‘Shadow Man: Remastered’ Will Summon Your Nostalgia And Try Your Patience

I love my retro games, I really do. But I’ll be the first to admit that nostalgia can be blinding, and nowhere is this sentiment more true than within the retro gaming community. More specifically, with well-intentioned visits to the past like Shadow Man: Remastered.

I actually first played Shadow Man on the Sega Dreamcast back in 1999 and was, without a doubt, thoroughly impressed. IGN’s review would agree, in which staff gave this particular version a solid 8.5. The graphics were great, the creepy atmosphere was top-notch, and unlike a lot of that decade’s interactive media, it presented a rather mature storyline. The narrative was based in part on the dark comic book series of the same name.

Sure, the Dreamcast controller, with its glaring lack of a second analog stick, wasn’t exactly suited for 3D third-person action. Plus, Shadow Man had no in-game world map to speak of, and labyrinthine levels could sprawl on for what felt like miles, often leaving me confused as to where to go and what to do next.

Direction was never Shadow Man’s strong suit, for sure, but in its defense, the game was an absolute product of its time. Many developers, much like Shadow Man’s own Iguana and Acclaim, were busy striking an evolving balance between egregious hand-holding and pure player independence.

Nightdive Studios, which painstakingly revived the likes of other ‘90s classics like Turok and Forsaken with its proprietary KEX engine, has applied the same modernized treatment to the voodoo-centric Shadow Man: Remastered. The game now supports 4K resolution, has some nicely upgraded graphical effects (plus trophy and achievement support), and even includes some lost content that was nixed from the original release.

I’ve played through about half of the re-release, and the experience has been a strange one. Still present is all the moody atmosphere I loved twenty-odd years ago: The spooky soundtrack ebbs and flows with sinister charm and the excellent sound effects are just as unnerving as ever. There’s something downright chilling about the combination of disembodied baby cries, tortured screaming and an otherworldly music box playing in the swirling distance. Nightmare soup, I’d call it.

Additionally (and thankfully), gone are the clunky Dreamcast controls, replaced by a decidedly smoother input and snappy response time. I’m playing the PC version with keyboard and mouse, and when switching to a wired Xbox controller, the camera is now dialed in with the right analog stick. This makes the remaster feel decidedly contemporary. How did we play 3D exploration games on the Dreamcast, anyway? I suppose the camera was usually relegated to the squishy shoulder buttons. How very inconvenient by today’s standards. We just didn’t know any better!

The upgraded visuals look great on my higher-end PC, by the way. I was able to play at a rock-solid 144 FPS, which didn’t exactly improve all of Shadow Man’s forced, campy, over-the-top dialogue. All these years later and I still don’t mind it, though. The story, which centers around a group of hell-bent serial killers, unfolds like a really bad horror movie, one that you can’t look away from.

Bouncing back and forth between the Liveside and the Deadside via Shadow Man’s dead brother’s teddy bear has a very Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver flavor. It makes sense, since that game released around the same time that Shadow Man showed up, and traveling through digital purgatory was apparently all the rage in the late ‘90s.

For better and for worse, the core experience hasn’t changed a bit. There’s endless wandering, and with no overarching map to reference or waypoints to set, Shadow Man’s moment-to-moment gameplay is a dated, tedious exercise in frustration. Rarely do you know where to go or what objectives you’re supposed to complete, and this feels especially glaring now that there’s twenty years between today’s industry standards and the Dreamcast years.

I’m sure modern gamers finding Shadow Man for the first time (God help you) will consider its aimless meandering and shrouded, barely-there objectives not only stale but also bizarrely offensive. The combat, unfortunately, is no better. There’s zero Z-targeting or traditional lock-on mechanic here, resulting in enemy encounters that feel slow, random and enraging.

The truth of the matter is that people don’t have much time or patience for this kind of thing anymore, and it’s probably why games have evolved into experiences that, for the most part, respect gamers’ time. Unless you’re talking about the latest Ubisoft release, that is.

Despite my complaints, I do commend what Nightdive Studios is accomplishing with these older games. I think there’s a case to be made here for game preservation, and also bringing cult classics to the modern masses for general game history appreciation.

If you’re diving into Deadside for the very first time, know that you’re in for a rough ride. If you loved the original Shadow Man and you’re returning after a two-decade hiatus, you may want to temper your expectations. That, or (at the very least) adjust those rose-tinted glasses.

That said, revisiting Shadow Man has reminded me of how far the industry has traveled, as well as all the bumps and stumbles it has overcome to produce the games we play today. While it’s a challenge to indulge in this remaster, it is an interesting peek into the past, to a time when developers perhaps had a bit more freedom to express bouts of wild creativity but were indeed held back by technological and design-centric growing pains.

Here’s to seeing a brand new Shadow Man game in the future that’s learned from its mistakes.

Disclosure: Nightdive Studios provided a review code for coverage purposes.