Environments are laden with traps, usually of the massive buzzsaw variety, which can be activated by shooting switches. Of course, there are other things to replace the previous game’s looter shooter elements. All of the guns are incredibly satisfying, from the Riot Gun’s devastation to the Revolver’s headshots and the Basilisk’s kick, and really reinforce Wang as a veritable force of nature. Wang also has a few upgrades like passive health regen, more explosive barrel damage and so on.

The weapon selection boils down to a few guns and Wang’s katana, each with three upgrades.

Forget about randomized loot of different rarities, character stats, and a huge arsenal. It’s the combat and level design that will ultimately draw you into Shadow Warrior 3’s shenanigans. His attempt to “cheer” on Lo Wang during the climax is also genuinely funny. The latter comes across convincingly as a gruff old-timer fallen from grace who wants to better himself but isn’t above pursuing any method to defeat the dragon. 'All of the guns are incredibly satisfying, from the Riot Gun’s devastation to the Revolver’s headshots and the Basilisk’s kick, and really reinforce Wang as a veritable force of nature.'įor as long as they’re present, Andromeda Dunker and SungWon Cho (aka ProZD) do well as Motoko and Zilla respectively. Nevertheless, you should get used to Wang’s battle dialogue – it repeats fairly often, though hearing “I can’t even tell whose blood this is!” somehow never got tiring. He even suddenly talks about the importance of mental health, sounding honest without making it into some kind of punchline. Mike Moh is perfect as Lo Wang, effortlessly swinging between despair at losing his “mojo” to joy when slaughtering dozens of yokai. But given how squarely focused on the narrative the game is, these can become annoyances more often than not.ĭespite the uneven quality of the dialogue, the cast does a great job voicing each character. You’re in it for the fast-paced action and gratuitous violence (which is gloriously gratuitous here). I know better than to expect consistently amazing writing in a Shadow Warrior campaign. Character development also feels off, like the cast suddenly banding together rather than seeing any real growth (with perhaps one exception) because it’s time to wind down the story. It comes across as unfunny at best and lame at worst. But sometimes the writing goes to the well a little too often for innuendo and crass humor. Wang’s immature yet faithful attitude is captured well in a good amount of dialogue. Motoko is also barely featured and seemingly exists just for one plot contrivance (and for Wang to poke fun at).

Despite misgivings about Kamiko seemingly being retconned, the set-up starts off interestingly, even if it does quickly veer away from the interesting friends-turned-enemies dynamic of Wang and Zilla. Shadow Warrior 3’s campaign mostly succeeds with its pacing, quickly moving along without much delay. But sometimes the writing goes to the well a little too often for innuendo and crass humor.' 'Wang’s immature yet faithful attitude is captured well in a good amount of dialogue. Somehow, Hoji’s mask holds the answer but can this team of angry misfits hold it together long enough to co-exist? Instead, the dragon has been wreaking havoc on the world and Lo Wang is focused on killing it, teaming with his old nemesis Orochi Zilla and the cranky witch Motoko. So you’d be forgiven for not seeing a single mention of Kamiko at all (or how Lo Wang survived being eaten. The story takes place shortly after the events of Shadow Warrior 2, which saw Kamiko transform into a massive dragon to seal the gateway between the Human World and the Shadow World. This may not be the most epic single-player shooter campaign of 2022 but it’s a fun time, for as long as you can savor it. It retains the grindhouse-level gore of its predecessor while presenting a more focused, linear narrative (sometimes to a fault) with above average levels of crassness. Shadow Warrior 3 is a smorgasbord of shooting and slashing, topped with wall-running, grappling, executions and other relevant action game tropes.

Shadow warrior 3 weapons