos videojuegos ya poseen esta, por lo que no es algo muy relevante para la reseña), por ultimo añadir que se mejoro en parte el diseño de los mini-bosses y bosses en general.

Somehow I lost the review I wrote. Anyway it boiled down to:

• largely a Doom clone (2016/Eternal), but not a great one
• Tries to be funny, is decidedly humourless
• Enemies seem dumb as a bag of rocks
• Could seriously use an FOV slider
• I guess it’s nice they finally cast an Asian actor as Lo Wang, although I don’t really think it truly addresses this game’s core issues in respect to its legacy of racism
• Generally uninspired and unenjoyable

Rating: 7.5/10

This review isn't going to be massive because my thoughts can be summed up quickly. Look, this is like Doom, but not as good. It's fast, the level design isn't nearly as inspired, and it doesn't give you the badass feel in the same way as Doom does. But that doesn't mean it's bad! The slicing and shooting is satisfying enough. The story doesn't really matter, though some of the character interactions are amusing. The level progression is whatever; most games have it nowadays, this does nothing great with that formula.

Shadow Warrior 3 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel and that's why it triumphs!!! It takes seriously not taking it too seriously, to the point that even the dialogs reflect this, it respects the genre formula and serves a great dish.

This makes the game a fun and action packed time, with a good variety of weapons, extremely good movement, and well placed burst of adrenaline.

Performance is a bit jaggy on base PS4 on the more demanding moments, but is understandable taking into account all that is happening.

Would have liked it to be a little longer, (took 8 hours more or less doing some exploring). At time of launch theres no level select option, so you have to start from 0 if you want to play again or hunt trophies, this hits replayability a bit.

Overall a great experience, worth checking out, specially since it was day one released on PSnow.

Played on PS4 via PSnow.

Let's say that there's a school filled with FPS games. We'll call DOOM Eternal is the smartest kid in the class, the Albert Einstein of all FPS games. Shadow Warrior 3 is that average Joe who asks DOOM for help. Shadow Warrior 3 has some notes, but not all of them are copied to make it feel enough like its own work. And with some of that help, Shadow Warrior 3 passes.

That is the best way I could describe Shadow Warrior 3. It takes a lot of notes from DOOM Eternal in terms of design philosophy. It just does things differently. Instead of glory kills giving health, ranged attacks do. Instead of the chainsaw giving ammo, melee attacks do. SW3's version of glory kills are finishers where they replenish all health and give unique weapons for a limited time, providing brief moments of a given power fantasy. You have 2 charges (3 much later) and if you use 2 on a heavy enemy for a stronger weapon or 1 on a weaker enemy just for the sake of regaining health. This system is a good way for players to use enemy prioritization. It's got a good variety of recognizeable enemies, all with different quirks. I will say though. What I think it does better than DOOM Eternal is a greater emphasis on using the environment to your advantage. There are a lot more traps here andthere are a lot more barrels. The barrels have different elemental effects and you can either chi blast them to push them or use the grappling hook to pull them.

What stands out mechanically is how Shadow Warrior 3 incentivizes weapon switching. Shadow Warrior 3 has 6 weapons and they all reload like any modern FPS. Switching weapons or using the katana with right click reloads them. Much like how shooting DOOM Eternal's precision bolt, switching to another weapon, then switching back to the precision bolt resets the cooldown and is much faster than waiting for it to cool down. I think this is a great mechanic for players who want to get better.

Not everything lands. Heavy enemy health is spongy that it is hard to study for smoother and ammo efficient weapon switching combos which is what made DOOM Eternal's enemies feel so well balanced. Part of what I adore about DOOM Eternal is that enemies demanded quickswapping, but not so much that they feel bloated. With efficient quickswapping, the super heavies lasted like say 7 seconds. With even Shadow Warrior 3's heavy enemies, I lost count of how long it takes to kill them with quickswapping. I think each enemy varies in their health pools so that may be why its harder to familiarize with combos while DOOM has categories of enemies based on their health pool.

I could not care any less about the writing. Referential jokes, low brow jokes, puns taunting the enemies. I didn't laugh once, but it didn't want to make me pull out my hair like Borderlands 3 did. A straight foward story about killing a dragon. It's whatever.

It's only like 5 hours long and it sure as hell ain't worth $50. Personally, I pirated the game because of that steep price. Get it while it's at a huge discount. It's a neat shooter. But you should play DOOM Eternal instead.