Shadows of Adam (Switch)

Magic has become such a part of fantasy settings that some games will slip it in without even explaining how it works. Both villains and heroes will wield it in their battles, but in the role-playing game Shadows of Adam few practice the art and even more fear it entirely, and for good reason, since magic comes from what is essentially their world’s Hell. While the magic can still serve benevolent purposes like healing so it is not purely destructive, the Wraith War where people very much used the dark potential of magic to unleash devastation upon the land has lead many to condemn its practice, an attitude that proves dangerous as few are equipped to handle the kind of dangers that still inhabit their world.

 

However, Adam is a small town meant to be safe from such worries. A refuge for those displaced by war, soon danger finds it as well and forces a girl named Asrael to leave the peaceful life she had established there. Asrael is one of few people with a natural talent for magic, and when her close friend Kellan comes to believe his father and Adam’s former protector Orazio is tied to the danger that threatened their village, Asrael and Kellan set off to find answers in the broader world. Two other party members join them in short order, Curtis an imposing and mysterious monk while Talon is a more jaded and worldly individual the three visit when they want to get more solid answers on how to pursue Orazio. Asrael’s open use of magic to fight the monsters of the world though eventually puts the party in the sights of the sniveling prince of the ruling empire who desires to wield her power for himself, the group’s progress hindered not only by the natural dangers in their pass but the pursuit of those who serve under him.

The personal histories of your four party members are doled out gradually over the course of the adventure via flashbacks that start to add some interesting context to their behaviors and actions in the present. While Curtis keeps to himself and usually only speaks when he needs to throw his weight around or get things moving, his flashbacks start to paint a picture of a more conflicted man with good reason to assist these people who barely know him. Talon’s standoffish attitude and constant bickering with Kellan can be a bit too much, but Talon’s insecurities become much clearer once you get to peer into how rough it was for him growing up in Adam. Kellan is admittedly a rather simple and somewhat juvenile lead character, earnest and naive sometimes to a fault, but having Asrael’s more reserved and cautious behavior to counterbalance him keeps her from being too closed off and him from being too dumb with his actions. The full group of four end up having interesting personal connections and motivations tied to Orazio’s disappearance and the nature of magic, the game distributing such revelations over the course of the adventure and building them up to feel more meaningful as they contextualize their past and future actions effectively.

 

In fact, the flashbacks tied to the story’s heroes are where most of the narrative substance lies, since while you will find new places and encounter new characters along the way that have fun ideas like a pirate captain obsessed with having a spotless ship, the game doesn’t delve too deep into the motivations of anyone outside the party save Orazio. There is a recurring pair of amusing boss characters called Zak and Nik whose bumbling antics involve quite a few fun turns of phrase, although they do perhaps appear a touch too often for how quickly this still decent length role-playing game moves. Progressing from area to area keeps presenting new situations and settings but it begins as a rather linear adventure with little room for deviation. It’s not until the world map opens up for freer travel very close to the end that you can start easily revisiting places and uncovering some side quests and optional dungeons that have their own little stories. Some are ridiculous, others serious, and some are there to provide strong foes more than interesting interactions, but the late game expansion of travel options does prove to have many worthwhile diversions before you head towards the climax.

 

The personal stories of the lead characters aren’t the only interesting thing in this adventure though as the battle system has a fairly smart mechanic in place to make even normal battles a little more tense and strategic. When in a fight your basic attacks are free but anything else will require AP to execute, be it magic, Curtis’s chakram arts, or even special physical strikes from Kellan and Talon. AP will recover at the start of every turn save for the first one of the battle but only in set percentages, the player needing to make sure to balance skill usage to have their abilities when they might need them. AP isn’t restored after battle and few AP restoring items exist so a fight often involves trying to measure your usage across your characters both in the present fight and for the broader exploration of a dungeon. For each round of combat you select the attacks for all four party members and then speed determines when you and your enemies execute their attacks, meaning factoring in order of attacks can be important as well so that your healing can be managed effectively. Even basic monsters can often dish out decent damage or even resist specific attack types to try and urge out certain abilities to make the AP management a bit more challenging. Regular foes must be approached to fight at least and there are a set amount in an area so the game is able to distribute them to put up a good fight as they grow in strength as you level up and acquire new equipment over time, and while there are moments you can skip the smaller battles, the experience points and rewards often make it worth the risk since these normal battles are also not so intensive that you’d need to avoid them.

