Shadow of Destiny

The Good
Somebody murders you. But you get an opportunity to correct things. You are sent back to our world shortly before the tragic event took place. Now you must save yourself, do something with the time which has been given to you, and reverse the wheels of fate. You receive a special device which allows you to travel in time. You can travel one hour or several centuries in the past. During those travels, you must investigate the mystery and reveal the secret of your premature death.

Shadow of Destiny is a unique and rather bizarre time-based game. The genre it belongs to cannot be clearly defined. It has virtually no puzzles to be considered a full-fledged adventure. There are no action sequences in the game, but there is tension, as your time is limited and you have to act quickly. There are no monsters to fight, but the feeling of horror hangs in the air...

Many games claimed to flow in real time. In the best case, it meant that the game in question had its own faster-paced internal clock affecting character schedules and certain events. Shadow of Destiny, however, is a true real-time game: minutes and second matter, and the whole concept of the game revolves around manipulating time and finding out not only what to do, but also when to do it. I think the only other game that treated time as strictly was Last Express

It is strangely involving to wander along the narrow streets of Lebensbaum, to feel the seconds tick away, thinking what is to be done in order to avoid the horrible death. The game is divided into small chapters, each one of which has the same objective: escape from the claws of the mysterious assassin. Every time you figure out how to avoid death, your enemy invents new ways of murdering you. The chapters are small and have a time limit, forcing you to act quickly. You explore the town in various time periods: today, several years ago, hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, etc. The game begins with fairly easy and elementary tasks, but soon you find out you are investigating something even more important than your own murder, and become involved in a complex story that deals with the beloved topic of time travel and changing the future. The plot is full of unexpected, yet tastefully presented twists and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Unlike the vast majority of adventure games, Shadow of Destiny is truly non-linear, at least once the different time periods open up and you become less restricted in your travels. You really do affect the course of the story with your actions, your decisions do matter, and the variety of endings you'll be able to achieve do correspond to your choices rather than being confusingly determined by something you weren't even aware of doing (Blade Runner, I'm looking at you). On top of that, once you complete the game you can start it again with new dialogue options based on your previous actions appearing very early. Thus, Shadow of Destiny contains something quite atypical of its genre: replay value.

The Bad
Many situations in the game seem contrived: once you figure out the correct solution for escaping death, you realize there could have been a much more straightforward and simple way to do that. The time aspect is not always carefully and logically handled, with certain restrictions imposed on you without a good reason, and noticeable artificiality in the way the future is affected by your deeds. At those moments we are reminded of the game's limitations as a "time-traveling simulator": the concept is great, but it could have been more generously executed, giving you extended possibilities and more in-depth treatment of causes and effects.

This leads to the main problem of Shadow of Destiny: its gameplay is not rich and varied enough to truly benefit from its concept. Virtually all the tasks in the game are solved by finding the exact spot in the exact timeline. There are no real puzzles and no other challenge except figuring out what location and time period are best suited for your current goal. Unfortunately, even that is often all too obvious, with the game giving you clear clues and pushing you towards the solution. I expected the missions to become more and more twisted and complicated, but in reality they turned out to be disappointingly mild and simple.

With its lack of challenge and abundance of cutscenes, Shadow of Destiny is revealed to be a short game that relies too much on its replay value to make a lasting impression. The game world, reduced to a small town due to the demands of the plot, offers only few things to do. Interaction is almost non-existent; the few locations within the town are mere decorations, and there is little to find besides hunting for energy orbs you need to power your time-traveling device. Wandering around through seemingly dead town where you can't perform the simplest activity may fit the game's almost surreal atmosphere, but I still don't see why busier locations with perhaps eccentric, but more numerous characters would ruin it.

The Bottom Line
Shadow of Destiny has a bold concept, and its dedication to real-time gameplay is commendable. However, with all its cool ideas and gimmicks, it lacks that gameplay backbone and generosity that would make it enjoyable and challenging once you're done admiring its originality.