Nice story, something new in some areas but with no varieties throughout the whole gameplay.
It's a shadow, yeah and it's kind a fun. The story is about a boy who was thrown by a dark person from a high tower. And at the bottom of it you start to climb it up to the top.For a few moments you have to get used to look at the shadow and not at the surroundings which are throwing shadows on the background. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow :)
Those shadows are something unique in the comparison to the other games cause you have to get used to that you can move and jump only on shadows. You can interact only with them. Sometime you can help yourself to look at the "real" surrounding to figure out what to do to proceed. And sometimes you have to rotate "real" objects with the help of Wii mote pointer to get further. This is really giving something new to the gameplay but unfortunately the thing never advances in a more complex use of this feature, like to make more advance puzzles instead of rotating the thing around and around and if you fail you just rotate it again, and if you're in a fine position you can also get squashed by the shadow of this rotating object, which can happen by any moving shadows. The the other interaction with the shadow world is the light. In some areas there appears a horizontal or vertical slider with which you can adjust the position of a light bulb. When you move it, the shadows move based on the position of this light. This is really cool, it helps you to get higher or move you from one side of the screen to the other. It's really an adorable feature, which could as well gave a more advance use throughout the stages, like more puzzles or more interactions with your charter, and not always like "oops I slide it too far so I fall of the ledge".
I'd also like to mention that in most stages you've a "shadow corridor". This is basically just a gate in the usual playground and when you go in there you get to a kind of a different world. It's not much of a more blurry and flashy "reality" surrounding, with a slightly change in controlling the shadows. Only in this corridors you have different plateau on which you step on and rotate the angle of view. But be cautious, cause if you rotate in the wrong direction you get squashed by the shadow. Also here is the same problem as with all other features, no true variety, there are basically always the same moves to get further to the end of the shadow corridor. And when you get through it, you just step out of the gate on the same place where you stepped in before, and the gate disappears in shadow dust giving you some experience points. You collect exp points also by defeating enemies with your 3 point swing of your sword, and when you collect them enough you gain another level, it just a copy of RPG experience point system really.
Well let's get to the attack "system". It's just an odd 3 point swing of your sword and that's it. No special power ups or special moves or more dynamical movement, nothing. It's like swinging the stick in the Fragile Dreams game, but there were some differences in weapon use while here goes nothing but a 3 time press of the B button to defeat the enemy. As I said before to other features here goes the same motto: "no variety". The enemies are also nothing but a bunch of spiders, rotating armadillo like creatures, and some floating thingies which are, with a little practice, easy to defeat.
Beside walking, jumping around and swinging your rusty sword, move leavers to open gates, which is basically all what you do the whole game , and so on you have to collect three "power ups" in end each stage so you can open the final "gate" (it's more like a swirling shadow to me). Kind a disappointing to say that this is what it used to be called a challenge, cause it's not a big deal. It's like the Super Mario Galaxy star collection to clear a stage but much much less challenging and with almost no varieties.
There are also "memories" to collect which are adding weight (this is the unit for health in this game) to your character. Every time you get one of these, there also appears a short notice which reveals something about the story. Sometimes you have to do some extra work to get them, which is a bit of a challenge, but you don't pay much attention through the further proceeding of game cause usually you don't get much out of them.
Short notice on the graphic, music, gameplay and story:
- The graphic is really good for Wii, it adds a great atmosphere, some places are really funny to walk on because of the shadow physics.
- Music in the game is not far from saying that is terrible, always the same creepy sounds which have no variety, it's monotone and gives no experience to the gameplay.
- The movements of the character is satisfying, the character actually do what you want with no big effort but on the other hand nothing revolutionary.
- The Story is interesting. There are always short movie clips after completing a couple of stages, but there is no integration of the story to the gameplay, as it is in Kirby Epic Yarn and other games.
So what is the conclusion?
Well it's another 2D platform with some great features end logic but unfortunately there is a huge leak in making them vary or make them more advance, complex throughout the stages, something bigger then just a bit of more running and jumping around in each further stage. It's like the Wario Land: Shake It!
Goodies and baddies:
+ something new, great features, nice story, great atmosphere
- monotone, no real development of puzzles throughout the stages, bad music
Final Words:
So if you like to see those features, the story and don't care about the monotony take your hands on it. But if you prefer games with more varieties in their gameplay, than this game is not the right for you.