Boss battles up the ante a fair bit though, some unleashing powerful attacks that could wipe out the whole party fairly quickly if you don’t take the threat they pose seriously. Even comedic opponents like Zak and Nik are formidable in their own way, the player needing to watch out for status effects, bosses with special defensive abilities, and foes who fight alongside others where thinning their numbers quickly could be the key to survival. The boss battles are definitely where your wide range of abilities begin to shine, the longer fights asking you to manage defensive actions like Talon giving his allies double turns or blurring them to avoid attacks better or Asrael giving them Light Shields that take damage in their stead. Curtis can take a gamble with his Ascension ability that drains all his AP for a huge buff that you’d then need time to recover from before he can really make use of it while Kellan’s heavy hitting attack skills make him mostly likely your top pick for dealing serious damage but could make his role as the group’s secondary healer harder if Asrael is busy casting offensive spells. This balance leads to some thrilling battles where you try to squeak through by the skin of your teeth as you try to effectively manage the team under new circumstances, and while some foes might fold to some fairly standard tactics, others will whip out interesting complications to force you out of comfort zone tactics to ensure the battle system remains an engaging part of the experience.

 

Exploring areas is made a bit more than fighting enemies as well, small puzzles that make use of the environment scattered throughout dungeons to make them more than hosts to monster battles. Things definitely start strong with ideas like flowers you interact with to change the placement of their vines to open paths and a tower full of winds where falling through the floor or riding gusts up makes it more than a simple climb, but as you start to push further into the game you’ll start to see the same puzzle ideas brought back for another dungeon or two. While some like the ones involving pushing barriers around to help you shove a floating orb into place do have new complications introduced when they reappear or are simply more difficult than past iterations, it does start to make the prospect of a new area a little less exciting. Recolored enemies are fairly common as well even though they’ll also get a new attack or angle sometimes to compensate, but it still does feel like the world slowly loses some of its novelty over time.

 

Shadows of Adam does have a fairly good soundtrack though and in the Switch version the Guild of the Artificers DLC from the PC release is included as part of the purchase. Besides adding a few more activities outside of the main quest to pursue, it also introduces the idea of customizable artifacts. During the main journey you’ll upgrade your basic weapons and armor at a pretty standard pace, but artifacts provide special boosts that allow you to better customize a character. These artifacts can provide something simple like large stat boosts or more unique abilities like adding a second attack to your basic strike or even increasing how much AP you recover per turn. One issue though is you get plenty of interesting artifacts but only one slot per character for them and justifying swapping one useful one out for a more situational one becomes hard. Guild of the Artificers adds in special artifacts that allow you to combine the abilities of other artifacts into one equippable though for a more textured approach to selecting your artifacts, although your ability to embrace it during most of the playthrough is a touch limited. There are conveniences in place to help like being able to go back to the guild for upgrades at the same healing spots that appear before most bosses and the save system allows you to save most anywhere to avoid losing too much progress, but having the artifact system include the combination system by default rather than requiring these special artifacts would probably make it an even richer system than its already decent design approach.

THE VERDICT: The interesting personal stories of your four party members and a resource focused battle system that leads to both regular battles and bosses feeling more strategic keep Shadows of Adam strong even as it starts to lean on old puzzle concepts and enemy types as you push deeper in. Having the world open up to more exploration and optional activities does help with keeping the gameplay engaging near the end while the important flashbacks are spaced smartly to keep providing compelling developments even when the story events might not have allowed it otherwise. In the end, Shadows of Adam is able to maintain a good level of quality in both plot and combat to ensure it doesn’t run out of steam before the finale.

 

And so, I give Shadows of Adam for Nintendo Switch…

A GOOD rating. Despite some repetition in ideas and enemy design, Shadows of Adam still cuts out most of the fluff one might expect from a role-playing game and that greater focus in rolling out new important flashbacks and balancing the battle system offsets the issues with a few ideas not really evolving enough despite their repeated presence. The quirks behind comedic characters make them fun to talk with and the more serious moments of the story have added extra weight as you get to peek into the personal histories of the important players in the plot, so while your adversaries can sometimes be lacking in character complexity, the narrative still gives you reason to go forward and see the story to its finale. The AP system is rather smartly balanced so that you’re always thinking a bit how you fight, regular monsters requiring some involved thought but not to a taxing degree. Bosses supply the real strategic tests that show the depth of the fighting system best, and with some interactivity in exploring dungeons beyond just fighting your way through them, Shadows of Adam rarely settles into a rut. Some greater customization and more ideas for puzzles and enemy types could have kept things thoroughly fresh and the surge of optional content near the end could have been more interesting if you could have experienced some of it on side paths during the main story, but Shadows of Adam at least mostly hits on only minor issues in the amount of content rather than the concepts backing them up.

 

It seems a fair few improvements were made to Shadows of Adam after its PC release beyond just bundling in the DLC for this Switch release so this could be a case where the patient gamer gets the better game. Shadows of Adam’s star is truly the fighting system and the core characters provide a nice way of connecting those battles, a solid lore built around the core conflict that the characters have important ties to. It’s not going to rub shoulders with the great role-playing games it takes inspiration from, but at the same time it almost feels like it is a good version of a game like Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. While it’s not exceptional enough to linger with players like the titans of its genre it provides an overall enjoyable experience because it figured out a good flow for its fight difficult and a strong pace to follow for the adventure’s story beats.