Shadow Warrior 3 was a significant departure from the other games in the series in several ways, and as such, this is a radical change in direction and unusual territory for the developers. Despite trailers and other footage seemingly suggesting more interaction with these characters, such as direct support from Motoko against enemies, instead, you’ll mostly interact with them via dialogue. It lacks what other Shadow Warrior games had in other friendly NPCs, the only one of any note in this game being Motoko’s Tanuki, her spirit animal you must chase and later have accompanied you on your quest. Overall there’s plenty to enjoy about the game on a visual scale, be it from enemy designs, gore, and stage design. Traps in arenas are also decently varied and feature creative and bloody ways to destroy your enemies en masse if you can kite them into the affected areas. You’ll even find yourself inside a massive beast, going through its body and crossing red blood cells to reach your destination. ![]() Highlights include multiple instances of you running across the back of the Dragon, the icy heart of a massive forest, and the ruined structures surrounding a dam. Stages are well-designed, although several are somewhat similar to one another. Using these Gore Weapons, especially on Medium and Hard difficulty, will prove essential to surviving arenas, but more than that, getting them and using them is macabre yet darkly funny. The only enemy who has a Finisher that doesn’t bestow a “Gore Weapon” per se is the Shogai, the lowest-tier enemy, but instead, you get a massive health buff, doubling your Max HP. You’ll gain deadly swords, hammers, bombs that freeze groups of enemies, grenades that stun-lock and devastate entire arenas, and more. Even the animations before getting them are highly entertaining, from stealing a Hattori’s sword and cleaving them in half, to cooking a Chef Oboru Guruma’s head in its own body’s ‘oven’, complete with a timer going off to signify it’s done. Gore Weapons are a fun feature in this game, featuring different abilities based on the enemies they’re acquired from. Upon executing this move, you’ll be given Gore Weapons. 1 is spent for smaller enemies, 2 are spent for larger ones, and 3 is used only for the Gassy Obariyon, the biggest enemy. You can gain Finisher Points either by killing enemies or finding the yellow spawn points marked similarly to health and ammo spawn points, and you’ll eventually have access to a reserve of 3 points. To activate these finishers you’ll simply have to spend “Finisher Points” if the input prompt shows to instantly kill an enemy, even if they’ve not been damaged. Despite not having a wide variety of kill animations, but still a unique one for each enemy, this game bestows you with a different weapon or buff for all but one variety of non-boss Yokai you encounter. The enemies you fight are largely Yokai, or Japanese demons in this context, who stand in your way in the many arenas you’ll have to fight through to complete your quest.įinishers in this game have more beneficial functions than the glory kills in Doom and Doom Eternal. There are 7 weapons that, in their basic forms, are fairly similar to any given arena shooter’s array of weapons until you upgrade them. There are three difficulties you can play the game, Easy, Medium, and Hard, and there are only autosaves as of now, no manual saves or chapter select, which we’ll touch on later. ![]() ![]() Most enemy health bars, missions, mini maps, and procedurally generated maps are gone instead, there are new additions like a simple weapon and character upgrade system where you can spend points found either in levels or by completing challenges. The gameplay of Shadow Warrior 3 signals a streamlining of features compared to those from previous SW titles. ![]() The plot is simplistic and, even though the characters are often fun, it takes a backseat to the gameplay. Your quest brings you across multiple regions in the game’s Neo-Feudal Japan setting and introduces new characters in the form of the sorceress Motoko, and the Tanuki, her adorable spirit animal. The former ninja assassin enlists the help of former nemesis and disgraced billionaire Orochi Zilla in a quest to harness the power of his deceased friend Hoji, the God of Mischief. The story picks up after the escapades of previous Shadow Warrior titles, with Lo Wang narrating to the player about his latest misfortunes fending off the Dragon threatening to destroy the world after being released at the end of Shadow Warrior 2.
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