Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered review – should have stayed dead

Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered brings us back to the heady days of 2011. US forces eliminated Osama Bin Laden, Britain had its second-warmest year on record, and we got to meet supposed legendary demon hunter, Garcia Hotspur. 13 years later, we’re unlucky enough to bump into him again, only this time, the entire thing looks marginally better.

Hailing from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and Killer7’s Suda 51, Shadows of the Damned is an Xbox 360/PS3-era third-person shooter with heavy horror leanings. It details the journey of Garcia and his demon pal Johnson as they traverse the underworld to rescue Hotspur’s kidnapped love, Paula. It’s a schlocky road trip that sees the wise-cracking Garcia take on hordes of evil with a ‘Big Boner’ on his hip.

Johnson, Garcia’s nattering sidekick, is a demon skull that can seemingly transform into whatever the plot needs at that time, although the rules for this are inconsistent at best. He gains new weaponized forms as you defeat each of the game’s bosses which, along with some basic upgrades from collecting gems, is how Garcia gains power throughout his journey.

The main thrust of Shadows of the Damned involves shooting demons, blasting bosses in their glowing weak spots, and occasionally faffing with a rudimentary puzzle or two. The gunplay is solid, the weapons have a decent kick to them, and enemies react appropriately to your hails of bullets. Unfortunately, though, each marginally satisfying headshot is followed by yet another quip from Garcia.

A darkness mechanic comes into play early on, dialing down the saturation, and altering the threat of the world around you. In theory, this offers a two-sides-of-the-same-coin type deal with environments. Some things can only be accomplished in darkness, and some only in light.

In practice, the visual language of Shadows of the Damned’s hell is so drab to begin with that the shadow realm, so to speak, doesn’t have the impact that it should. In some instances, my visual clarity improved when consumed by darkness – something I’m certain wasn’t the intended result.

The monster designs, including the bosses themselves, are appropriately gruesome. However, the fights amount to little more than putting a lot of bullets downrange or looking for a glowing weak spot. The shadow mechanic occasionally comes into play here, but I wasn’t presented with much of a challenge other than the uphill battle of stomaching Johnson’s banter.

Everything in Shadows of the Damned is a joke. Your starting weapon is the ‘Boner’, your sidekick is called Johnson – even the checkpoints that save your progress are a creature called One-Eye Willy. Walking in Garcia’s shoes is like stepping into the mind of a 14-year-old who just read Constantine for the first time. I don’t consider myself a prude by any stretch of the imagination, and if 99% of the jokes in your game are phallus-adjacent then that’s perfectly fine, just make them remotely humorous. Quantity dwarfs quality here, and I was exhausted from start to finish.

Case in point, there is a particularly grueling section around midway through the story. The demon-fighting duo find themselves in serious danger, and the only way out, it seems, is for Johnson to call a sex line from a pay phone. The obvious state of arousal allows Johnson to grow the barrel of the ‘Boner’ gun, turning it into a cannon. Hilarious. It doesn’t stop there, either. Garcia shouts “taste my Big Boner!” after every other shot, and Johnson yells “SCHAWING!” after hearing a rather tame pickup line on a crackly phone call. This is just a slice of what you’re subjected to, and I’m sorry to say it never lets up, and it never threatens to be funny.

Occasionally, you’ll reach a literal storybook moment where Garcia and Johnson take time out of the rescue mission to leaf through a comically large tome that tells the tragic tale of one of the game’s bosses. Not a bad idea as it gives some context to what trapped these poor souls in hell. It’s a shame then that the running commentary from our two heroes consists of misogyny, fat shaming, and the praising of suicide.

I’m not sure who Shadows of the Damned Hella Remaster is for. Perhaps those who played and enjoyed the original may get a kick out of revisiting hell, but the visual upgrade is minimal. I can safely say that anyone who doesn’t have nostalgia for the original release will get little to nothing from this horror game.

Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered is a lukewarm shooting gallery with an unbearable cast. It didn’t work back in 2011, and it sure as hell doesn’t work now. The supreme pedigree of Suda and Mikami couldn’t stop this from being a mess, with the approach of orifice over Orpheus proving even more egregious as the years roll on by.