Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms: Review

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms – An amazing game. Continuation of RPG narrow circles in narrow circles Kult: Heretic Kingdoms, which came as much as ten years ago, today is trying to introduce something new, fresh into a rather conservative genre of « Diabab-like » action/RPG. Another thing is that excellent ideas are not always able to implement on “excellent” ..

The starting choice between a warrior, an archer and a sorceress on the passage style does not have a little effect – further, you will still have representatives of all three classes in the party, and not only them.

Brass band

Recall that and Kult: Heretic Kingdoms In 2004, she attracted attention precisely with her originality, an attempt to break out of the ordinary Diablo-Clone. In addition to the fierce shinkling of monsters, there were a really interesting plot and nonlinear quests. The game used complex role -playing mechanics and sophisticated magic system, and each location was presented in two versions – real and shadow, demonic. And the main character could freely switch between these two dimensions – this was where the lion’s share of gameplay was built.

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms In many ways continues these traditions. And in something even goes on. Here, too, you can arbitrarily switch between the world of people and the world of the shadow, but this is explained by the fact that we play just for a demon named Devourer (that is, a devourer). He was called by one of the leaders of the local Inquisition, the Order of Penta Neo, to stop his colleagues, whose souls were absorbed by the inhabitants of the shadow. Our Eater also absorbs the souls of mortals, but at the same time he differs something from relatives and, as a result, is even able to “be humanized” to save the world. Or destroy it – it already depends on you.

The poor fellow absorbed in the demon are characters of different classes. Switching to them, we get from the shadow measurement to real. But the hero on the screen is always the only one – this is the Eater himself or one of his puppets. This is where the gameplay is being built. In the real world, we switch to the magician, then to the archer, then to the warrior or berserker – depending on the current situation on the battlefield. In demonic, we are looking for special portals that allow you to restore the health of the wards or visit the refuge in order to shuffle the composition of this peculiar party. In addition, it is in the shadow measurement that some quest objects and characters, tips for overcoming cunning traps and passages that allow you to get to the desired place. But you also have to fight there – with all sorts of otherworldly monsters.

You choose yourself?

However, not all puppets of the devourer consider themselves so. Some characters retained their personality, they remember their story and biography and periodically try to argue with the owner. And here the player himself decides: to sacrifice a person to receive a quest sword, or to refuse and fight with a demon guarding the blade? To admit to your loved one that you are already dead and serve the Eater, causing anger in that, or keep it secret?

Well, in general, we have to do a difficult choice periodically. Poison supplies or not, tell how to penetrate the besieged city in order to avoid unnecessary troubles, or not to do it and protect the city from plunder? To hand over her husband who killed his own wife, guard or, conversely, help him to cover traces for a good reward? Of these decisions, the psychological portrait of our party is formed, as they say, which in one way or another affects the end of this whole story.

Finally, there are interesting side lines related to the fate of some characters. At the start of the game, the Eater absorbs the soul of one of the three mortals – it can be a calig warrior, Jasker archer or sorceress Eva. So, each of this trinity has its own history and its own personal quests. Eve, for example, died no less than three hundred years ago, being the daughter of the great empress. And now she wants to know what happened to her relatives and the Empire. And the Caliga a year ago killed his own son, who wanted to take his place at the head of the guild of mercenaries. Naturally, he wants to take revenge and figure out why this happened.

Manage uncontrollable!

At the same time, we have a complex action/RPG, where you need to kill crowds of different monsters, clean the caves and crypts, fight with “bosses” and perform quests in the spirit of “Bring ten spider legs”, “Find my family sword” or “Kill the queen of spiders”. And this is the main trouble. Rather, the trouble is that the farther – the more battle they annoy.

Role and combat mechanics themselves are much simpler and more understandable than in Kult. Each character has standard parameters and a set of unique skills. Active skills open gradually, as the levels are set, and we ourselves decide which of them to “pump” and what passive bonuses to add to them. Compared to the early version, the authors even abandoned the idea of ​​tying active “skills” to the weapons used.

But the management, unfortunately, remains unchanged. It is it that turns the already complex fights into real flour. The fact that you need to constantly jump on different keys, switching on the move between the heroes and their skills, this is still half -worn. The most inconvenient – the cursor here is responsible for moving, and for the attack, and for interaction with objects. As a result, right in the middle of the battle, your ward may stop to shoot some barrel (and there are tons of them) or attack the enemy at all that is needed. And sometimes he, on the contrary, slows down, refuses to fight or runs somewhere in the wrong place. The system of application of active skills has not been implemented in the best way.

Too much fire

And in general Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms too deeper into a meaningless and merciless action. With such and such a concept, on the contrary, it would be more of attention to pay more attention to the plot, characters, quests, moral choice and intriguing disputes between demon and its puppets. All this, as we have already said, is really here, but the further, the less often such situations are found, but the “grind”, seasoned with terrible management, is becoming more and more – the enemies are constantly being revived, the complexity increases, and in order to survive in the next locations, we have to “swing”, returning to the old ones and re -cleaning them by re -cleaning them.

Such a pastime can still be interesting in Diablo 3. And what is they offered to us here? Crooked management, primitive « craft », a terrible Luta system, when we constantly fall out of the same objects. Plus problems with the balance: some skills, like some characters in our party, are clearly more powerful than others – in the end, all this idea with the selection of different tactics does not work, depending on the situation. No, here it was necessary to either bring to mind the fighting and role -playing part, or fully play the plot, quests and moral choice, and not interspersed with such thick layers of the Grinda.

All this is especially disappointing because in its potential Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms – One of the best action/RPG recent years. After all, we have not yet said about what magnificent music and voice acting here, how nice graphics and what a chic design of the environment. It is hoped that the authors will draw the necessary conclusions in an inevitable continuation-after all, after a beta test, the project was divided into two episodes, and now the first one has been released, under the name Book One. Devourer of Souls. So we are waiting and believe.

Pros: unique concept;the ability to move between two parallel worlds;interesting characters with their stories;moral choice;chic design;beautiful graphics;atmospheric music;Great voice acting characters.
Cons: terrible control in battle;There are problems with the balance;set of the same equipment;overstated complexity.