So, I downloaded this earlier today and figured I'd give it a ‘quick’ review.
Shadow of Yidhra is a pretty good zombie-apocalypse side-scroller shooter / light platformer, in which you take the role of the protagonist 'Delta' after she wakes up in an underground laboratory filled with Zombies (and a couple other horrors). Not the most original premise, but the game checks all the right boxes to become a solid effort that I’d personally recommend a download.
I will preface this by saying it won’t be for everyone. The zombies are (on the whole) fast enough and pretty tanky, the platforming and level design can occasionally be frustrating or confusing, and ammo is surprisingly scarce and easy to go through in the early game, while costing a respectable amount compared to the ‘money’ you get for killing enemies. That said, I find it rewards cautious and creative players initially, which is important, because you will need all the ammo and especially health packs you can get. There are only so many in the vending machines you buy things from!
Right, so, the boring stuff. Graphics, sound, character design. All pretty good. Nothing stellar, but it’s pretty good. It’s nothing special, in the same way most of the sounds and graphics of Parasite in City were pretty good. Though where Parasite in city has fewer enemies and weapons, the animations and overall quality of all of them are much higher. By contrast, this game has more enemies and weapons, but the animations are of lower quality (hell, the magazines stay in the gun when you reload, even though a magazine also falls to the floor and disappears). But that’s neither here nor there, as it’s a really minor detail.
Overall good points:
- Reasonable and simple controls and the ability to aim with the mouse cursor. A perhaps extremely minor issue of Parasite in City was the aiming mechanics was relegated to aiming up or down a set path with the arrow keys, forcing you to manoeuvre left or right to hit something that you really should be able to hit anyway. Aiming with the mouse cursor is good fun, especially as there are occasions enemies will be above or below you.
- The sheer diversity of weapons by comparison to some other games. There are categories of weapon (Assault Rifles, Shotguns, SMGs, Snipers, Handguns, melee, and a tab for ‘special’, though that seems to be empty) and, apart from the Assault Rifles and melee(ish), there is no clear ‘superior’ gun. The final AR is easily the best (damage, accuracy, ammo capacity is the same), and there’s only one sniper. Beyond that, the rest are a game of tradeoffs. The first SMG has the lowest damage but good mag size and accuracy, while the second one you get has less ammo in exchange for better damage and accuracy, and the last one drops accuracy for more damage and ammo. They all have their uses depending on how you want to play.
- Decent variety of enemies, each with their own reasonably distinct presentation, gameplay style, design, including the bosses. While visually some may be similar (Looking at the two types of bandit here), and some play mechanically similar (the male and female scientist zombies, and one other generic zombie type), they’re all distinct enough to be easily identifiable and mostly different kinds of threats. Bosses play reasonably unique, and are all visually distinct.
- Enemies have their own gameover CG animations and unique in-game sex animations (themselves having usually one other variation, like a threesome or different position), which is nice and gives a bit of depth. Two of the 3 (or 4) bosses only have the one animation though (and a CG), much to my surprise and disappointment.
- A reasonable degree of challenge. Early game, you’re most worried about ammo and health, as you start with but a knife, a gun, a health kit, and a handful of ammo. Always headshot, and don’t be afraid to melee enemies (you can bait hits and/or dodge behind to get a strike in) to save ammo. As you save up ‘money’, you can buy more gear, like ammo, health kits, and grenades from vending machines, and you’ll find weapons throughout the levels. Mid-game you can be a bit freer with ammo (especially on some targets, which are harder to hit in melee), but you can still burn through ammo fast on tanky enemies and the first boss. Late-game you have good weapons and ammo isn’t really much of a problem (health still can be if you’re not careful) but you’ll have to deal with enemies that mix up the playstyle with ranged attacks, higher health pools, or avoid your immediate line of fire. Just aim for the head, and be ready to dodge. It can be challenging, but I found it was never unfair if you played smart. However, it can feel very easy once you stock up on ammo enough.
- I know I slagged off the graphics a bit, but it really is pretty good. Not the best, but it can be quite pretty at times. The backgrounds can be REALLY good in some areas.
And for the downsides:
- Language and story. It’s in Japanese or Simplified Chinese (not that there’s an issue), and though for some reason it translated short segments of text to English after a few seconds (that might’ve been my machine doing it somehow? I really don’t know) it made it hard to understand the story. And there IS an underlying story, involving a handful of NPCs, discoverable notes, and the character’s own musings, but it was hard to make out.
- Animations are too short. Though they are actually reasonably high quality (believe me, I’ve seen worse!), you don’t get a chance to really see the different stages, as it goes from sex->fast->creampie very quickly, and then repeats that system until you break free. It means you can’t see the flaws (if there are any in the animation itself), but also is a bit strange in a way I can’t place my finger on.
- Parts of the game feel incomplete. The final boss fight is a bit meh compared to the other 3 (ironically, since 2 of them are against the same opponent), a number of bugs (warning – make sure you empty your gun before swapping it out if you can, as I think the bullets you’d loaded are lost! Also, the bandits don’t fuck the MC, I had to download a full save to get that. It might just be my machine though), and the empty ‘specials’ tab. It feels like more work could’ve been done in fleshing out the weapons as they each have a lot of slots for weapons, but only the pistols tab is filled out (sans 1 empty space) and there’s only one sniper rifle. Some areas and enemies could use some love. That sort of thing.
- Levels can be a bit weird and ‘confusing’. I never found myself lost, but searching and exploring wasn’t always the most fun as there wasn’t always a clear indicator of the path forward, and…
- You can’t sprint. The MC moves reasonably fast, and can do a shift-dodge (using a high amount of SP) to move quickly, but you’ll rarely get more than 3 or 4 of those in one go, and then you have to wait for it to recharge anyway. It can be frustrating.
- The difficulty of actually seeing the sex scenes in the first place. To unlock the sex animations you have to be fucked by an enemy for a full, albeit quick, animation (knocked down at low health, then letting them reach you, for the animations) or defeated by an enemy (CG animations) to unlock them. The problem is it seems to trigger randomly once your clothes break enough that you can see Delta’s privates, and if you’re seek them out you sometimes have to balance healing and getting hit to avoid a game-over. This compounds the next problem somewhat:
- Somewhat low replayability. Yeah, you can go back and go through all the areas again from the central safezone, but there’s no NG+, bonus bosses, cheat modes, or unlockable unique weapons. Though some people have made cheats to fix this, in the base game, the difficulty of actually seeing sex animations, while technically thematically relevant, can be a bummer, especially if you’re like me and get bored of just the two backgrounds in the gallery, or you want to do a bit of RP/faffing about.
- I know I praised the animations, but… they could use some work too. I like them, but they’re too quick, and some need polish.
- You can’t save any of the naked girls you find tied up or being fucked around the place. A minor nitpick, especially because seeing some of them literally hanging is disturbing asf.
At risk of becoming too long, I’ll wrap up. Give it a download and a try. If you want, download a save to get to the good bits. I’ll still play it every now and then. Hope this helps someone
