I want to start by saying that Black Shadows isn’t a bad game. I realize that I might come across as being harsh through this review but it’s only because I see great potential in this title. XRazorBlackX, you did a great job so far and should be proud to call this piece of work your own. With that said, let’s jump in!

Music\ ⅕ Needs Improvement
For starters, I’ll have to admit that I found the music didn’t work most of the time for me. I believe this to be mainly because I’m using an unedited version of Rm2k3, which is probably why all I hear most of the time is high pitch screeching. When the music did work, I found that it didn’t always fit the tone/mood that the developer was going for. Though, when it did fit the mood, it set it perfectly.

Graphics\ ⅖ Passable
I found the dull grey message box conflicted with the white to blue text, sometimes making it hard to read the dialogue. I’ll have to admit, while the combat felt lacking, the creatures were very interesting to look at. They did look threatening, though the experience overall suffers from stale graphics and empty maps. I personally would like to see more detail in the maps. I feel this would help to make the town feel more natural and like it was once lived in. I also feel that Evan could benefit from a graphical tweak. His colour palette is bright and cheerful, while the rest of the game is very dark and gritty. I also found the overall mapping to consistently get better as the game progressed. The quality slowly built like the tension. I’d like to see consistent mapping and graphic detail in the future release.

Mechanics\ ⅖ Passable
Black Shadows uses the standard built in menu system with little innovation. Which is fine. It makes it work for it and I don’t personally feel that a game needs to reinvent the wheel to be good. Our main protagonist uses a standard handgun for most of the DEMO, which is a fitting weapon and very welcomed to this style of game. Though, it was disappointing that the gunplay was hero touch event based. What I mean is, to kill an enemy I had to make contact and press the “Enter” key. I did however like that the equipped gun uses bullets. Though this feature only seemed to function during cut scenes. The creatures never really posed a threat which took away from the over all sense of fear for my life. Considering how badly the town has been destroyed and how many grisly scenes I stumbled across, I always found myself wondering where the real threat was. Some of this disappointment was alleviated by the end of the demo.
A sniping mini game helped to clear this up with it’s unique style of gameplay mechanic. I’d like to see more of this throughout Black Shadows. XRazorBlackX, I have some unique ideas towards viable mechanics and styles of gunplay that I’d be more than willing to share if you are interested. I’m not here to tell you how to do your job though. Thus, I’ll leave these ideas as available upon request.

Story\ ⅗ Has Potential
You are, Evan Silver. Your job is to explore the abandoned town of Red Hills. A small town where an occult group has mass murdered everyone to bring rise to a powerful demon. I found from time to time it was hard to follow exactly what was going on as the dialogue wavered from alright to below sub-par. It never really felt impactful and at times was awkward to read, nevermind trying to say it out loud. While the story had a very “Supernatural” Feel to it, Evan was no Winchester. Though, I was delightfully surprised by the Legend of Zelda reference. It was a pleasant little easter egg. There were also a few easter eggs from “Supernatural” as well. The entire game felt heavily influenced by it and there’s nothing wrong with that!
The character development felt fragmented and all over the place. The characters never really felt like they even knew who they were and constantly broke character more often than not. The relationships between characters seems forced and was hard to relate to. Although towards the end more of the unanswered questions and jagged puzzle pieces fit together, it still left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to care about Evan Silver and Ivy. I wanted to like them, I really did! But I just had such a hard time growing attached to the characitchures. I believe that if the dialogue was cleaned up, the story would be more impactful and the theme of death would have so much more weight if the main hero still felt anything for all the corpses he stumbles across. His “too cool” macho tough guy act didn’t do anything for me.

Presentation\ ⅖ Passable
The overall presentation lacked polish. When transitioning, the screen would change tint and weather effects, all in front of the player. Seeing these sort of transitions made the overall project feel rough, mind you it is only a demo. These sort of issues can be dealt with easily before releasing the full game. The teleporting from map to map was rough. Personally, as a player,
I find it absurd and confusing when I exit stage right and appear on the next map in a completely different direction than I was originally heading. Example being, teleport left and appear heading up on the next map. I understand trying to convey the world this way to emphasize different camera angles, but as a player, I don’t like it. There were also a lot of objects that found that I was able to walk over top of. Like chairs, sofas, bodies, walls and at one point the ceiling. I see this a lot in rpg maker games. Too much, actually. I was also shocked by the language used in Black Shadows. I found the wide variety of curse words used made me feel less for the main protagonist. But aside from all of the nit picking, there was one thing XRazorBlackX nailed. It was the pacing. I never got lost or stuck and the story always moved forward. Pacing has always been something the entire world of games, movies and literature has struggled with. I will admit that there is one part in particular that a classic scare tactic almost got the better of me. This is a perfect example of how the pacing benefitted Black Shadows. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t played it yet so Im not going to go into too much detail, but during the bathroom scene Evan is confronted by his bloodied past and at Evan’s expense the player is treated to a shocking treat. Good job, XRazorBlackX. This is hard to do in such a limited engine, and even harder with a 2D camera. You should be proud. :)
Shortly after, there is an action heavy mini game. The mini game consist of the player sniping enemies from a window. The player controls the crosshair to protect Ivy. Then the Demo ends.
I found by this point the game overall, had picked up in terms of polish and story development.

Ending Conclusion\ ⅗ Could Be Something Great
I want to end this by clearing a few things up. I want XRazorBlackX to understand that I don’t hate Black Shadows and that I did actually have a lot of fun playing it. By the end, despite it’s shortcomings, Black Shadows intrigued me and drew me in. I see a lot of potential and heart.
I believe that if XRazorBlackX can integrate more of the mini game mechanics into the main gameplay, the game would benefit greatly. On an ending note, I had a lot of fun reviewing this and I recommend it to anyone who likes the show “Supernatural” or anything supernatural.
Good work, XRazorBlackX!

- Ashes