Review: Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainmente w/ Epic Games, 2009)

 
Platform: XBLA

Shadow Complex is the first serious and successful attempt at recreating the feeling of oldschool 2D exploration shooters inside a 3D canvas. It's plain to see they focused on recovering everything good from Metroidvanias, while removing the design flaws and problems arisen by hardware limitations. A new aiming system, leveling bonuses or an attempt at story-telling are some of the additions they made to the Metroid formula.

A bit of history

Since the introduction of the third dimension in videogames many attempts have been made to recreate the classics in the new environments. Most of the time, however, the results have been underwhelming. The fast action available in simple 2D worlds proved constantly too much for the more complex settings required for believable 3D scenarios, unless action was limited to only two axes (Robotron X, Einhander).
Until Zelda 64's lock on was introduced, few had managed to get things slightly right. And even after that, failure has been pretty common. Proof of this is the respected Castlevania series, which, after four 3D iterations, found commercial success only when Mercury Steam decided to break with the old game style completely.
The Metroid series did better, with the Prime saga achieving almost unanimous praise, thanks to its merge of FPS mechanics with a lock on system, plus subtle story-telling. It did, however, rely on completely different gameplay and narrative styles than its precursors.

There is, as can be seen, a common thread going on, which is not even considering a return to the 2D. That approach has been left for handheld consoles, with the Metroid and Castlevania series for Nintendo systems, or remakes of old classics and shoot'm ups, like Ghosts'n Goblins for the PSP.
Of course, there have been constant homages, with 3D games re-creating 2D gameplay in small sections. The one I remember most vividly is Nier, which achieved levels of meta-gaming off the charts. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and Metroid: Other M also played with pseudo 2D, although not too succesfully.

Chair Entertainment played it safe, making Shadow Complex a 2D game inside a 3D world. Movement is limited to the x/y plane, while enemies are free to move all around. As a result, Jason, the main character, is allowed to shoot in any direction too. The game automatically chooses how deep you are aiming, and it seldom does wrong.

Metroidvania at heart

Shadow Complex is probably the highest profile metroidvania ever done: edge technology, a big studio devoted completely to it, an expensive marketing campaign and the push from Microsoft. The studio dedicated apparently several months redrawing levels in paper form, calculating possible advance routes, secrets placement and planning all kinds of distractions to get the player off the track.
Also, the Metroid games were studied to he deepest detail, until their inner workings were grokked by the team at large.

The game shares a similar system of weapons and suit upgrades or ammo and life increments, adding some more to the mix. Missiles and super missiles are replaced by grenades and... missiles. Gone are all cannon upgrades, with only the ice ray remaining in the form of the foam gun.
These three weapons are used to unlock doors, but in a more intelligent way than Metroid: Other M used. Doors are destroyed or disabled, and once open remain that way. Shooting to open normal doors was, appropriately, considered unacceptable and they now open as you approach.

Behold the power of the Foam Gun

Other upgrades include the armour increments, which improve defence, the passkeys, needed to unlock a game breaking piece of equipment, and gold bars, to gain access to special versions of all weapons. The rest are the more usual double and triple jump, super speed, hook and scuba diving mask. Oh, and climbig gear, without which Jason cannot grab onto ledges. So that's what Samus was missing before Fusion!*

You can see there's nothing too fancy in here. A couple of long needed fixes to the mechanics of the game and a little revision of the game items.

* In the Metroid series, Samus Aran, the main character, couldn't grab ledges until Metroid Fusion.

What's new, folks?

So, what is so special about this game. Well, there is a levelling system which, apart from improving the character, also unlocks special features. The most relevant of them is reached at level 20: the whole map is revealed, something I'm not a big fan of. I prefer a more classic approach, like improving the second playthrough with special items marked in the map, plus all visited areas covered. Knowing everything the first time around makes obtaining the 100% mark too easy, reducing the interest of further replays. It does not break the game, but was not really necessary.
Other upgrades obtained by levelling up are, however, more interesting. The character stats are improved on each new one, and every ten levels you get an additional life deposit or infinite ammo for one of your special weapons.
Experience is earned by killing enemies, obtaining secrets and items and discovering new areas of the map. The latter is, certainly, the most important, followed closely by boss encounters. Special kills, like headshots, add an XP multiplier.

A simple melee combat system has been included, allowing you to quickly dispatch enemies with a button press, if close enough. Small robots are punted, which is funny. Falling inside a group of distracted folks and madly pressing the melee button is probably too effective, as Jason is inmune to all damage during the animation, but the risk of getting into close quarter combat asked for such a compensation.

The flashlight replaces the diverse mechanisms used by Metroid or Castlevania to reveal secret passages. It is, also, a lot more relevant to the game. From the very start the player is required to break shafts or hatches, which are coloured when illuminated, identifying the kind of attack needed to open them. This is an elegant solution to an old problem, and allows Chair to use shortcuts much more often. It is, as well, way more comfortable than the X rays or familiar from Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night.

Your first big encounter and one of the few interesting ones.

Boss encounters are other notable change in Shadow Complex. With the exception of the first two bosses and the last one, which require a little bit of puzzling, all the rest are simple badass fights. It is a sad dissapointment, given the tradition of the genre to include complex enemies. What's worse, after the excellent Order of Ecclesia demonstrated how to design outstanding boss battles, expectations were even higher.

The most evident missing feature to long time players of the genre will be, however, a fast travel mechanism. Metroid allowed moving from one area to a distant one using elevators, which forced a certain symmetry between levels. Sometiemes this feature was used to allow fast, partial glances at areas still unreachable.
Castlevania games employ teleport rooms for this, which give more freedom to the designers.
The reason why Shadow Complex does not include any of them is not very clear. Travelling between distant points in the map is relatively fast, but usually involves very long and concoluted paths. Since the fastest way to move in the game is using the outdoor environment or the lower section, a couple of elevators connecting them would make things much better.

And last, the most irritating issue I have with Chair's game: teaching how to use new weapons by reading some text is not elegant at all. Super Metroid, the best game in this aspect, made the learning process part of the world design. Samus learnt the effect of its super speed and its special abilities by copying the behaviour of a creature. Different games in the saga have used the fauna in different ways, always creating a more real and coherent world.
Shadow Complex would have just needed to add a second Omega Armor, used by an enemy, the same way that Fusion did. Learning from a seemingly invincible enemy to finally beat it is one of the best experiences the developers could have gone for.
At least, they introduce some life into the environment by letting you snoop your enemies' daily conversations and jokes. They even make you feel regret for killing a hundred or so in an indirect way, in one of the greatest moments in the adventure. And it works to make you feel part of the world, but it is still a simple, lifeless world, in which learning is achieved by reading in a sub-menu.

Conclusion

Going head to head against giants is never easy

Shadow Complex is, in the end, a very entertaining and well designed game. Most of what it does improves on its predecessors, and some of its innovations work really well. Sadly, a couple small omissions and design oversights take away from the innovative whole, leaving it as a great alumn to its masters, but not a real contender for the crown.
Maybe the next one trying this formula will learn from Chair's mistakes and brings new life to the genre, now that Nintendo and Konami are clearly refusing to support it. I'll keep waiting for a worthy succesor to Koji Igarashi.