Review #790: Shadow of Destiny

 Man, I love old Konami.

 I said it before and I'll say it again, I LOVE early PS2 games, and I also love a lot of things oldschool Konami used to developed, before the HD generation hit the scene. Shadow of Destiny is one weird game, think Twin Peaks meets Groundhog Day meets Sun, Flower and Rain and you get this game. It's also weird because it's an adventure game. No fighting, no jumping, just walking around, collecting items and interacting with other characters. It's good.

 The story pits you as Eike Kush, a cross between Raiden and James Sunderland, who wakes up in a Cafe only to get murdered shortly after. But that's 'K, Charles "It's a me Mario' Martinet is here to help, as a mysterious voice that offers Eike the power to travel in time through different eras of the very same town he is living in, albeit not completely freely. And thus begin 10 short chapters in which Eike gets murdered at the start of each, and up to him to prevent his murder each and every time. The game promises '10 massive chapters', but a few chapters last less than 10 minutes. Even less when you are on a New Game+ and can skip dialogue. As with ANY plot involving Time Travelling... there are plot holes. Some story devices even break the established rules of how changing his destiny works. The plot is interesting, and some of the plot twists are delicious, but you have to turn your brain off and not think too hard about the finer details. There are five main endings, and each ending reveals a little more of why it's happening what is happening as well as who really are the people involved and how they are connected, between time and eras. If you get all five endings(My first playthrough took me four hours, the other four between 40-60 minutes each) you get an altered Prologue chapter which lets you get two more endings. The voice acting ranges from passable to so-bad-it's-good, in no small part due to how cringy some of the dialogue is. The bottom line is, the story is enjoyable, but you have to be able to ignore some of the innate failings of Time Travel plots as well as a few details that don't make too much sense once you get the whole picture.

 The game is very simple, the puzzles are very simple. Eike has the ability to travel between four different eras: 2001(Present), 1980, 1902 and 1580, although 1980 barely gets any use, and the game slowly opens up these eras for the player. The game is always very clear with what you have to do, and if you really need a hint you could always check Eike's notes in your inventory, and even then using the Digipad, the device that lets you travel in time, will add some flavor text to the four different eras, most of the time cluing you in to where you need to go. There are two big chapters in the game: Chapter 5 and Chapter 8, they are also the chapters that determine which ending you'll get. The rest of the chapters are pretty easy to figure out, there are two chapters in which you only need to go back in time, talk to an NPC, return to the the present and voila! chapter over. That said, the more involved chapters are certainly more fun, and I wish the rest of the game was like that.

 That said, there are plenty of optional character interactions and mini sidequests that are there just for the sake of it. Like, for example, drinking a cup of joe and then paying with a pocket watch. Or bringing a little girl a kitten from the future. Is it necessary? Does it develop the main characters? Nope, but it's an amusing little detail. That said, don't tarry for too long, as chapters have a time limit. Not that it really matters, since all that happens is that your progress for the chapter is reset and you must do everything again, but at least, since you've seen it already, you can skip every story bit you had done before the reset. That said, there's ample time to finish the puzzle before the limit expires, I only got a reset this one time I was busy talking to everything and everyone that came my way since I was having fun playing in this world. I liked the characters, I even liked the weird NPCs that populated the game's town that spewed the same useless lines of dialogue every chapter. And I liked even more the ones that didn't repeat the same lines, and the ones involved hidden, optional mini sidequests. It's a fun city to explore, and it's nice getting to see how it changed between eras, as well as meeting the ancestors of present-day NPCs.

 The worst part about the game is the Save system, you can only save after finishing a chapter. That said, there is a mid-game save that deletes itself every time you continue the game, and you must exit the game if you want to use it.... assuming you find it. It's hidden in the Time Travelling menu, there's a fifth 'era' or option called 'End Game', which doubles as this temporary save file. Oh, and another thing, during the prologue you can find another Eike sleeping at the cafeteria. If you try to talk to him you'll die-die, which means sitting through the whole opening all over again, and since this is a game over and not a reset... you can't skip it.

 While far from a classic, this is definitely a hidden gem. It doesn't have the best story out there, but the setting is very interesting and the characters are fun to watch. I think the premise could have made for some more interesting puzzles, like the ones found in Chapter 5 and 8, but I'll take what we got. I'll admit that going through the game 4 more times after finishing the game was a bit of a drag, even if by the end I knew the game so well I could clear it in less than 50 minutes, but the reward was almost worth it, since every route gave me a new piece of the puzzle. Not a game for everyone, for sure, but definitely one for me, and anyone who enjoys quirky characters in weird and creepy situations.
 7.5 out of 10