Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is the 2011 demonic third-person shooter for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 updated for modern consoles and never-before-seen release on PC. One of the reasons it was such a big deal at the time and even now is that assembling of Creative Director Massimo Guarini, with Shinji Mikami producing, and written by Suda51 for an undeniable trio. This game has a unique blend of gunplay, demon slaying, and a heavy dose of dark humor. While Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered boasts a stylish aesthetic and a quirky protagonist, the game unfortunately struggles with uneven gameplay mechanics and a narrative that never finds its footing even 13 years later.
The remaster doesn’t alter much about the game itself, except a divisive change to the protagonist’s middle name. Instead of the well-known ‘Garcia “Fucking” Hotspur’, he is now ‘Garcia “G” Hotspur’. There is some new stuff added to the game, notably in cosmetics as there are four all-new costumes for Hotspur to sport. It’ll take you anywhere from eight to ten hours to complete the main story of the game. And before this remaster, you could replay it for funsies, but there was little reason to revisit a second time. That’s been changed with the inclusion of New Game+, now you can replay the story with all the progress you’ve made from the initial playthrough. And NG+ is arguably more fun the second time through than the first.
As the story goes, Garcia “G” Hotspur is a down-on-his-luck womanizer who finds himself in a precarious situation. His girlfriend, Paula, has been kidnapped by the Lord of Darkness, Fleming, and dragged to the underworld. To save her, Hotspur strikes a deal with a talking skull named Johnson: he retrieves a powerful artifact in exchange for Paula’s safe return. Thus begins Hotspur’s descent into the macabre, a world teeming with grotesque demons and twisted landscapes ripped straight from a nightmare. However, the story unfolds in a disjointed manner, with plot points often feeling underdeveloped. The characters, aside from Hotspur, are mostly one-dimensional, existing solely to further the plot. The emotional core of Hotspur’s quest for Paula feels underdeveloped, with a lot of the dialogue either funny or cringey.
The core mechanics revolve around third-person shooting, but the controls feel somewhat clunky. Targeting enemies can be finicky, especially in tight spaces, and aiming feels imprecise at times. The gunplay itself lacks the punch that similar titles offer, with weapons feeling like featherweights than the demon-slaying tools they’re supposed to be. Hotspur is able to carry a torch, and the color that the torch has signifies which weapon he will use once you aim down sights. Some areas are dreadfully dark, and you can use the alternate fire to shoot a lightshot that can illuminate special items in the environment to help you see your way around.
One of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered‘s strongest elements is its humor. The game doesn’t shy away from dark jokes and pop-culture references, which can provide some much-needed levity during the more intense moments. Hotspur himself is a charismatic, albeit crass, protagonist whose one-liners add a layer of personality to the narrative. However, the humor can be inconsistent, with some jokes landing flat and feeling forced. Which doesn’t help how much time has passed since they were written, a lot of it doesn’t hold up.
The game throws in some minor puzzle-solving elements throughout the campaign. These puzzles are generally well-designed, requiring the player to use the environment and Hotspur’s unique abilities to progress. They provide a welcome break from the combat and add a layer of variety to the gameplay. However, the boss battles are a different story. While visually impressive, they often rely on cheap tactics and trial-and-error gameplay, leading to frustration rather than a sense of accomplishment.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a game of contrasts. Its unique visual style and dark humor hold promise, but the gameplay mechanics are often frustrating, and the narrative fails to fully engage the player. From a historical perspective, it’s a gateway into a previous generation of gaming. It brought together three minds to produce really fascinating results, and is a part of gaming history we should be preserving.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is undeniably stylish. The game delivers a visually unique experience. From what I can tell, the game is still running on Unreal Engine 3. It looks and plays…fine, but there are no graphics options to set and no INI file to edit. I could not get the game to run any higher than 60fps, and it doesn’t support ultrawide monitors. There’s also a heavy vignette effect I wanted to disable, but couldn’t, so what you see is what you get.
This is when I loaded the game on my Steam Deck and found the experience to be a far better fit for it. It’s absolutely best played there.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)My Steam Deck (OLED) Specs
– SteamOS 3 (Arch-based)
– Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
– 16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM (6400 MT/s quad 32-bit channels)
– 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32)
– Steam Deck 1TB NVMe SSD
– HDR OLED (16:9 @ 1280 x 800)
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered often breaks the fourth wall and embraces its own brand of humor to its credit and detriment. There’s a really stylish presentation akin to something like Devil May Cry, but its inconsistent gameplay mechanics and disappointing narrative hold it back. If you’re willing to overlook its flaws, this offers a decent adventure with some memorable moments. If nothing else, this is something that exists for the pursuit of video game preservation. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is just hella OK, and it’s one of the least exciting remasters I’ve played, but it still has some charm going for it, even in 2024.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
