Shadow Madness Reviews

A PS1 game from 199 that I loved playing back when I was a small child. amazing RPG, pretty decent history, fun dialogue, decent combat, great world, fun to play. I only recently found out it was available on steam for some reason and this was the fastest purchase I've ever done. the PC port plays well enough, visuals aren't great but they are not bad neather. Works well with my wireless Xbox 360 controller and my old PS1 controller, as long as I set the inputs correctly. Hard to believe that I would be playing this again specially on PC but I'm glad I am

The first time I ran it on a laptop, I had a problem with audio choppiness and thought it was an issue with the game. Then I played with the graphics driver settings and found it was my settings which were the cause: make sure you don't enable Background Application Max Frame Rate as it will interfere with the game. Once I turned that Off, game ran full speed and all choppiness was gone. As for the game itself, if you fancy classic RPG games from the PS1 era, then you will like this game.

There's this term that gets thrown around when it comes to some games, this idea of the "hidden gem," a game that got ignored during its release and is actually worth looking into later. I would actually say that Shadow Madness fits into that lofty qualifier, though with some addendums. This is the first real game that Crave put together. That studio has the same story of many: a few employees broke off from other projects and got together to make the games they want. The most telling among those is Ted Woolsey, a name that may be familiar to fans of classic SNES RPGs. Woolsey was one of the main translators of those early games, producing lines that people still quote to this day from Final Fantasy 2 (IV) and 3 (VI), and even Chrono Trigger. This explains why the writing in Shadow Madness is incredibly well done. The dialogue often does read very much like a product of its times (you could tell this was from the late 90's even without looking at the release date), but it also has this snappy, realistic feel. Characters are often quite quippy, each in their own way. Every NPC has their own unique portrait, their own unique dialogue, and their own unique position within the wider story going on. And that story is very well done. As others have pointed out, it combines elements of Fantasy, Comedy, and Horror to produce a really unique tale. The "Shadow Madness" has started to invade the land of Arkose. Sometimes this is through a group of invading monsters bent on human blood and destruction; othertimes it's the creeping illness that pervades the entire land. Our story begins with a group of survivors from three small towns: Stinger the sailor/thief, Windleaf the archer/healer, and Harv-5 the harvesting robot. The early hours of the game sees these three tightly bonding as they flee the encroaching madness, both in the form of vicious monsters and in the creeping mental dread. These three are definitely the focus of the work, getting their own development and stories throughout the course of the work. Still, there are other fascinating characters that you meet along the way. The land is diverse, and your cast of playable characters reflects that. It really does feel like the creators did this awesome work putting together this mature, diverse plot that deals with mental diseases, feelings of despair, vast fantastical worlds and politics, all with excellent dialogue and characterization. I remembered these characters twenty years after I played through the game; they'll stick with you. Unfortunately the actual gameplay is... bad. It's bad. There's no way of getting around that it's bad. The mechanics are poorly explained and even more poorly implemented. There's some idea that if you hit the confirm button at just the right moment in time you'll do double damage, but that window is incredibly obtuse. Throughout the game you'll unlock "twitch attacks" which seem to indicate that mashing different buttons will produce different elements effects. If it works, I didn't see it doing so. The battles are just so stiff and repetitive that it's insane. Stinger and Harv-5 can only perform basic attacks or fling set projectiles at the enemy, and that never changes throughout the entire game. Windleaf gets access to magic, but it felt like the developers really didn't understand how that works. The spell lists are absolutely massive, with the vast majority of them being completely useless spells. This is made worse by the fact that in combat, no spells or abilities are properly described. This means that you're going to spend a large portion of the game experimenting just to figure out what something does. Not that you need to worry. The game is stupidly easy. Enemies never have more than 999 health, and your attacks are almost always doing damage in at least the low hundreds. This means that there is a whopping one fight that has any tension to it whatsoever, and that's an optional battle that occurs within the first few hours of the game. Managing to win that fight awards you with equipment so powerful that it won't get replaced until the last few hours of the game, making an already easy game laughably easy. I didn't even struggle during the final boss. There's a super interesting mechanic going on, where your party is divided and each part has to deal with a different iteration of the boss. It should work well, but the lack of any real threat kills it. (They do this excellent job of continually mixing up the party, putting different groups together for different tasks. It does mean that the player is never allowed to construct their own party though). The graphics also weren't all that impressive when this came out. The character models look like they would barely match Final Fantasy VII, which was released years before this dropped. The backgrounds and the world itself look pretty well designed and hold up, particularly if you're into that sort of spherical charm that comes with PS1 era polygons. But there's no denying that the game looks ugly. There's also way, way too much backtracking here. There are large sections of the game where you have to physically walk to some remote location, then walk all the way back. You are forced to walk the path from this Magic Academy to the capital city no less than five times throughout the course of the game, each time forcing you to walk through a fort that was impressive the first time, but annoying after every other iteration. It feels like they were desperate to pad the game, or simply didn't know how to just teleport characters to the destination to cut out unnecessary, boring travel. So is this game worth it? If you're someone who plays RPGs for the story and want to read something that's very grounded in its time, then it's worth a playthrough. I found the story engaging throughout my entire 20 some hours with the game, and the characters are incredibly likeable and memorable. However, in order to deal with that story, you'll have to suffer through excessive amounts of backtracking, graphics that weren't even good at the time, and battles that are never going to offer even the slightest challenge. It's up to you whether or not its worth it. I would encourage people to consider supporting it though. The company who put this out is trying to preserve games that would otherwise be lost to the flow of time. Buying this game means that you're putting money toward a group that wants to save games before they're lost forever. It's a worthwhile bit of games preservation, and if you have fond memories of PS1 RPGs, this is probably going to be at least bearable for you. (For this and other views, check out my blog at Fate Reviews Stuff! Though it's primarily Switch games, I do play games on Steam and do reviews there too!)

