There aren’t a lot of video games or comics based on voodoo (or vodou). It’s honestly a bit surprising since it’s one of the most interesting religions out there and the unique spirituality has led to more than a few horror stories and pop cultural adaptations that we’re all familiar with, such as zombies. But as with all things, it’s easy to forget the source material and it’s safe to say that voodoo is usually left by the wayside as its concepts are culturally appropriated.
Enter Shadowman. Originally conceived as a comic series in 1992 by Valiant Comics, Shadowman incorporates Louisiana voodoo to create a superhero imbued with the power of a loa (or lwa), which is a voodoo spirit. In the original comics, Jack Boniface hosted the shadow loa, giving him supernatural strength at night and the ability to commune with the dead. After the original series folded and Acclaim bought the rights to Valiant, Shadowman was relaunched with a new lead character, Michael LeRoi, a young man whose actions killed his family, eventually resulting in the mask of shadows being woven into his chest by a centuries-old voodoo priestess and imbuing him with the power to walk between our world and Deadside, a unique envisioning of a universal afterlife for all humans. Deadside is by definition inhuman, though all human spirits go there after death and it is continually attempting to encroach on the world of the living, much like a strange synthesis of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.
Shadowman Remastered from developer and publisher Nightdive Studios takes the original game and modernizes it in many ways. You play Michael LeRoi, the main character from Volumes 2 and 3 of Shadowman as he, Nettie, and Jaunty fight against a demon called Legion who has taken the spirits of serial killers and fused them with “Dark Souls” (no pun intended….this predates the games). These serial killers dwell in a gigantic asylum designed by Jack the Ripper and their goal is nothing less than flooding our reality with the spirits of the dead. If you don’t get a lot of the references from the story, don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. They actually directly refer to the comics from Shadowman by Acclaim and if you haven’t read them, you’re missing out on a ton of fan service and relevant information. But it doesn’t really matter in terms of the game, only for depth, so don’t sweat it. Just know that LeRoi messed up bad, got his family killed, became an alcoholic assassin with no memory, and ended up an semi-undead voodoo superhero.
Overall, this is all some pretty heavy stuff for an obscure game from 1999, but the high production value of the script and voice acting is a pleasant surprise. If you played Shadowman back then, you’ll remember it all, but the game has aged incredibly well for both voice work and writing and it’s an absolute delight to hear the game come to life again after over 20 years. The majority of the game is played in Deadside, where Michael must work his way to the Five, the serial killers enlisted by Legion and take their Dark Souls back to save humanity. Yes, we’re finally getting to the actual game.
As Shadowman, you must work your way through the maze of warrens that constitutes Deadside, killing duppies and other spirits that attack you, attempting to drain your life force. They’re based on actual voodoo mythology too, and the game certainly manages to be creepy! You use a spiritual gun that rends their spirits apart, but it sounds cooler than it actually is. As you wind your way through the game, you’ll slowly collect voodoo weapons, cadeaux to raise your health, and govi which enhance your Shadow powers. They’re hidden absolutely everywhere, in a late 90s style reminiscent of early Rare games and it’s incredibly time-consuming to find them, but without the govi you cannot advance in the game and without the cadeaux, you’ll struggle to survive.
Each level is designed thematically with the Engine Block full of giant machinery, the Playrooms full of creepy medical equipment, and London patterned after the London Underground. Additionally, Nightdive has added 3 new levels, a summer camp in Florida, the Mojave Desert, and Asylum Experimentation Rooms as well as a plethora of new enemies to deal with. Much of this content was previously cut from the original release, so this is the first time it has been seen outside of the original development studio!
But how does Shadowman play? Turns out, not that well unfortunately. What you’ll immediately notice about Shadowman is that it’s 20 years old, and it feels 20 years old! The polygon art, while crisp, is extremely planar and limited, the artwork is dated, the environments are wide open with few details, and the controls are clunky. This is shocking for a remaster, considering that modern game controls have advanced significantly since the late ‘90s and it is bizarre to leave these intact outside of a software museum. Shadowman lopes awkwardly around controlled by the left stick, but left and right on the stick move him in a slow strafe and pulling back on the stick walks him backwards incredibly slowly, making retreat nearly impossible without clicking the left stick for a 180. Your gun initially fires automatically with the left trigger, but as you become more powerful, you quickly get a charge shot, requiring manual fire, forcing you to remap to a face button on the controller or suffer carpal tunnel from combat. In fact, the entire default control scheme is surprisingly rough. Thankfully the bindings are fully mappable or Shadowman would be entirely unplayable.
