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Shadow Madness is an example of Western devs taking a shot at emulating the success of their Japanese counterparts. Back in the PS1 era, JRPGs picked up the pace on the new 3D consoles, so it was uncommon to see a game like this from the WRPG side.
Developed by Craveyard Studios, it was the team's first attempt at emulating a certain RPG franchise on the PS1. It was released in 1999 exclusively for the PS1 console in a two-disc format. And now, it is getting a PC port via Steam.
Dive into the world of Arkose in Shadow Madness
Taking place in the fantasy land of Arkose, everything is plunged into chaos by a mysterious illness only called the "shadow madness". It apparently has no cure. After witnessing his town befall the same fate, a boy named Stinger sets out, against all odds, to fix this mess. Along the way, he meets a vibrant cast of characters who aid him on his travels.
The elf-girl Windleaf and Warf-5, a farm robot, are just a couple of examples of the eccentric lineup of faces Stinger encounters. The dev team, while new to game development in general at that point, had members who were involved in key RPG projects at companies like Squaresoft (later merged with Enix in 2003 to form Square Enix).
This had the benefit of Shadow Madness being a "J"RPG whose writing and humor could be well-targeted towards its audience - Europe and NA, since those are the only regions the game released for.
Exploration is done on maps with pre-rendered backgrounds - as was the norm for the era. Encounters are random, and combat takes a page from Square's Final Fantasy 7 with how everything is designed.
Battles are ATB (active time battles) and allow the use of characters with unique abilities and specializations like magic, long-range or melee. In fact, nearly everything about Shadow Madness mimics the popular Japanese RPG behemoth.
The game also had some interesting minigames, including a DOOM-like FPS set in an underwater setting and a rudimentary lockpick system. While it was acknowledged for trying to one-up the Japanese at their own game, it ultimately fell short in countless ways. Criticism was dolled at the poor UI and inventory system, short-sighted design choices, shoddy balancing, mediocre combat, and lackluster plot.
That begs the question: why would anyone buy this game, which seems undercooked at best? Sure, it may not appeal to most people out there, including many RPG lovers, but fans of the obscure might want to check this out. It's still a rarity in its genre for some of the things it does - for example, battles can be avoided by ducking in the world map when monster growls are heard.
A mish-mash of baffling design choices, but understandable given the game's small and inexperienced development team. Shadow Madness launches February 15, 2022. Pricing TBA (to be announced) but the game can be purchased here on Steam.