Not the best graphics but one of the best music soundtracks IMO. Plus, it has a good story and a world full of lore. The one downside is that the level cap ends at 15 which makes most of the fights skippable towards the end game.

I grew up with this game. I still have my PS1 copy tucked away in a box, neatly packed with other discs. This version is not a port, and runs off an emulator back-end (I even tested this hypothesis by replacing the BIN file with that of Syphon Filter and the program ran Syphon Filter instead). The default keyboard controls are basic, and if you remember this game on a controller, you would be best plugging in and using a PS style controller; and using the emulator programs menu (ESC) to remap your controls to the controller. Unlike most emulated versions of this game, this one does not seem to lock-up immediately after leaving the starting town of Port Lochane, so that's a plus! They seem to have merged both discs and remapped the bin files LBA so that no disc swapping is necessary whatsoever. Overall a decent emulated version of an old classic that while lackluster in graphics; had a very iconic soundtrack and exhilarating story.

I loved this game growing up so I was excited to learn it was released on pc last year on my bday, but sadly as i started playing i became disappointed. its merely bleem and the games iso patched together in an exe. I probably wouldnt mind it if bleem's emulation was good but it isn't.I would buy this again if it was a native port and not a emulated version

loved the game as a kid. this port is near unplayable. some screen res options and controller support is needed. then, we'll have a winner.

A fine little game, a B-grade JRPG that was originally released on PS1 in 1999. This is an emulated version, so it is not a direct PC port, only an ISO of the game running via an open-sourced emulator. That is why do not expect any usual PC settings, there is just a bare minimum like a window size or a filter for the graphics. The menus, the HUD, the buttons, everything is PlayStation. - First of all, this game was released on Steam as a part of video game preservation so that is the reason the game exists. Video game preservation is what I am a huge fan of so I am just glad for it. - Second of all, the developers had no source material, no source code as it had already been lost. They said reverse engineering would have taken years for them to do so that is why this is just an emulated version. - Third of all, it is an emulated game with pre-rendered backgrounds, so do not play this game fullscreen. Use Window 2x or Window 3x for the best picture quality. The emulator has its flaws, however it is not on the quality level of Duckstation. Fortunately you can easily use the ISO stored in the game folder (where the game is installed) and use it on an emulator you like best. It is what it is and for what it is it is good.

This is a very old, niche RPG. Not the best looking, but it has a lot of charm. Also, it's not hard if you exploit an early "boss" fight. Only downsides? No true full-screen support because it will turn the game into mud. You have to run it in a window for it to look passable. Also, the vibration feature doesn't work. I understand that it is more or less emulated, but I feel that it is lacking. If you don't want to sail the high seas or pay out the rear on ebay, this will get you by. Or do what some others have done, and use the image file and run it on your favorite PSX emu. Is it worth it? I think that is subjective. Hopefully, other PSX classics will start appearing on Steam!

