Shadows of Adam

Shadows of Adam is a commercial, 'old-school' traditional RPG created by a team of developers known as Something Classic. As you might guess by the name their creators haven given themselves, this game is an intentional throwback to the 'classic' era of 8/16-bit RPGs and draws liberally from titles from the early nineties. For full disclosure, I was given an advance copy of this game for free for the purposes of reviewing it.

The game begins with an homage to Final Fantasy VI in a world ravaged by a destructive war that was caused by magic. Seeking to escape the destruction, fearful citizens fled into the wilderness and founded a small town called Adam to hide from the war until the wicked magic-wielding Lodan Empire was destroyed by a great cataclysm.

'Magic' in Shadows of Adam is not merely a cool fantasy power, it is explicitly a force for evil, drawn from the world of the dead, and is a power men should never wield or touch. Nevertheless, this power does still exist in isolated places and individuals, such as a girl named Asrael in the village of Adam. The people of Adam are superstitious and mistrustful, and when an evil force begins infesting the nearby wilderness, the people think Asrael is to blame. Kellan, the son of a local hero, stands up for Asrael and is sent to investigate the disturbance to prove it is not her doing. What Kellan and Asrael discover in the wilderness will send them on a quest in search of Kellan's missing father, who they believe needs their help.

In a lot of ways, Shadows of Adam is the apotheosis of the RPG Maker ethos, recreating the kinds of games we found mesmerizing as kids. The game's visuals, set-pieces and plot are all drawn from the well of classic RPG tropes and conventions. There's a lot of reasons why someone might want to make an 'old school' RPG and nostalgia is certainly one of the highest on the list. I suspect another reason might be the comparative ease of making one compared to other types of projects, with relatively simple programming and artwork. But to assume design simplicity was a goal for Shadows of Adam might leave you surprised. The game ran a successful Kickstarter and its clear the budget was put to good use in this game's visuals. There is definitely some very impressive sprite work on display here that clearly denotes that while this game might have taken its inspiration from another time, it is firmly a product of the modern era. To borrow a turn of phrase from RMN's very own Kentona, the game is 'Neo-Retro.” While decidedly steeped in the design auspices of the 'old School,” Shadows of Adam also brings modern design sensibilities to the table as well.



The game takes the form and shape of a traditional world-spanning 'collect the artifacts' quest where you'll explore towns, fight monsters, enter dungeons and meet a lot of weirdos. Dungeons are a particular winner in this game for me. Eschewing random encounter-filled mazes, Shadows of Adam's dungeons are deliberate, well-paced, and designed with the player's consideration in mind. Encounters are similar to Final Fantasy Mystic Quest; static, non-random, and once fought do not return until you re-enter the dungeon. They are placed judiciously and not overused, so the game is very resistant to forced grinding. More emphasis is placed on study of your environment and interaction with various puzzle set pieces. These puzzles mostly feel organic, clear, intuitive to interact with and solve, and build on mechanics introduced in earlier areas. You won't really see anything you haven't seen done elsewhere, but what's here is nearly perfectly executed, with nothing feeling forced or thrown in. Very well done and enjoyable. While a handful of puzzles towards the end of the game forced me to really stop and consider what my range of action was, none prompted me to ram my head into my keyboard or call the developer names.

Complete with the game's at times very impressive visuals and a score with a charming, distinctly 'old school' vibe, the game's various levels are a joy to explore. While I feel the game's final dungeon was longer than it needed to be, I otherwise have no complaints about the level design of this game. A solid five stars here.

