While being crushed so meant instant death, most of the ways the boy could be hurt simply eroded his life bar. Said life bar's maximum is tied to the boy's shadow weight, which, as I mentioned earlier, is increased via the memories he encounters on his journey—you'll see this bar, and the boy's remaining shadow weight, in the upper-left corner of the screen. Falling from a great height will take some life off, and some areas were laced with environmental dangers such as periodically firing bolts, but typically, where I got the poor boy injured the most was in combat.
The shadow world is inhabited by a number of vaguely arachnoid creatures, which the boy must typically defeat to proceed. One variety, with glowing red eyes, can be attacked with the boy's sword—early on in the game, he'll find a rusty sword stuck into the ground and seize its shadow, enabling him to fight with presses of the B button, comboing up to three hits. While smooth and fair, combat is actually quite challenging; it's not usually a good idea to just hammer away at your enemy, lest you get beat back. (It was certainly one of the less forgiving demos I played last week.) Some sections of the levels locked you in to fight larger enemies which required a fair amount of dexterous leaping, retreating, and slashing to defeat so you could continue on.
There were also blue-eyed shadow beasts to pose a challenge of a slightly different kind. Though they could still hurt you, you couldn't defeat them with the sword; you had to instead find some way to use the tower's mechanisms to defeat them. The one example of this I played was a simple switch that, when slashed with your sword, fired bolts through these guys, defeating them. (Just remember to turn the bolts off again before you hop up there.) Of course, this was a rather simple introductory example, but I'm sure there's more complicated examples of this later. Defeating either red- or blue-eyes beasts nets you a recharge of your life bar, up to your maximum shadow weight.
Everything I played tied together very neatly, making Lost in Shadow not just another puzzle-platformer but a well-rounded collection of action, platforming (and very good-feeling platforming at that; very smooth), and puzzle-solving. Though I only ended up seeing a small portion of the game in the end—E3 is, after all, only three days long, and there was so much else I needed to see before the floor closed on Thursday—I felt like I'd already seen a world of neat ideas that cleanly surpassed what I imagined the title could be like. I don't know what lies beyond that point I eventually ended up at (Amber and I both quit on that level, since neither of us cleared it without dying), but based on what I did see—and seriously teased by these screenshots I'm just now seeing of new mechanics I cannot yet even imagine—I have gone from curious to intensely interested.
Lost in Shadow comes out later this year, and out of everything I saw at the show, it's my favorite by a good margin. If I had a Game of the Show nomination or award to stick on the booth like a few other outlets had, I would have done it without hesitation—which is really saying something, considering how many good-to-great titles I played this year. Of all those, I enjoyed Lost in Shadow more than all the rest, and as such I can't wait for it to finally come out. Thank you, Mr. Tsuchihashi, for bringing us yet what looks like another of Wii's best.
The shadow world is inhabited by a number of vaguely arachnoid creatures, which the boy must typically defeat to proceed. One variety, with glowing red eyes, can be attacked with the boy's sword—early on in the game, he'll find a rusty sword stuck into the ground and seize its shadow, enabling him to fight with presses of the B button, comboing up to three hits. While smooth and fair, combat is actually quite challenging; it's not usually a good idea to just hammer away at your enemy, lest you get beat back. (It was certainly one of the less forgiving demos I played last week.) Some sections of the levels locked you in to fight larger enemies which required a fair amount of dexterous leaping, retreating, and slashing to defeat so you could continue on.
There were also blue-eyed shadow beasts to pose a challenge of a slightly different kind. Though they could still hurt you, you couldn't defeat them with the sword; you had to instead find some way to use the tower's mechanisms to defeat them. The one example of this I played was a simple switch that, when slashed with your sword, fired bolts through these guys, defeating them. (Just remember to turn the bolts off again before you hop up there.) Of course, this was a rather simple introductory example, but I'm sure there's more complicated examples of this later. Defeating either red- or blue-eyes beasts nets you a recharge of your life bar, up to your maximum shadow weight.
Everything I played tied together very neatly, making Lost in Shadow not just another puzzle-platformer but a well-rounded collection of action, platforming (and very good-feeling platforming at that; very smooth), and puzzle-solving. Though I only ended up seeing a small portion of the game in the end—E3 is, after all, only three days long, and there was so much else I needed to see before the floor closed on Thursday—I felt like I'd already seen a world of neat ideas that cleanly surpassed what I imagined the title could be like. I don't know what lies beyond that point I eventually ended up at (Amber and I both quit on that level, since neither of us cleared it without dying), but based on what I did see—and seriously teased by these screenshots I'm just now seeing of new mechanics I cannot yet even imagine—I have gone from curious to intensely interested.
Lost in Shadow comes out later this year, and out of everything I saw at the show, it's my favorite by a good margin. If I had a Game of the Show nomination or award to stick on the booth like a few other outlets had, I would have done it without hesitation—which is really saying something, considering how many good-to-great titles I played this year. Of all those, I enjoyed Lost in Shadow more than all the rest, and as such I can't wait for it to finally come out. Thank you, Mr. Tsuchihashi, for bringing us yet what looks like another of Wii's best.