Shadow Madness

"Bad Graphics and Extremely Easy Gameplay Seriously Hurt This Otherwise Great Game"

I first want to say that this is a good game with a beautifully crafted branching story that challenges even the greatness of a Final Fantasy game. The characters are varied and very original in their design. Also the music in this game fits perfectly into the mood. However with all
the good things in this game there comes bad such as below par graphics and extremely easy gameplay. Well now I go to the main part of the review.

Story 10
Wow this must be on of the greatest stories in an RPG. You start off with you entire town being destroyed in a stunning movie segment. You soon meet up with two other characters and then you are on your way. You discover that a horrible plague is rampaging through the world infecting the masses this plague is called the Shadow Madness. You must stop this plague before it stops you. I love this story because it is so dark and mysterious and it differs from other RPG story-lines very much.

Music 9
The music is excellently crafted into this game. It is haunting and can be truly scary at some times. The battle music is different in almost every part of the game, but can get repetitive towards the end.

Graphics 6
Ahhhhhh see this is just painful. Such a great game has to suffer from crippling graphics. The characters look as if they are made up of only five polygons! This is disgusting considering that it came out 2 years after FFVII. The graphics do please the eyes in towns though with very detailed pre-rendered backgrounds and the world map is uniquely done. The summoning spells are nicely done as well.

Gameplay 7
Easy Easy Easy Far To EASY!!! When you can fight a boss with your eyes closed it tells you something, that something would be that this is INSANELY EASY!!! I had trouble with the first boss (Red Tom) which isn't even a required fight. All regular enemies die with only two or three hits. This simply is in no way challenging.

Battle System 9
I enjoyed the battle system more than I thought I would it is unique and has never been seen in another game. You must first engage an enemy before you can attack. Every character has a special ability such as dagger throwing, headbutting, throwing warspikes, hitting people with a bow, or using a cannon. You can even move around and evade attack. Also if you press X right when your character attacks you will do a double attack. You can also use magic.

Overall 8
if you are an RPG newbie than this will be a great first game, but if you have played Lunar Eternal Blue, Parasite Eve 2, or Beyond the Beyond you can play this one with your eyes closed. If you want a spectacular story than do as I did and ignore the difficulty level and graphics and play through this flawed, but still fun game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/13/03