Consistently surprising gameplay ,wonderfully weird presentation make SOTD a ride to be experienced atleast once!!
Story- Garcia hotspur jumps into hell to save his girlfriend from the clutches of demon lord Fleming! Thats it!! But this story is about the journey and not the destination. Garcia is overly macho, profane and in good balance is his talking skull sidekick Johnson. The dialogue exchange between the two is well balanced with johnson acting as tour guide and sensible advisor. The jokes between the two are funny and sometimes downright disgusting.In a good way!! The bosses exude a sinister persona and their back stories are hilarious. A gem-eating hill billy demon, a crazy girlfriend extend the cast of delightful characters!!
Graphics- Enemies are beautifully rendered and the environments especially the effect of darkness like an all encompassing force is dreary! Certain sights like a puzzle level or a library, demons hanging in a room like a slaughterhouse stay with you. At times though the level design comes across as pretty repetitive with the same victorian houses all over again. There is no shortage of blood and gore in the levels but still it could have been better with more variety!
Gameplay- This is where SOTD shines. It features a light vs dark gameplay mechanism. Garcia can only stay in the dark for so long before death comes so you will have to find and shoot that goat lamp to bring the light while avoiding demons who cant be hurt when shrouded in darkness. The darkness is brought in fascinating ways and at times certain objectives can only be competed within it! So u r always on ur toes. This is where SOTD differentiated from ur run and gun shooters as it forces u to use a bit of ur head! There are various puzzles to solve within the game which take a break from all the gore and blood and arent too hard!! The boss fights are exciting but they have pretty much the same mechanism to eliminate them like shoot the red body parts or use lightshot. They arent too hard to kill either. A few side scrolling areas too make an appearance. They may result in cheap deaths, but if u take them to be the 'comic-relief' as they r intended to be u will welcome them!! There are various enemy types introduced in the game at certain points which will make use of ur full arsenal. Just three weapons a pistol(Boner!!) machine gun and a shotgun might sound limiting but as u progress u unlock various secondary shooting modes which makes killing demons a spree. Melee attacks too come in handy and the brutal kills r easy to perform and great to watch. The camera controls and movement could have been better which makes itself apparent in a couple of run-for-ur-life sequences but they dont bother much as sotd never overwhelms u with impossible odds!! YOU will collect strawberries shoot a mean turret walk over naked women (See it to believe it) all with a bloodthirsty glee for the next encounter!
Shadows is not as weird if u look under the skin. The story is pretty generic. Key cards r replaced by strawberries. Boss foghts have an underlying weakness. But it will stay wid u long after completion. The reason for 8.0 is the lack of replayability especially when u r left wanting more!! In the end Garcia and Johnson set themselves up for a possible sequel. Won't miss that one either!!