GB Feature: Birth of Shadows Review

[GameBanshee News]

We've taken a closer look at Precision Games' interesting fusion of tactical combat with hack-and-slash elements in an attempt to answer a simple question: does it work?

Simply put, combat pacing is of the Infinity Engine school. There's a 2-second timer on actions, but it runs in real-time over that. The similarity ends there, though, making the rest of the game’s combat system fairly unique: you select an enemy by clicking on him, then in those 2-second intervals of action you select the spell you want your character to use on the enemy next.

As I mentioned earlier, there are 16 spells in total and, as you progress, it becomes increasingly more important to combine them properly. In particular, there is one element of combat called “rage”. As you attack NPCs or cast non-damaging spells on them, they will gain in rage until they become enraged for about 5 seconds. With the proper spell, you can tap into that rage to give it to your character, which he in turn can use to support spells like life-draining or a special harm spell that does more damage depending on how much rage you’ve acquired. This is not to be confused with mana – as the game has none of that – but rather has a vitally important supporting role.

If you don't balance spells like summoning a pet, fear (which petrifies the opponent), attack and life-leech properly, you'll soon end up dead (though dying has no direct consequence except sending your character back to the start of the level). As you progressively face more and tougher opponents, choosing exactly the right action on exactly the right adversary becomes vitally important. To ensure that you can make the right choices, the game sports a pause function. While paused, you can check how long your opponents will remain frozen if you used fear on them, check who is closest to being enraged, etc. and calmly plan your next step.