I Finished Shadow Fight Shades So You Don't Have To

Alright guys, so I finished all 4 acts of this game and I'm gonna tell you what an awful experience that was.

First of all... I wanna start by saying that there was a point where I had to dig up on YouTube some strats to beat certain bosses, however, I noticed most people seemed to play... A hacked/modified version of the game? I saw them playing with perks that I had never seen, and using weapons that I was never able to use. So in the end, watching gameplays of this game on YouTube didn't helped me because the people uploading their games don't seem to be playing the same vanilla game I played (Yes, I downloaded straight from play store). So this led me to think "How many people get to finish the vanilla version of this game? Does the average people play vanilla or modified version?" I don't blame the people who play modified versions, however, seeing that there's a scarcity of vanilla gameplays on YouTube for Shadow Fight Shades says a lot about how Nekki has managed this game.

First Impressions: So my first impression when starting this game is excitement. Excitement for seeing the old shadow fight 2 style back (I was never a fan of the realistic 3D which is why I never played the sequels), I was excited because the lore seemed to continue right where it finished in Shadow Fight 2, I was excited because not only was the story told through text but now we had small comic panels when beginning a new Act, I was excited because familiar faces were brought back! Everything seem so welcoming... Until... I decide trying to warm up my skills in the punching bag before starting a real battle, and... They took away the punching bag... Great... I was hoping nothing else was removed that affected my experience.

Mid Game Experience: So I finished Shadow Fight 2, I got a short term memory so I don't really remember much of the game mechanics for acquiring gear, however, if there's something I do remember is that Shadow Fight 2 wasn't so much of a pain to get new weapons, in fact they had a ton of variety, they even had flash vents where some bandit happened to challenge you and if you win they would give you a certain weapon. On the other hand... There's Shades... Which as I started progressing, I noticed I wasn't going to be getting any more weapons asides from the 3 starting weapons they offer at the start of each Act, oh yeah and good luck if you happened to love your weapon from the previous act because you can't use it on the other act cause... Screw you I guess? I wasn't a fan of any of the weapons from chapter 1 and 2, I just keep hustling hoping next chapter the weapon choices were going to get better. As for the main gameplay which is beating 9 bodyguards in order to reach the final boss... I don't remember Shadow Fights 2 being that abusive, if anything I remember it was like 5 bodyguards whenever you got to a boss, might be more, might be less, I don't remember, however; In the very early stages of the game it's not very noticable that doing 9 bodyguards per chapter it's a tedious task since you're stats are very on pair with the enemie's stats. Act 2 is still manageable, enemie's hit a lil bit harder, however, you can still take a couple of hits from bodyguards and boses and have a great time fighting. At this point the game still has heat running with the lore in text and in comics going, plus enemies being manageable. Now... After chapter 2... It all goes down to shit.

