Shadow Madness

"An RPG with great dialogue but flawed battle system."

Introduction

Shadow Madness is a Japanese style RPG like Final Fantasy but was created by English speakers.

Features

Shadow Madness used some features (both good and bad) that weren't in many other RPGs of that time.

One of the features I liked was the ability to skip summon animation sequences during battles by pressing the action button. Not being able to skip the summon animation was a big downside of Final Fantasy VII and an even bigger downside of Legend of Legaia. Even some recent RPGs don't allow long summon/magic sequences to be skipped. I wish all RPGs had a feature like this.

A rather dumb feature in Shadow Madness was having a difficulty level option. When playing a video game for the first time, most gamers would check the options menu and change the difficulty level to the easiest setting. Many people criticized the game for being way too easy (with the first boss being the only exception). Some of these people might have forgotten about the difficulty level option. This option can be changed even after starting the game, but it isn't something that many people would look for in the in-game options menu. I didn't find out that I could change it part way through until after I completed the game. It took me around 30 hours to complete Shadow Madness on the easiest setting. I don't intend in the near future to play the game again on a harder difficulty level. A difficulty level setting is fine for an arcade style game but not for a Japanese style RPG.

The Battle system is a standard turn based menu driven system but has the additional option of movement. In order to do a short range attack, the character must be close to the enemy. To move close to the enemy, you can either attack normally or use the movement menu. You may want your tough characters up front to direct enemy attacks towards them and away from less tough but magically adept characters. If you want to use a long ranged attack e.g. a dart or arrow, you would need to move away from an enemy if it is very close.

Other aspects of the battle system are under appreciated because of the easiest difficulty setting e.g. elements and the non-damage effects of various magic spells. The spell casting characters usually learn three new spells after leveling up. Learning the finer details of each spell isn't necessary because on the easiest difficulty setting even bosses only require a few hits to be killed. The non-spell casting characters Harv-5 and Stinger are quite boring when it comes to leveling up, in comparison with the spell casting characters.

There is a limit to the number of items your party can hold. Many people don't like this as it prevents building up a collection of every item in the game. Some people might like it because it adds an element of strategy to the game where you must carefully decide what you are to keep, buy, sell or drop. Having an item storage limit prevents the player from becoming a compulsive item hoarder, which will mean items are more likely to get used at useful times rather than getting used near the end of the game as an experiment. There is also a limit to the amount of money you can carry. Chances are, you will reach that limit. Again, it is a matter of preference whether you want to be encouraged to behave like a Japanese miser or an American spendthrift. There are two different units of currency in the game, which are gold and hexite.

A downside of this game is that there isn't really an ‘after game'. An ‘after game' is the optional things to do around the world just before you face the final boss. In most other Japanese style RPGs I have seen, near the end of the game you gain access to just about every place on the world map. Shadow Madness has location access limitations right up to the end. Fortunately these limitations aren't severe enough to make the game entirely linear or prevent every kind of optional exploration.

Story/Characters

The story of Shadow Madness is the generic Japanese style RPG formula (a group of allies/friends saving the world (not Earth) from a super villain and his minions). The home towns of the three starting characters get destroyed and some people are catching a mental illness coined shadow madness. The party(s) of characters try to make sense of what happened and eventually have to stop the evil super villain.

The story has a nice mix of fantasy and science fiction elements to it. Humans aren't the only sentient race in the world of Shadow Madness. The Shadow Madness world is rich in history and even has a Jesus like character that gets mentioned from time to time. The environments are quite varied. There snowy mountains, at least one seaside town, a big city, desert, forests, caverns etc.

What sets this game apart from any other RPG I have played, isn't the story but the dialogue. The dialogue is great. The dialogue helped make the characters full of character. In other RPGs I can say what has happened to a character and what a character does but I can't say much about a character's personality. Shadow Madness doesn't have this problem. The writers are very talented. It would be great if the writers of many recent movies had talent like these guys.

There are 6 long term playable characters in the game. Three of them will be in your party from very close to the beginning. Only three of your characters can participate in a given battle. Often your party of characters will split up into two groups and go on separate missions before regrouping. Usually you can choose which group of characters you will focus on first.

Graphics

The character objects are very simple but move in a realistic way. The game has been heavily criticized for the character graphics and in doing so, many people have written the game off as having poor graphics. The graphics of the landscape and buildings were done well. A convincing job was done to make the world map look like an old treasure map.

Music

The music is well done. It is fairly complex and would be acceptable on a PS2 game. The music suits the scenarios quite well. The battle music sounds appropriate. There is a part of the game when some of the characters are in a town that looks like something out of the Wild West. During that time, music is playing that would be well placed in a Western genre movie. The sound effects aren't bad. The sound effects are very similar to other RPGs.

Final Recommendations

Only play this game if you are a big fan of Japanese style RPGs or you are interested in a game with great dialogue and character development. If you are interested in a story and don't like turn based battles, switch the difficulty to the easiest setting. If you don't mind taking longer to complete the game and want more challenging battles, select a harder difficulty setting.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/25/06