Even the relationship between Shadwen and Lily is treated as entirely throwaway. I don't want to spoil it, but it's all very abrupt and entirely unsatisfying. And yet when Shadwen ends, none of it matters a whit. Over time, it collectively suggests a hidden depth to the tale, especially when conversation turns to the King's potential madness versus the need to keep him on the throne to ensure peace in the kingdom-something that's apparently been sorely lacking in recent history. Guards talk a lot, as they tend to in stealth games, about the “dark spirits,” the forest the King ordered burned for reasons unknown, and the coming visit of two trouble-making nobles. The most disappointing aspect of Shadwen is the story.
The environments don't change much from level to level either aside from some rather pretty outdoor vistas, the whole thing is very grim and grey. There are only two enemy types-the standard guard and, later in the game, the heavily armored guard, who can't be shanked from behind-and their behavior never changes: They walk their path, do a half-assed search if they see or hear something untoward, and are entirely too ready to attribute moving boxes and broken furniture to supernatural forces. Better to kill quietly, stash the corpse, and move on. So even when the chance to get crazy presented itself, I never bothered because it was more likely than not to lead to a quick end-of-game. In fact, that happens whenever a guard discovers a corpse, even if there's no evidence of mayhem: run away, sound alarm, game over. And that's risky, because if a guard escapes your deathtrap, he'll run away, sound the alarm, and it's game over. Effective, sure, but routine.Įven when the chance to get crazy presented itself, I never bothered because it was more likely than not to lead to a quick end-of-game.Ī number of different traps, like mines and poison dart launchers, are available for crafting based on blueprints and items found in chests-the one sort of semi-secret the game offers-but they're only available in extremely limited amounts, and I never found a use for them beyond novelty kills anyway.
I was finally able to roll it into one of them, causing consternation among all three, and I ended up killing them all with my knife while they tried to track me down. But using the grapple to pull the barrel onto its side so it would roll (because pushing just makes them slide around) left it completely out of position, and trying to aim it was like trying to hit a bullseye with a poorly-made paper airplane. In one instance, I came upon an explosive barrel at the top of a ramp leading down to a fire around which three guards were standing-an obvious multi-kill setup.
But Shadwen is unable to interact with the world around her in ways beyond pushing things, or pulling them with her grappling hook, and that puts a real damper on her ability to set up complex, environmental kills. Indirect murder is generally limited to dropping or rolling a heavy object onto an unlucky target, or blowing them up by rolling barrels of explosives into fires they're standing too near for their own good. But it also revealed some of Shadwen’s shortcomings.įor one, although Shadwen purports to allow acts of deep, multi-layered mayhem, it really didn't work out that way for me. Eliminating threats rather than trying to work around them certainly simplified the journey, and it was amusing for awhile too. Since there are absolutely no penalties for spilling blood as long as Lily stays in the dark, I quickly abandoned the life of pacifism in favor of murders of convenience, and before long, straight-up thrill-killing. I figured out Shadwen's real secret in the early stages of the game's fourth level: Keeping Lily innocent doesn't mean not killing anyone, it means keeping her from finding out about it.
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