A Shadow's Tale (Lost in Shadow?)

[Obiwanshinobi]

Couldn't find any thread about it on here.
Apparently Japanese console games keep coming out, at least on the Wii. This one looks good to me (fun fact: screenshots in this day and age tend to leave me cold at best, with notable exceptions of Rune Factory Frontier, Tales of Vesperia, Drakensang: The Dark Eye - so Germans saved the reputation of the west this time around - and now this; is it impossible to take a single screenshot from a game that would make me think "I like the looks of it"?) and is a platformer. The bloke who marked Cybernator on the PAL Virtual Console 6 out of 10 gave this one 5 out of 10.
Oh yes, it's by Hudson Soft. Here's a lame trailer (reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth and looks like they are coquetting Ico fans indeed, which I hope isn't all there is to it).
Come to think of it, neither PoP: The Sands of Time nor Shadow of the Colossus itself seemed this blatantly derivative in terms of the presentation, but then again, maybe it's just the trailer that oozes wannabe-ness.

[Drum]

I have my eye on this, but to my embarassment the somewhat all-over-the-place reviews have made me a bit unsure. Probably I will take the plunge. Ton of interesting/great 2D platformers coming out lately, feels good.

[ZOM]

Yeah I'm getting this one for sure. Here's a trailer showing some actual gameplay and giving a very pleasing taste for the music to be found in the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3GYPwGifHM

EDIT: This is already out in the EU? Gonna buy next week.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Aye, the gameplay looks business.
Can't say I want it as badly as I wanted Ōkami and Odin Sphere, but if I owned a Wii, I'd probably buy it, if only for the sake of smug feeling that "I was there" fuelling me for years to come.

[Cthulhu]

Despite a few middling reviews out there I'm definitely buying this. I think it's from Hudson, and if I'm correct, I want to encourage Hudson to make games that aren't awful again. They were awesome through like what, 1995? And then *BLAM* crap factory incarnate.

[ZOM]

Didn't they (coincidentally)start their crap-crusade at roughly the same time Konami "bought" them? Ok no, maybe a few years before that.

[Obiwanshinobi]

DoReMi Fantasy (1996) wasn't awful. After that, well I guess that polygonal Star Soldier was the best professionally released remnant of the Caravan era since Zanac X Zanac. That's one way to put it.

[Drum]

RIP Hudson ... but especially RIP Taito. :`( Now there was a fall from grace. Few houses ever had as far to fall as them (Sega? They were never as good as Taito, real talk) and then suffering the ultimate indignity of being bought by the vile Squeenix. Ugh.

[Obiwanshinobi]

At least Red Entertainment seems to be doing fairly well (i.e. they keep making Japanese console games as God intended). Is Record of Agarest War any good?

[Drum]

No idea. It sure as heck doesn't look good.
I remembered another post-DoReMi Hudson game that was awesome though: Ninja Five-o. You could make a strong argument for that being the best ninja game ever. Other than Shin Shinobi Den, I mean.

[Cthulhu]

I wonder if there was some sort of talent flight from the company in the late 90s... I can't imagine that many talented people couldn't make a single good game in 3D no matter how hard they tried.

[ZOM]

Finally gotten around to play a bit of this - I ended up buying the Japanese version since it not only came with the OST and has much nicer cover-artwork, it also is multilingual, so no problems reading those precious hints.

Anyways, just entered the tower amd I'm loving it so far. The system in place, while simple in nature, makes for some interesting puzzles and the atmosphere is right up my alley. This game deserves higher scores than what it got, especially considering that 80% of the high scoring games are uninspired garbage, especially this console-gen.

*goesbackplayinggame*

[E. Randy Dupre]

At least Red Entertainment seems to be doing fairly well (i.e. they keep making Japanese console games as God intended). Is Record of Agarest War any good?

Only just noticed this question. The answer, I'm afraid, is very much in the negative. It's painfully bad. The battle system has no intelligence in its design and requires none in play.

[BrianC]

Yeah I'm getting this one for sure. Here's a trailer showing some actual gameplay and giving a very pleasing taste for the music to be found in the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3GYPwGifHM

"This video contains content from playcast, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

I saw footage of the game in another video and it definitely looks interesting.

I heard good things about some of Hudson's post 1996 Bomberman games, and I loved what I played of Saturn Bomberman. The first DS one seems decent, but isn't as good as some of the previous games. I thought they were kind of a mixed bag NES/Famicom wise, though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Bomberman Tournament (GBA) is good, as is A Shadow's Tale.
To begin with, it looks very good indeed.
Gameplay reminds me of the Game Boy Donkey Kong in that it's mostly a puzzler.
But hey, not quite unlike Klonoa 1&2, this here game shows just how much life is left in the 2.5D platformer formula. Classic Controller Pro badly needs a Metroid game powered by such an engine.
As a platrorm game, A Shadow's Tale is far from perfect. In too many places it can't be speedrun through. Then it won't let me forget it's designed by some people. Heck, they wrote a letter to me that I can't defeat blue-eyed enemies with a sword. This kind of unwelcome breaking the fourth wall. Then there are Shadow Corridors that feel like tech demos put in the game for no other reason than making it longer. My willing suspension of disbelief suffers a bit.
It's pretty harmless overall, though, and the game is soothing to play. The foundations (game engine, platforming, combat) are solid enough and - again - it is a looker. Can be respectably cinematic too, although the playable character is not very well animated. I like the way it hints at some backtracking in the future. Liked the interview as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

Couldn't find any thread about it on here.

Excuse my boldness, but I read through the rest of your post and I still don't find any discussion of the game itself - a lot about other games and the like, though.

What's the game actually about? That would be a good start!

[Obiwanshinobi]

When I started the topic, the game was new and I only knew what everybody could find online.
Now it can safely be called forgotten. It's a puzzler dressed up as a cinematic platformer à la like the original Prince of Persia. Not as good as Ico, but still rather entertaining.
Doesn't even try to look like Ico, notwithstanding the soft light. If you have any childhood memories of industrial areas, construction sites and such, you might find it familiar. Looks half Silent Hill, half Klonoa.