You can't say the same of the story length, but Shadow of Destiny is a great game in almost every aspect.
- Engaging story with plenty of different endings
- Great cast of characters
- Interesting game setting
- Largely good voice acting and great character models
Negative
- Story is short (around 4 to 5 hours)
- Can frustrate some people
- Tons of glitches
Shadow of Destiny for the PC is what you can call; simply, fun and engaging. Despite the short story, its multiple endings, great setting and other things make this one of the best adventure titles available on the PC to date.
An engaging and memorable storyline helps which can seem an obtuse and strange one. The protagonist is Eike Kusch which throughout the game you'll see him die many time. After his first death, after being stabbed from behind he is 'saved' by a being called Homunculus. The story starts there. What Eike has to do is prevent his death by traveling time.
To do that he has the digipad. By getting energy units you can travel. There are around 4 eras you can visit, middle-ages, 1902, 1980 and some others which you visit for a short period of time. This is a game divided in chapters, which you have to complete each one in a certain amount of time. If you don't it's Game Over. Also if you made an impact on the past and another you is still there and you go there, the two which is you disappear and you get a nice Game Over screen, which one has to be careful what to do. If you are in another time when the appointed hour when Eike dies, it's also game over. If you don't
Finish the chapter in time you will have to play the chapter again. The first time you play the chapter you can't skip the cutscenes, but if you failed and do it again, the cutscenes are skippable.
You don't get to save anywhere you won't. The game always promotes to save after each chapter (there are 8 of them). Though you can save by pressing the digipad and end the game, but you will exit the game, but luckily you won't have to restart to chapter.
The length of the game is awfully short. It toke me around 4 hrs and 34 mins to complete it. And it was my first time so it took so detours here and there. But to make it more worth there are multiple endings to it, 5 to be exactly. You can seal 2 endings in chapter 5, but the other 3 are decided at the end. The story offers a lot in the way of surprises. Keep you guessing who the murderer is, and staff like that. And the great cast of other characters in other time makes the story tie up better. If you don't know what to do you are most likely to get bored with this one quickly since not all hints are obvious. Fortunately there aren't any puzzles or pixel hunts to be found.
The graphics are largely great, though there are tons of little glitches almost everywhere. To add up the houses look a bit blocky but the character models are simply outstanding. The voice acting is great as well. If you talk to regular people, their lines are voiced. Even though the background music fits, it isn't the best one around.
There are no puzzles as I mentioned before, but there is a lot of thinking in it. Sometimes it is important to go in the past and change some things to avoid Eike's death. By not making the right choice you might have to repeat the whole chapter.
Shadow of Destiny is not for everyone, though every single adventure fan should try this out. Most people know the adventure genre has some a lot of momentum, still this is an interesting, a rather short game. The fact that there are multiple endings, a great cast of characters and interesting gameplay makes it stand out even with its problems. Not to mention the presentation, but in the end Shadow of Destiny is a great game to play for a short period of time, but don't expect to be spending more than a weekend on this one, if you rush.
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Graphics = 8.4
There are many glitches and the backgrounds could have definitely been better but the character models are so sharp that they make up for those shortcomings.
Sound = 8.5
Superb voice acting and fitting music everywhere else, but not everywhere is equally great.
Presentation = 8.8
Amazing cutscenes and the menu will be liked by most people. Production values are great but a bit weak in the oldest era since most colors don't shine, everywhere else no problem.
Gameplay = 7.9
No actual puzzles or pixel-hunts, mostly running around town talking to people, pickup items, travel through time and avoid your death, but is that a bad thing?
Camera = 7.7
Can't say it's bad, it is rather slow.
Story = 9.0
It's a weird and at times a confusing one, but after some time one might realize that Shadow of Destiny has one of the best story released recently. A great cast of characters helps more.
Difficulty = Between Easy and Medium.
Most of the things are easy to realize but others might frustrate you and harder the game.
OVERALL = 8.4 / 10
SOD is an ambitious game. Originally released of the PS2, this translation for the PC hasn't come completely in tact, but everything which was great originally is still great here, which make Shadow of Destiny one of the best adventure games on the PC up till today as well.