Art direction in the game is phenomenal.
Capcom has made many appeals to the Western crowd, and Shadow of Rome was, if I'm not mistaken, their first attempt. Sadly, it ended in failure, which is a bit surprising considering how good the game is.The game follows two friends, Octavianus and Agrippa, as they suffer through the events of Caesar's murder. Agrippa's father is accused of the murder, his mother is executed and now Agrippa is a wanted man... not that that stops him from becoming a Gladiator, for a chance to save his father. Meanwhile, Octavianus, as Caesar's family and Agrippa's friend, knows that there's more to the murder than meets the eye, and sets out to investigate the parliament and the senate on his own. The story is interesting, and having the two viewpoints makes it even more so. THe game employs a fantastic artstyle: Character designs for important NPCs are very Hokuto no Ken-esque, which means that they look badass, and the game employs an almost cell-shaded filter that makes characters pop from the background, which is surprisingly appealing. On the flip side, characters have very... weird and offputting facial expressions, take Claudia, whenever she is supposed to smile... it turns into a weird facsimile of a smirk that makes you think she's always plotting something. But she isn't. Voice acting is passable, and sometimes it goes into the melodramatic which is can get you a bit out of the experience
.'Disarmed', I see what they did there. Puny.
Octavianus' stages consist of stealth missions. You often have to infiltrate buildings that are swarming with guards or politicians, and most of the time, being caught means being sent back to the last checkpoint, albeit sometimes it's possible to escape the guards. There's a lot of interesting things you can do as Octavianus, knocking someone down, with a rope or a jug, means you can take the clothes. But since Octavianus has a very small frame, and thus not very convincing as anything other than a maid, you may sometimes be stopped and asked questions, get the wrong answer and they'll discover you. You can also grab and throw certain objects, like rats or stones, or whistle in order to distract people. There's a very interesting mechanic in which you can walk with your hands behind your back to conceal tools. Octavianus can also come across silver and gold coins in his stages, which can then be spent at the city gates in order to decorate your room. It's utterly pointless, but it's still fun to add objects, and as you buy stuff you also get a few extra haircuts for Octavianus.But as Octavianus investigates, Agrippa must fight in gladiatorial events. Objectives vary: Destroy all of the opposing team's statues, defeat every enemy, accumulate a certain amount of salvo(basically, cheers), survive, chariot races or simply defeat a boss. Agrippa can pick up various different weapons: One handed swords, clubs, shields or dual handed spears, halberds and greatswords. And you'll be switching weapons constantly since they break. Enemies have access to the very same weapons, and these can be knocked off your hands or you can pry them away from your enemies, if you are unarmed... or you can un-arm your enemies, literally, some of the bigger weapons can maim enemies and thus reduce their offensive capabilities. The more varied your style is the better, as you'll be awarded salvo. For instance, cutting an enemy in half gives you the 'Red volcano' salvo worth... 2000 salvo, but if you use it again in the same event you'll be awarded less. Salvo has a bigger function in matches than that of deciding what rank you get when clearing the mission, or being the objective of the event itself, and that's to get the attention of the crowd. The higher the salvo gauge is, the better rewards you'll get from the crowd, which can be anything from massive weapons to health-restoring food.
The Gladiatorial part of the game is easily the best one.
One thing to keep in mind when approaching this game is... that it's rather hard. Octavianus' stages can be cleared with enough ingenuity and patience... or maybe a FAQ, but you'll need skill and luck in Agrippa's stages. Inevitably there will be events that you'll like more than others, but you'll have to go through those that you don't like anyways. It would've been a good idea to let you pick in which events you wanted to compete, but I digress. Battle Royales are simple enough, and with enough luck the crowd will feed you enough food to keep you healthy, but events such as amassing Salvo can be tough since you'll need to vary your tactics as much as you can, while also looking out for your health while under a time limit or an enemy amount limit. I particularly disliked the events that had you breaking statues, since running out of weapons meant having a hard time dealing with enemy assault as you try to smash their statutes. There're plenty of cheats and a few other modes, like survival, that you can unlock... provided you can rank high in gladiatorial events under the hardest difficulty setting. Good luck!Shadow of Rome is a brilliant but flawed game. The gladiatorial events' difficulty can sometimes veer into the unfair, and the stealth sections can get a bit long in the tooth if what you want to do is bash skulls but you can't figure out how to evade the guards. That said, the game reeks of high production values, and the challenge can probably be tracked to a misguided attempt as appealing to the West. The game is definitely worth a look.
8.0 out of 10
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