Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered Review

In 2011, when Shadows of the Damned first released, it received a lukewarm reception. Although it wasn’t an outright bad game, it failed to live up to the potential of the majorly respected names that were attached to it. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that, “time is a flat circle,” and that has been proven yet again by Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered. This is a pretty mediocre remaster that fails to live up its potential.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered releases on October 28 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox consoles.

Shadows of the Damned Is the Tale of One Man and His Johnson

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When Shadows of the Damned dropped the first time around to a lukewarm reception, it had the excuse of blaming its failings on EA. The original vision that legendary creator Suda51 had for this title was far more mature and more earnest than the tongue-in-cheek, raunchy, immature, grindhouse-inspired schlocky shooter that we ended up getting. Rather than letting him craft another cerebral masterpiece like Killer7, EA wanted a mindless third person shooter and that’s what we got.

However, EA has absolutely nothing to do with this remake, so it being released in such a sub-par state can’t be blamed on the usual bad guys. To be quite honest, I do not know why this title has been released full of technical issues and low-resolution textures. If I’m being really honest, I’m not sure why this game was remastered at all; and that’s coming from a fan of this era of gaming.

I haven’t played the original version of Shadows of the Damned in over a decade, but when I first booted up the remaster, the difference between the two seemed indiscernible. Upon going back and viewing some old captures of the original game it is slightly visually muddy by comparison, but despite this negligible visual difference, this is essentially the exact same game.

I appreciate that this remaster isn’t being sold at a premium price point, but in a year that has seen titles release like the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, it hardly seems unreasonable to expect more than what’s been included here. Also, while I don’t remember the original game being a perfectly smooth experience, given that this remaster is dropping two generations later, I’d have at least expected the bugs to be fixed on the PS5.

If It Is Broke, Then You Should Probably Fix It

There are a litany of issues that prevent Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered from being the true definitive way to play this game. First off, the sheer amount of low-quality, pixelated textures are impossible to ignore. Then, you’ve got the fact that the character’s lip syncing is totally off from the dialogue audio being heard. Add to that the fact that both the player character and NPCs are prone to getting stuck in the virtual environment and it is all just so messy.

The main issue I had while playing though came down to the single hard crash that I experienced towards the end of the game. I had already suffered through the preceding seven hours to get to the point of the game where you have to fight a singing enemy called Justine on a gimmicky 2D plane. This is the third 2D section in the game and goes on far too long.

By the time that I was having to replay an exceedingly tedious section where you must navigate Garcia through a weirdly static field of clouds for the second time, I was most definitely not having fun any longer. Any semblance of enjoyment had been well and truly sucked out of the game at the point and I was playing it purely out of obligation.

In the age of remasters, this one falls into the camp of lazy and half baked. Rather than innovating and creating a truly definitive experience of a cult classic, what we get here is closer to a straight port to current gen consoles. If you are good with spending 25 dollars on that, then that is your prerogative, but there are plenty of other $25 titles more worth your time that this one.

Due to the fact that this is essentially a straight port, all that this version of the game really manages to do is serve as a depressing time capsule of squandered potential, reminding the player what could have been. Akira Yamaoke, Suda51, and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami collaborating on a project should have been the stuff dreams are made of. Instead we got an unfunny, immature, mediocre grindhouse rip off that has not stood the test of time.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered Review – Better Off Dead (PS5)

Suda51 is one of my favorite creators within the gaming space and I feel that all of his work should be preserved, but this remaster is not it. Just like EA should have let Suda cook without interfering the first time around, this remaster should have been left to cook for as long as it took to make it an actual worthwhile revisit to this world of cartoon gore and silly phallic puns.