Shadow Labyrinth assessment
Have to Know
What’s it? A Pac-Man Metroidvania, for some purpose.
Launch date July 17, 2025
Count on to pay $30/£25
Developer Bandai Namco
Writer Bandai Namco
Reviewed on Asus ROG Ally
Steam Deck Verified
Hyperlink Official website
Bandai Namco have constructed a large love letter to the 2D Metroidvania, significantly the Metroid half. They’ve set it on a lethal planet the place they wish to inform a tragic sci-fi story of doomed troopers, lethal superweapons, and, er, sibling rivalry. So you might assume deciding it ought to star Pac-Man appears like a horrible thought. As a result of it’s. Due to course it’s.
Not since Bob Hoskins’ Mario shoved his face down a lady’s prime have I witnessed such a bizarrely grownup reimagining of a family-friendly character. Whereas Shadow Labyrinth by no means goes that far (maybe they’re saving that for DLC) that is nonetheless a recreation the place Pac-Man helps you slaughter monsters with brains on the incorrect sides of their skulls. Then he helpfully swallows their spines afterwards so you possibly can spend them on the store.
Properly, technically it isn’t Pac-Man. Right here your companion is named ‘Puck’, a cute nod to what was virtually Pac-Man’s title/a useful distancing of this monster from being thought of the true deal.
As a result of Puck is a manipulative, untrustworthy, Satan in your shoulder who’s unlikely to be fronting any Saturday morning cartoons anytime quickly. You truly play as an amnesiac who Puck summoned from one other dimension to assist with their shady quest, and Puck retains referring to you as ‘Quantity Eight’. Brrr.
From the second you decide up a sword it turns into clear that that is going to be a barely extra routine journey than the oddball premise suggests. Fight’s a conventional hacky slashy affair, with a three-strike combo, a stun assault, and a stunning enemy-interrupting strike that’ll deplete a few of the stamina you want for dodging. All enjoyable sufficient with a satisfying sense of influence, harm solely by 9 Sols and Prince of Persia rudely elevating the Metroidvania fight bar unfairly excessive final 12 months.
Historically Pac-Man has chomped on his enemies. Right here, Puck prefers to munch down on the corpses after you’ve carried out all of the preventing (somebody’s getting lazier of their previous age). Chow down on sufficient fallen foes and also you’ll be capable to briefly flip into an enormous invincible mech with a Pac-Man centre. Good goofy enjoyable, although I’d have favored to have seen munching woven into the fight extra. The brutal finisher the place a horrifying mega-Puck swallows a boss complete is unfortunately relegated to the cutscenes.
After an excessively linear opening few hours, the planet lastly opens up, revealing a stable Metroidvania core. There’s a number of too many ‘shock’ fight arenas with the sport’s restricted bestiary and industrial zones that look overly much like the final industrial zone you explored. However in any other case this is stuffed with nice navigation puzzles, platforming challenges, and poring over the map for secrets and techniques that jogged my memory why we get so many Metroidvania’s. They’re nonetheless nice enjoyable to chip away at and Shadow Labyrinth will get the essential elements proper.
Among the greatest areas are fairly far off the overwhelmed path, making exploring worthwhile. A spaceship is a specific spotlight, a fancy community of locked doorways and hidden routes that had me double-checking the map each few seconds. Bliss! And it’s enormous too. There’s simply forty hours of recreation right here, even when lots of that’s as a result of the issue curve all of a sudden decides to take inspiration from Pac-Man’s horrible spiky mouth through the brutal climax.
So Shadow Labyrinth is a simple recreation to take pleasure in moment-to-moment, albeit with the niggling sense that you simply’ve performed lots of this earlier than. Hole Knight’s air-dash makes its compulsory look, together with the same old double leap and hookshot. All solidly applied however there’s lengthy stretches the place you would be taking part in mainly any Metroidvania from the previous few years.
The sport will get extra attention-grabbing when it leans into the Pac-Man of all of it. Discover and activate blue rails and all of a sudden you turn to taking part in as Puck, munching his method alongside them. Metroid’s morph ball is an apparent affect, however these bits play extra like that collection’ a lot fiddlier spider ball, as you hop from rail to rail munching pellets and making an attempt to keep away from obstacles and enemies (or briefly flip again into Quantity 8 to get rid of them). A novel option to discover, and later sections that continuously have you ever switching between the 2 playstyles make for some nice platforming.
Mazed & confused
Then there are the maze ranges, whereby you are warped into a totally separate stage the place you are taking part in Pac-Man, albeit a model of Pac-Man that’s been by means of the Jeff Minter machine. They’re basically impressed remixes of the unique recreation, with sensible new concepts like platforms that may be weaponised once you slam into them, and weapons like a decoy Pac-Man that the fantastic individuals of 1980 would have killed for. The strict five-minute timer is a blessing and a curse right here, because it’s not at all times apparent what you’re presupposed to be doing. However the briefness of those levels often makes the pull of another go once you mess up exhausting to withstand.
These sections even have terrific vitality. The dance music thumps merrily, with the colourful visuals and sound results virtually cheering you on as you gobble up ghosts. And then you definitely return to Shadow Labyrinth correct, with its mournful, forgettable tunes (wait… was there music?) and uninspired artwork fashion. It’s exhausting to not really feel a little bit deflated that extra of the all-singing all-dancing tone of the mazes couldn’t have seeped into the tone of the principle journey.
Whereas the sport isn’t utterly humor-free, the self-seriousness of nearly all of it’s as baffling as it’s boring. An excessively-talky technobabble pageant, rife with cliches and boring inventory characters. Even the Steam achievements have textual content like ‘in battle, the scale of the hand wielding the sword issues not’. You begin eager for the times this man caught to saying ‘wakka wakka wakka’ as an alternative of horrible Solar Tzu fan-fiction.
It’s robust getting dramatic vary out of a personality who’s basically a melon with a slice lacking. And whereas Puck’s tendency to continuously gasp at plot revelations is fairly humorous (I imply, what else can they bodily do?) there’s nothing in right here as emotionally transferring as Pac-Man assembly his one real love within the first cutscene of Ms Pac-Man. The truth that Shadow Labyrinth hopelessly tries simply reminds you what a foolish thought a darkish, sombre reimagining was within the first place.
Look previous that garbage and also you’ll discover a enjoyable Metroidvania affected by an amusing identification disaster. A wonderfully playable Hole Knight-lite one second, an updating of basic Pac-Man gobbling the following, with a mediocre sci-fi yarn sprinkled on prime. In need of Good day Kitty growing a style for crystal meth, it’s doubtless the oddest official rebrand you’ll see this 12 months. An attention-grabbing mess moderately than a shock triumph, then, however I’ll take it over one other bloody Pac-Man World any day.