Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered review – a fresh hell

I really wanted to love this remaster, but it just misses the mark in too many ways

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered / Grasshopper Manufacture

When you purchase a Suda 51 game you should know what you’re getting into. The renowned game director is known for wild ideas, unique creations, and immature jokes. They are not to everyone’s tastes, which is represented in the uneven review scores. But if Suda 51 has one fan it is me; the person who still counts kawaii fever dream Lollipop Chainsaw as one of their favorite games of all time.

The original Shadows of the Damned was released in 2011 and was the second collaboration between Suda 51 and the legendary Shinji Mikami. The pair previously brought the world the cult classic killer7, and feel like the perfect duo to develop a quirky romp through hell. Shadows of the Damned is a 13-year-old game, and it makes sense that certain aspects have aged poorly, meaning it’s the perfect target for a remaster.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered / Grasshopper Manufacture

Shadows of the Damned tells the story of Garcia Hotspur, a demon hunter who travels to hell in order to get his girlfriend Paula back from the King of the Demons, Fleming. The story is simple but it is only a vehicle to deliver the writing and fast-paced gameplay. In our Suda 51 and Shinji Mikami interview, Suda explains that the gameplay feels fast and intuitive compared to modern games that focus on the look, resolution, and high-quality graphics, and we have to agree.

Garcia has access to three different types of gun, and each of them has their own use cases. While you’ll find yourself often switching up on the fly, you’ll also have to deal with hordes of demons coming at you relentlessly. It’s difficult to line up a headshot when so many are coming at you at once, but their bodies absorb bullets like sponges. Fights are tense and stressful. I played on the easiest difficulty setting, and early demons could kill me in two hits. There are also a lot of enemies, and mowing these down makes up the bulk of the gameplay.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered / Grasshopper Manufacture

When I first played, I thought Garcia had the aim of a drunk person, but I then realized gyroscopic controls are on by default in the sparse options menu under ‘Motion Controls’. Turning them off was not an option though as moving with the analogue stick is just too slow for the fast pace of gameplay, even at the highest sensitivity setting. I found myself battling with balancing the camera and gyro controls a lot, particularly when you have to change up weapons and fend off large numbers of enemies.

Suda says that the final draft of Shadows was the sixth attempt at the script following input from publisher EA, and it feels that development might have been strained. Suda 51 has a lot of unique and interesting ideas, but you then see them reused multiple times, like the kaiju-style fights with the massive gun or the paper craft levels. While these would have been interesting as a one-off, they become banal by the third time. Garcia also has limited barks, and while I love a good joke about an engorged male endowment as much as the next fun-time gal, it began to grate by the hundredth time I heard it.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered / Grasshopper Manufacture

Another aspect that feels rushed is the interesting antagonist you see in the first chapter of the game. You receive her backstory and see her multiple times, only for her boss fight to be confined to a paper craft level leading to a lackluster end. Had the paper boss fight been followed by a traditional 3D one, we’d have felt a more satisfying end to her arc. Level design is also pretty basic, and it feels that bullet sponge enemies and relentless hordes are there to pad out the minimal runtime.

The greatest disappointment of the remaster is just how many opportunities were missed. The hitboxes are oddly small, and you often see your bullets shoot straight through enemies that you are sure should hit. While weak points are displayed on enemies in bright red, it still feels uncertain where you should aim. There are also no manual save points, which is annoying when the autosave sometimes doesn’t work. I’d boot the game up in the morning only to find I’d been sent back to a previous checkpoint.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered / Grasshopper Manufacture

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered’s biggest sin is unskippable cutscenes. Going back to a checkpoint and then being faced with three unskippable cutscenes in a row just feels bad. There is no excuse for not allowing players to skip cutscenes in 2024, other than to pad out the game, and it was honestly one of the biggest sources of frustration. Another gaming sin is the instant kills which are littered throughout, and most modern gamers refuse to deal with them.

Shadows of the Damned was developed under restrictions, and Suda 51’s unique ideas were reused, not allowing them their time to shine. The remaster was the perfect opportunity to add quality-of-life changes, remove repetitive parts, and add in new sections. The difficulty settings also don’t appear to reduce the number of bullets each enemy requires to take out, leading to further repetition in the gameplay. I love Suda 51’s work and really wanted to love this remaster, but it just misses the mark in so many ways.

Score: 5/10

Version tested: PS5