Shadows Over Loathing

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Shadows Over Loathing is a Turn-Based RPG released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game is the direct follow-up to West of Loathing and is similar in tone, in visual style, and in gameplay. However, where West of Loathing was a send-up of the Western genre, Shadows Over Loathing is a parody of Lovecraftian Horror tales.

Of course, don’t let that make you think for even one moment that this is a Horror game – as with West of Loathing, the central focus here is all about the jokes. And once again, this game delivers on the humor brilliantly, whether it’s standing aghast at finding the world’s most unremarkable rock, getting new shoes that have no effect other than adding silly effects when you walk, or conversing with the game’s wide assortment of odd characters such as a Gabby the goblin, a companion character who seems like a kindly overweight “flapper” lady with horns and an odd speaking mannerism, and Johnny, the King of the Hobos who hails from… where else… Hoboken. Shadows Over Loathing rarely passes up an opportunity to make a joke, and most of these jokes land pretty well.

Also much like West of Loathing, Shadows Over Loathing uses a mostly monochrome hand-drawn art style that makes everything look like it was hastily scrawled in Microsoft Paint. However, that’s not to say that it’s ugly. There’s surprising depth and detail to the backgrounds, and some good character animation, too. The graphics in this game are absolutely not lazy… they’re just stylized to look that way.

This subtly impressive presentation continues to the game’s soundtrack, which at first seems decent but not especially noteworthy, with some nice low-key instrumental themes that do a good job backing the game’s quirky setting. However, upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that all of the game’s sounds are tied into the soundtrack as well – birds chirp in the background in time with the music, passing a teletype machine will give you the sounds of blips and beeps in time with the music, and in combat you’ll get access to moves that will even add additional instruments to the soundtrack. It’s a wonderful way of showing how your actions have an effect on the world of the game.

And once again, the RPG gameplay here is fairly simple, with players having standard HP, a defensive stat, and ability points, as well as three base stats (in short, you have strength, magic, and dexterity/ingenuity, here referred to as muscle, mysticality, and moxie). You can boost these stats through experience upgrades, equippable item buffs, and temporary item use buffs, and there are also elemental defenses and attack bonuses… typical RPG stuff.

However, one nice element here are puzzles and conversation tree options that are only available if you have a specific stat threshold, possess a specific item, or have gained a specific story-based descriptor, reminiscent of the sort of RPG options you tend to see in bigger “AAA” entries in the genre, and which give this game a feeling of your characters’ stats not only opening up possibilities for you in combat, but out of combat as well. In fact, the game seems to go out of its way to offer players options to avoid combat if they prefer a “pacifist” route.

In the end, we are still talking about a hand-drawn black and white RPG that’s more interested in being funny than being a truly great RPG, but nevertheless Shadows Over Loathing manages to be a pretty excellent RPG even without the jokes. As long as you don’t mind the deliberately primitive presentation, and don’t need your RPG to take everything seriously, Shadows Over Loathing is definitely worth a look for any fans of the genre.

tl;dr – Shadows Over Loathing is a Turn-Based RPG and Lovecraftian Horror-inspired follow up to West of Loathing. However, far from being a Horror game, this is once again a game that aims to make everything a joke, and largely succeeds. The deliberately primitive hand-drawn black-and-white presentation is whimsical even if it isn’t impressive, and the adaptive soundtrack is subtly brilliant, but perhaps the biggest surprise here are some solid RPG mechanics underneath what is nominally a game focused primarily on its humor. As a result, this is a game well worth trying out for any fans of the genre, so long as they’re not put off by the visuals and silliness.

Grade: B+

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best RPG, Funniest Game

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}