Shadow Madness represents the peak of unrealized potential. The world of Arkose has multiple, vastly different societies, some with rich histories, and even the world's Creation Myths are unique. The characters are sharply written, the dialogue is snappy and the tone blends a nearly flawless mix of Fantasy, Horror and Dark Comedy. Oh, and often times, NPC conversations involve the NPC and all party members, giving a lot more nuance in the optional, unimportant dialogue than most games give. Even just the initial setting works well enough: A handful of towns in the West are hit with a massive blast of dark energy, killing most, and those that survive are insane (like almost Monty Python “loony” levels of insanity) with the titular 'Shadow Madness'; all that remains are ruins, monsters and a semi-sentient ball of lava in the middle. We then follow the main heroes as they enlist the aid of the local citadel, the tower of mages and even a technological society as they begin investigation into the widespread disaster, as well as make ready for war. The story does have a lot of sidetracking, some more interesting (or comedic) than others, but the overall tone remains consistent, and no chapters of the story are ill-conceived. There's also some moments that feel like they were written to be in a pure Horror game, such as the main hero's cousin being stalked at night by a giant eye that comes to his window and talks to him, or another part later on that features a lonely, semi-insane and self-monologuing monster that roams a hall of portraits, waiting for someone else to come in so it can kill them; while you're in the Castle that it's roaming, it sometimes cuts back to it as it begins to realize that you're there, and this is genuinely spooky! { Note that all but the last of these examples are in the first ~30 minutes of the game, and the final one is only about 3-4 hours in, so these aren't really much in the ways of spoilers } I feel I should also point out that many of the locations are competently crafted from an artistic standpoint, and the musical score ranges from good to excellent, boasting - no I'm not kidding - over TWO DOZEN different battle themes, as well as some really pleasant and moody tracks that only play in one room! Now, yes - the game got a bad wrap at the time of its release, and there are legitimate reasons for this. The gameplay, while certainly functional, is both incredibly basic AND somewhat constrictive feeling. At the very least, however, this is merely a sluggish annoyance, rather than something that leads to unnecessary Game Over screens. Additionally, while some of the pre-rendered locations do showcase some unique artistic flair, they are actually very low-res, even by 1998 standards, looking like a low-budget version of FF7, barely impressing anyone when it was new, let alone now, 24 years later.. And no, there's no discernible difference between the Playstation version and the Steam version in this regard... in fact this game clearly uses a Playstation engine, rather than an Emulator engine, resulting in character models even more pixelated than in an Emulator (!!!!) So yes - the game is certainly unimpressive from both Gameplay and Technical perspectives, but if you play RPGs for the Story and World, then Shadow Madness has more than got you covered. There's lots of locations, lots of well-written dialogue, lots of genuinely excellent story concepts, and the game is able to combine Near-Horror and Near-Comedy in a way that no other game ever has (at least that I have seen). Throw in some legitimately solid music and some cute (if primitive) location visuals, and you have quite a decent game (although I'd recommend for no more than $10 if we're being completely honest). + Excellent Story & Setting + Creative Characters (minus Stinger & Windleaf) & Sharp Dialogue + Solid Musical Score & Thick Atmosphere + Adjustable Difficulty (as the game can be too easy on Normal) + You can sometimes skip random battles by crouching, which is a nice feature if you're in a hurry or low on health +/- Stiff, But Hardly Broken, Gameplay - Unimpressive 1998 Graphics, Running on a Non-Upscaled Display (for shame!) + But still some of the locations are interesting from an Artistic standpoint - Kinda Terrible Port.. I mean, NOTHING is different (apart from a Save Anywhere option by pressing the Escape button), Gamepad configuration, when attempted via an Xbox Controller, don't configure very well at all (literally getting inputs wrong) If there is an actual reason to prevent a recommendation, it'd be that this Port is, frankly, kinda terrible. A real shame as this game, in its original form, is incredibly underappreciated, and this will only deter anyone reluctantly willing to give the game a chance.. EDIT: I actually found that you CAN set the controls fully as intended, but this is something you have to manually override, and not in the normal Controller Setup that the game itself possesses. Instead, you would need to hit the Escape key, go into the controls area, and then set every button (like Circle, Cross and Triangle) manually. Not sure why the default settings inaccurately analyze the controller (it did with 2 controllers on my end, one being a standard PS4 controller), but in fairness, this is something that can be fixed. For what it does right, primarily create an atmospheric world of intrigue and fill it out with well-written characters, Shadow Madness has a special place in my heart. Here's hoping that maybe someone with an actual budget can try making a story in Arkose again.. { Fun Facts: The Pre-Rendered CG sequences were done by the artist that oversaw the creation of the Liquid-Metal form of T-1000 in Terminator 2. Also, the musical score is so massive because the game was put on Hold, developmentally, a few times, because they realized they didn't have the budget to complete the game; however, the Composer was still on payroll, so he ended up writing numerous musical pieces without an actual location to match it yet. Both of these were found in the old RPGamer Archived Developer Interviews. }