If the name Shadow Point sounds familiar to you, well it probably should. It came out nearly three years ago on Quest and was met with some pretty favorable reviews, and while I'm sure some of that was for its famous narrator after playing through all 8 chapters last night I'd have to guess a lot of that praise was for the puzzles themselves. They start off fun and inventive and continue that way for most of the game. But if you're here exclusively for the narrative you might want to jump ship now. Beacuse there IS an intriguing story here, but not nearly enough of it.
Things kick off in about the best way I can imagine. Not only are we blessed with voiceovers from the greatest starship captain of all time Sir Patrick STewart but immediately he presents us with a mystery. One that makes you wonder what kind of world we're about to step into. As our parents bang away on the locked door, we jump into a cable car that slowly ascends to Shadow Point observatory and learn about a girl who went missing here on a class trip 12 years ago. From that point on you're walking around... walking around... wait - why are we teleporting around everywhere? Listen I swear we're gonna talk about the puzzles eventually but this is ludacrous - I played Shadow Point on Quest. There were options for telportation AND full locomotion but on PSVR we lost the ability to walk. I mean somehow saints and sinners allows us to walk run climb grab zombies heads and decapitate them, but in a super slow paced PUZZLE game with no enemies or obsticals we're suddenly forced to teleport?! How can this be a thing 6 YEARS after launch?
So yeah, the puzzles. Most of the puzzles here involve taking key items, standing in front of a light source and casting a shadow of them on an outline. They start off super easy and stay that way for awhile, with each new world doing its best to mix things up. For example, World 1 just asks you to hold the item in the right place and boom, you're done. In world 2 introduces a magic looking glass that transforms items. World 3 adds mirrors, World 4 plays with gravity - you get the idea. It's the same basic concept from start to finish and even though I do think the puzzles are well designed, they start getting tiresome about 2 thirds of the way in. And I think the problem here is that - and please tell me in the comments if I'm alone here - the puzzles become a little too clever for their own good. Some of the rules become unclear and I found myself just wandering around randomly trying things, not because I was working on a solution, but because I was hoping if I tried enough things the answer would present itself. This mostly pertains to the gravity puzzles so maybe my brain just isn't equipped to handle them. But because of this I found certain sections far less enjoyable than others.
The world of Shadow Point, despite being low poly, has a great look to it. Developers Coat Sink were able to maintain the high resolution visuals of the original - and they do a great job of screwing with your perception of reality. So often you find yourself in the same room you just left or ecven ebtter - does the horror game thing where you turn around to find out that everything around you has changed. The downside is that this --- doesn't work all that well here. Trying to trigger that change and progress the level is sometimes janky and unresponsive. So when it doesn't work you might not think you're even doing the right thing and walk away. To make matters worse, the PSVR version of Shadow Point has additional loading screens which sort of kills the magic the game often had on Quest. This works great in horror games to make you feel uneasy but here it works in a different way entirely. All of which is complimented by an appropriately subdued soundtrack. The one thing missing here from an AV standpopint is the lack of any voiceovers from our protagonist. Patrick Stewart's voice is from a journal that's guiding us, but about once per level you find yourself in a conversation with Lorna - the missing girl, and no that's not a spoiler, you find out she's still around in the first 3 minutes of the game - and the silent protagonist routine just doesn't work here. She speaks directly to you but the story suffers because we're either not responding or our resposes are just implied. It makes some of the more heartfelt moments in the game --- awkward. Which is kind of a shame, because other than that the story is well told, even if there's not a whole lot of it.
Shadow Point has its problems - and if you're already the kind of gamer that prefers teleportation over full locomotion, well you're already way happier than I am. But putting that aside it's a really well designed game and shows that teams can actually deliver polished memorable games at a decent price point. Just remember to play it for the puzzles, because that's the true focus here. Though i am happy I saw the end of this bizarre little mystery.
In the end I'm left with a lot of mixed emotions about Shadow Point. The story was good - and I'm glad I witnessed it - but it wasn't nearly as emotional as it set out to be. The puzzles were mostly great but some wore thin. And this PSVR port with its forced teleportation and fade to black loading screens ruin an otherwise immersive game. So ultikmately Shadow Point falls just a little below average, which kinda sucks - because with a little more live Shadow Point could have been great.
Score: 6.8/10
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