Then there’s the game and level design. This is a 22 year old game and it absolutely shows. Whole sections of the game can be easily missed, leaving you stuck missing vital items. Jumping is finicky and the camera is as well, making the simplest jumps awkward when they should be easy. The environments are limited in their detail (even though it looks much better) and as a result, most of the game feels like empty environments to traipse through. Wandering back and forth through levels over and over searching for what you missed is frustrating at best, but it gets worse. You also can’t aim your gun. Yeah, that’s right. You have to turn Shadowman with the right stick to line up with enemies that move to hit them. There’s a lock-on strafe but it’s a poor substitute for aiming on the fly. There’s also a snipe mode that is activated with the right stick, but it’s incredibly awkward to use and definitely a relic of the ‘90s. And if you thought having trouble aiming was irritating, keep reading.
The key design elements that were missing from games of this era are maps and points of interest, both of which are missing here. Walk up to an item you are supposed to interact with and there is literally no indicator that you can do anything. None. Combined with the lack of visual detail, this makes it incredibly hard to tell what you can interact with or how to progress, and will absolutely frustrate modern players. On top of that, the levels are an absolute warren of weird, convoluted passageways that you’ll literally have to memorize from scratch as there is no mapping system of any kind. No directions, no goals, no way to tell if you need to do something else to progress. Just wander aimlessly around until you trigger something and you never know what might be important. It’s a design that doesn’t hold up today and it’s utterly fury-inducing. For those of us that actually bought Shadowman on the PC back in ’99 and also happen to have the physical strategy guide handy, it legitimately makes almost no difference because even with the original maps, there are no indicators as to orientation or vital tasks to complete due to incredibly poor guide writing.
In short, Shadowman is a dated, barely playable mess that will have you throwing your controller like you did playing the original Turok Dinosaur Hunter on N64 if you’re that old. It’s an issue of form over function here, and while Shadowman looks cool, is well-written, and is conceptually brilliant with dark, brooding gameplay and design, it utterly fails to be accessible in the modern era as well. While remaster is a term that’s bandied about constantly these days we tend to forget that that means no significant changes. Nightdive has failed to consider any updates to a game that was tough to slog through 20 years ago, instead choosing to preserve it warts and all with no alteration other than clearer, crisper visuals and re-integrated content. This is a remaster that should have been a remake with updated controls, mapping, and clear direction. This simple fact is that even for those of us who have played it before and absolutely love the content and style, Shadowman isn’t fun to play.
And while the visuals for Shadowman have been widely touted as updated, that doesn’t mean there aren’t significant issues. Most notably, there are plenty of clipping issues where half of a character ends up in a wall or Shadowman’s arms pass right through a door and so on. The visual improvements ended at cleaning up the imagery and, hey, sure, the shadows look better and the bloodstains are clearer, but I’m still stuck in a corner that wasn’t fixed, have to reload, and can barely dodge regular enemies. And you’d better get used to saving before every jump because that’s the only way you’re going to make any real progress in the game later on. Otherwise it’s back to the start constantly because the slightest slip-up results in near instant death.
The sound design is absolutely exquisite here, of course, but everything about the ambience of Shadowman is brilliant. The visual design is intense and evil, the sound matches and fills your speakers with the thrum of machinery and the sound of voodoo-inspired drums and other tunes, and the voice actors were at the top of their game for Shadowman. Some of the lines are a bit corny, like Shadowman shouting “I am the lord of Deadside” repeatedly, but for the most part, it’s an excellent, almost poetic script that really captures the essence of the character. Naturally, that is all content ported directly from the original release with no changes either, but that’s honestly for the better since changing it would only make it less impressive.
Shadowman Remastered is a unique game. Based on outstanding comics from the 90s, it captures the essence of voodoo mythology, blending it with horror and clever writing to make an intense story that captivates the audience. The visual updates make the game pleasant to look at, if dated and at least your eyes aren’t bleeding if you try to play it. But the wholesale porting of the mechanics and lack of revision to levels that were badly designed and cameras that are both finicky and limited makes for an unpleasant gaming experience. From a historical standpoint, it’s neat to see a game like Shadowman available and playable in today’s gaming world. But from a design standpoint, this is an ancient hot mess that’s not going to be fun for most players and they’ll likely give up before they get anywhere and manage to ascribe value to the experience. In short, a game better avoided.
This review is based on a digital copy of Shadowman Remastered provided by the publisher. It was played on an Xbox Series X using a Sony 55” 1080p TV. Shadowman Remastered is also available for PC, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.