Developer:Publisher:
Price: $27.99 - $29.99 Release Date: November 20, 2014 Platforms: PC, Steam
Many games like Diablo have came and gone, mostly leaving a positive impact on the industry. This game is a sequel of Kult: Heretic Kingdom. Let’s quickly take a peek at short history of that game, the developers “3D People” (who is now known as Games Farm). Made Kult: HK in 2005 which wasn’t a huge hit but became a cult classic. Though popular with players it wasn’t rated well by critics. Personally I never got around to playing Kult. 
Shadows: Heretic kingdom is broken up into two books (from my research), I suppose in fragmented episodes? The first book is what I will be talking about for this review. The funny name on the splash screen being “Devourer of Souls Shadows: Heretic Kingdom” At first confused the pants off of me, until I looked up the whole name and the basis of this installment of the game. In February 2015, will be when the games second installment is released. So come back later with our coverage of the followup. 
Shadows: Heretic Kingdom places you into the role of a Devourer along with three other “puppets” or souls he can summon, that you can swap between at will, which is done seamlessly. This key element in the game play is very charming, and provides some depth into the three characters you may start one at a time as you begin the game. Each having a thread of story you pull along, as you move through the city in conflict. Then from that beginning you see more relationships, and characters spin into the story. The three characters Jaster, Evia, and Kalig you choose from offer a surprising amount strategy and depth to them that is welcome in the genre of action-rpgs, but sort of wear on me via their voice ramble. Which felt after a while a bit uninspired and overused, unless story was involved. I particularly liked Jaster, sounding like he came out of the movie Braveheart he is the native archer, hunter, or “The Wild Boar”. His story stood out to me. Jaster was a undead slaver, he got married and then sadly his wife kicked the bucket, and practically dies fifteen years from the games current time you would play. You really feel for this characters back story.
Now you will ask me, does this game suffer from the Diablo 3,lack of fruitful story-plot? Not really, if anything it focuses on the lore of the game, the characters around you, and even goes into giving you items, or books to read throughout to give you a deeper explanation. If you can have me take two aspects from this game to remember;
1: would be the voice over work being top notch, and its story. It reminds me much of the game Beyond Divinity, where you do play as a neutral character.
2: would be the story and how it involves at least in this book episode the Devourer, who is tasked with finding souls and building his own team of neck breakers and helping save the land around him, I found him very likable. Other then the old o’ mighty demon guy, I found the supporting cast enjoyable, each providing “hey I know you” to just about every other person in the game. To the end of the story resolves multiple endings, which I wont spoil in this coverage.
So to begin with we explore the city of “Trole”. Trole being a hot spot for quests early on, plus boasting some decently constructed NPCs, who give some helpful hints via shops to visit. One thing I like about this part of the game is how there Is a pretty good balance in how NPCs react to you differently via conversations when commuting quests, or dialog. However usually almost completing the quest initially the same way. Or a slight difference in a few light aspects. 
How the crafting system in the game works starts with buying the recipes from a vendor, and find an anvil to make some pots to assist you along with your questing. The advantage of this system, is that the game has so many pots within each mini dungeon to smash you will not have an issue finding materials for your recipes, but on the other side, if you play as Jaster, or use the Sniper member in your party (if you do the Hostel/Hotel quest in Trole), You can make either party member a coin sponge among the many fetch quests you are told to do to keep you busy. Then the most important aspect to this game is to stock up on healing pots. On top of having plenty of souls to spend for replenishing your life, as most enemies smack you like mac-trucks most of the time. So the crafting system gives you a sense satisfaction, as when your in a pinch its there to help you regenerate.
Combat is something I wanted to really touch down on as its most of the same thing you will do throughout this game. Dungeon crawlers are most of the same, navigate a tricky or straight forward area, slash down, or blow up enemies with an fireball, or a ice spear,loot, leave. I get it, they wished to be strategic with making you swap out souls if things get too hairy, or if you need to get out of an intense battle, just swap to the Devourer, and leave the dungeon. But, if you just can easily leave most spots, this leaves a gap where the progression of your party is subtracted, as most will use this tactic of bait and run in most cases. One important thing to note in this game is to have plenty of healing pots, at all times. Because things get can get a little hairy down there especially if you choose to try to punch and run with enemies as either Jaster or Evia. But Kalig on the other hand is a whole other animal. While I like the personality of Jaster, I kept going back to Kalig’s save as I moved along the game and enjoyed being able to face tank most packs of foes without breaking a sweat.
The graphics for this game are pretty nice, with great shadow effects as its a very dark game, and the enemy animations sticking out among the chaos is pretty cool too. Your characters animations also flow well amongst the combat scenarios. But sadly up close the characters seem a bit blurry, maybe their models are not rendered to a high enough resolution,even on the max settings still is lackluster. Versus the environments they run around in. I understand the game play itself speaks for the focus in this game in this case, which is not a massive deal.
The cut scenes explaining the next destination is pleasant to look at,giving a background of every new area the game allowed me to clearly understand where the hell I was going, rather then the “this place is dark and evil, here is a bow and arrow go kill that crap in the center.” I feel a bit of a Tomb Raider vibe when it comes to some of the puzzles throughout the game, even The Lost Vikings. To solve most if not all things, you go between shadow and puppet. It kept things fresh, and interesting. Some puzzles are ether simply killing a few enemies to unlock a door, or a memory game or doing a maze to find an orb. In the end of it all, I was loving the game. At first I was grumpy with a few set backs with the combat at points stalling out on me, not allowing for me to keep on a enemy. But when I did it was always satisfying. The game does not hold your hand, it may point out the right direction, but other then that it has that solid old school feel, Like “hey I am the video game and you are in my house!” I have peered through some feedback of this game prior to reviewing the game, and the main point usually was the price point. But I think of it this way, there is going to be (if I researched this correctly) 3 installments,which are supposedly included with this. So for roughly twenty seven dollars you are getting 3 fragments of content that will really make you feel like your getting yours moneys worth. While there is that gap in between, You can do what I am planning to do and replay the game a few extra times for fun with different characters. It is more of a long term investment than an explosive short game. I will even go the length to say, if you enjoy older games, where the combat is slow, but somewhat modern, and enjoy a good story driven game, this game will hit that sweet spot and give you plenty to do.
The quests within the game are mostly a mixture of side stories, and fetch quests. But I felt they gave me a reason to do (for example to get some sword in the once Sea), Then after the long marathon of tough enemies I reached the objective and felt like a boss. This game clearly will not be for most fans who love Diablo 3. As Diablo 3 is much faster paced, and has more of a commercial range, and this game plays out more slow paced,where you gotta use multiple characters to get around gauntlets, or hordes of enemies. The usage of souls in this game throws a bone in the direction of Soul Reaver or Shadowman, in a great way too, which I think there has been a lack of games to use this mechanic effectively. The puzzles were cleaver where they require you to apply the said shadow mode to solve them and I really liked that. In the future I hope for more puzzles to come. So in closing…
Recommended: If you enjoy old school games like Balder’s Gate, meets Diablo.
+A great crafting system, with easy to follow recipes, that applies auto management.
+Good Story
+/- While the combat at first feels stiff, it gets quicker and quicker as you progress your characters/puppets.
+Soul Swapping is fun, and adds some interesting mechanics to exploring, and puzzle solving.
+Superb Sound & music, that provides nice depth to the surroundings.
+ Fun Puzzles