Combat sequences play out in a fairly typical Dragon Quest or Phantasy Star manner. Each of your four heroes has variety of special abilities they can use by spending AP, which replenishes by a small amount each round. Each hero also has a special ability they can use to restore their own AP as well as grant them some other benefit. You'll have traditional attack and recovery abilities but equipping certain 'Artifacts' can change the way some characters operate, such as granting them more attacks per round or additional AP regeneration. Combat plays out quickly and with satisfying visual and sound effects, experience comes at a quick pace and leveling up has a noticeable effect on your performance. Encounters are challenging but not murderous, but throughout the game your party's HP totals are relatively low compared to the amount of damage enemies can do so while healing abilities come early and are effective you must stay constantly vigilant to stay alive, especially since while most encounters can be seen coming, the occasional scripted ambush does occur. There isn't a great deal of resource management required to succeed, most equipment is just a straight upgrade from previous gear and the game throws a lot of healing items at you, although I did have to buy the occasional armload of Revival items.

Finally we'll talk about the characters and story, which is important for me because this is an area where I feel like the 'old school' conceit doesn't work. The depth of the characters feels a bit more akin to a first-generation Dragon Quest game than a modern RPG made in 2017. The game has two protagonists, with Kellan being a typical brave but not-too-bright RPG hero and Asrael being a mysterious, empathetic orphan girl with unexplained powers. The problem is that neither particularly ever grows beyond these very basic RPG tropes to offer us a 'new' take on these characters. There's just not much else to them.

Most of the additional cast is introduced early. Our heroes are quick to make an ally of Curtis, a wandering martial artist who insists he was just passing through but seems a little too invested in what's going on. He definitely has a history, and you'll get to see it before the game is over, but we don't know a lot about Curtis's personality other than that he likes meditating and is a bit of a smartass. The fourth hero, Talon, offers quite a bit more potential. He is an old friend of Kellan and Asrael who was very sickly as a child and was thus always left out by the other children. He has grown up resentful and left Adam to make his own fortune. When we meet him, we learn he is fond of Asrael but deeply dislikes Kellan. Seems like a great opportunity for him to serve as a foil for the group and provoke some conflict and character development. Unfortunately, barring one major exception late in the game, this rarely amounts to anything other than Kellan and Talon calling each other names. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Prince Malvil, a nefarious royal who wants to be Kefka so bad he can taste it, and his duo of comically ineffective but very persistent henchmen.



The game does offer us a lot of context about the characters. We learn a lot of the 'whys' and 'hows.' But we never really get to know these characters or learn 'who' they are, what they care about, where they're going in life.

The game's world-building also leads a lot to be desired. The world clearly has some history but the player isn't given a lot of opportunity to get invested in it or learn what's going on. I think a pretty major problem here might be in the NPCs in most of the towns. Rather than using them as building blocks to introduce lore, flavor text, current events, a lot are just used to indulge in cheap throwaway gags. You learn very little about the war, the evil Lodan Empire, or exactly what became of them. Which is a shame because there was at least one twist that I thought was pretty cool when you eventually make your way to the continent of Lod and find out what's been going on there since the war. Ultimately though I didn't really leave this world feeling any sort of connection to it. The building blocks simply weren't there.

I'm a story guy; I like stories and characters and getting to know them and getting attached. But I understand a lot of people see story just as some curiosity to engage with on the side or at worst a distraction to be mashed through so you can get back to the dungeons and murder. And if that's you, then no worries. Shadows of Adam has a lot to offer you. But for people who like to indulge in a game's writing and characterization, be aware that this title doesn't offer a lot in the way of it. Whereas with most features of the game, Something Classic took something old and made it feel new, here it still feels old.

One aspect of the game not pulling through for me isn't enough to drag down my impressions too far however, mostly because the other parts of the game are good enough to make up for what I perceive as shortcomings. Shadows of Adam is a worthy addition to the 'Neo-Retro' school of RPG design with some classical and enjoyable dungeon-crawling and RPG combat, the kind of game you might have enjoyed as a kid, with most of the rough edges sanded off. The game is about ten hours long from beginning to end though there is some additional end game quest content to explore as well. If Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy dominated your childhood and you've been searching to recapture those feelings for the past twenty years, Shadows of Adam might be just the game for you.