WORST EXPERIENCES: Now this is where the fun of the review begins. So chapter 3, is where all the deficiencies of this game come to shine. So each new chapter happens to approximately triplicate the stats from the previous enemies, so say the regular grunt had 10 damage and 20 HP, then next chapter he will have, 40 damage 80 HP. On the other hand, once you start a new chapter... You get a new set of gear and your stats will not even reach half of the stats from the enemies, so you would be dealing 10 damage with 30 HP against enemies with 40 damage and 80 HP, not even a fair balance, and say you somehow managed to beat all odds and overcome this chapter... Well jokes on you, it will only get worse because the stats are going to continue increasing for the grunts and boses while your gear will remain the same. Only way to level up is gambling the chests in the store, or hoping you get enough duplicates of your primary weapon as an ending battle reward to forge and level up (Which getting duplicates of your weapon of choice is pretty rare too), or you may choose to spend 70 dollars to buy a powerful duplicate that allows to forge your weapon during "limited time deals" (Not even kidding, these "offers" are so insane in prices), talk about acquiring a katana or a kurasigama by winning a limited duel in Shadow Fight 2. Not to mention spending 70 dollars in an weapon it's only gonna help you in 1 certain chapter, after it, the stats of the enemies are raised once again and you gotta start leveling up once again to catch up to em. And all of this it's just the tip of the iceberg for how horrible it's leveling up gear. ACT 3 HAS ONE OF THE WORST BATTLES WITH BOSSES I'VE EVER HAD TO FACE!!! Why? CAUSE AT THIS POINT THE ENEMY STATS ARE SO INFLATED THAT ALL OF THEM ONE SHOT YOU! ALL OF THEM ONE SHOT YOU! Act 3 is without a doubt one of the worst acts ever and it just keeps getting worse from here. At this point the lore becomes monotonous with shadow entering a tournament, meeting old folks and them explaining they've changed... Like if we haven't read that a thousand times already from every single character that makes a cameo, that plus "He has the shard, yikes it wasn't him, maybe it's him" plotline. Yeong Hui, Captain and the Bird are STUPIDLY OVERPOWERED NONSENSE BOSSES, goddam I hated all of them so much with their attacks that pretty much can't be blocked... If anything I happened to beat all 3 just because of the returning big damage back when getting hit perk, and that was just pure luck, because this is what the whole game revolves around, not skill, but luck and money if you have it. The bird of act 3 and Yeong Hui gotta be one of the most annoying bastards absurdly bosses to fight against vanilla mode. The game for es you to play over the course of 1 week and a half to be able to level up your gear with daily challenges and watching so many videos to double the rewards, even with that... The process to level up is atrociously long.

The Wall: Act 4 is more of the same from Act 3; At this point the lore is non existent, no more comic panels, just pure text, and all the same plot, "he has the shard, he has the shard, blah blah blah". Forgot to mention another irritating thing, but an absolute nightmare from this game is the Wall... Yes, the wall... Why? Because there's a point where you punchy the enemies so much that they hit the wall and they became invincible for a couple seconds because of the animation of them stomping with the wall, which is pretty irritating because that leaves up space for em to recover and start blocking hits again and gotta work it out again to break the guard, add it to the fact that since our stats are so nerfed you gotta be stressing about constantly dealing damage before timer ends, the stupid timer is another thing that bothers me so much, you cannot expect to beat someone in a very short time if your weapons barely do jack of damage. But that stupid wall was my biggest pet-peeve when fighting in the game, of that stupid stumping against the wall animation wasn't in the game, if there wasn't any wall, it would be so easy to keep pushing combos on the mothrfker, but since they got that walll that allows them to recover... Well I was fuck me. The lifting move animation when getting too close is also a really bad mechanic and also a huge problem, because as mentioned previously, you gotta be dealing constant damage before time runs out, once you reach the wall, if you keep punching then Shadow will continue to get closer to the enemy, and so he will grab you over the shoulder and stump you over the floor to remove 3/4 or your health... So stupid, goddam I hate that wall. Grunts get stupidly hard to fight in Act 4, they got so much HP it literally takes me almost a whole minute just to beat a regular grunt at round #3 is so ridiculously, not to mention a single punch lowers my hp almost half of the bar, and I'm wearing heavy armor supposedly to wear off the damage..

Final thoughts: Alright I'm gonna start wrapping things up since it's almost 2am. So yo wrap it up, this game is a non-stop cycle of doing the same thing over and over, you level up enough to finish a chapter, you start a new one, triple the stats on the new grunts and you gotta start leveling up again for about 2 weeks until you're able to fight against all 10 enemies... Or until you get the best perk which is increase the percentage damage with each hit. I never spend any money on this game and it doesn't deserve it. This game punsihes you so much for being good at the game and not spending money over it. It gets so ridiculous how a single grunt can almost knock you out with 2 punches eventually If I were to say something positive about this game is that at least you're able to use the Kurasigama in Act 3 which is an awesome weapon and if it wasn't because of that weapon honestly the game would be impossible, also for the very least the bosses in act 4 are kinda fun, and Torment, she pretty.

I do not recommended this game. Appreciate anyone who actually read all of this.