Of course stopping the initial stabbing doesn't really stop the killer - it just makes the murderer change tactics - so you need to keep on turning back the clock to stop the ever-impending death. This strange dude gives Eike a Z-pad that allows him to travel through time to stop his own death. Yup, as soon as you start the game, Eike catches a blade to the back, but instead of going to the great beyond, he ends up in a weird purgatory with a being known as Homunculus. In Shadow of Destiny, you'll play as Eike, a jacket-wearing guy who keeps getting stabbed to death. On the one hand, I wasn't alone in loving the original game (IGN gave the game an 8.5), but on the other hand, this is a PS2 game from nine years ago and it shows. This is an exact port of the game I was gaga for nine years ago - which is both good and bad. Now, Konami is offering PSP players a chance to rectify the mistake so many gamers in Illinois made because Shadow of Destiny is now on the PSP. I've never played anything like it, and I doubt I ever will again.Outside of me, no one else bought the game. There are eight endings too, and the story can spiral off into many unexpected (and often devastatingly bleak) directions. The time travel stuff is occasionally brilliant. It has a curious, eerie atmosphere that is completely distinctive. Being able to freely explore Lebensbaum gives the game an enjoyably laid back rhythm, letting you figure things out at your own pace. Eike Kusch is a deeply boring protagonist, the story is overcomplicated, and some of the puzzles are laughably contrived. There's a lot wrong with Shadow of Memories. To its credit, it really goes all-in on the time travel gimmick. If you can't help yourself, the game usually has some kind of amusing cutscene to reward your bad behaviour. There are moments like this throughout Shadow of the Memories, where you know doing something will break the timeline, but you do it anyway. If you touch your past self, reality implodes and you have to start over. In the first chapter you go into a local cafe and find yourself lying asleep on the table. While the game is almost stiflingly linear, there are a few moments where you can be a little mischievous and cause a time paradox. Getting tangled up in people's problems leads to some interesting side stories too. You spend a lot of time wandering around the place getting to know the locals (including their ancestors), which makes the city feel strangely alive. In the 1900s, the snowy streets are depicted in nostalgic monochrome. In the 1500s everything is dark, gloomy, and sepia tinted. Lebensbaum is an evocative setting, and the mood changes dramatically as you leap between time periods. But it makes up for its blocky geometry and low-res textures by being incredibly atmospheric. These kinds of interdimensional logic puzzles make up the bulk of the game, with a fair amount of slow-paced walking, talking, and exploration nestled inbetween. Back in the modern day, the tree is gone, the killer has nowhere to hide, and Kusch survives. (Also, of how ridiculous they are.) Kusch travels back to medieval times, finds the guy planting the tree, and convinces him to plant some flowers instead. In one chapter the killer strikes from behind a tree, and preventing this particular death is a perfect example of how the puzzles in Shadow of Memories work. Not that Kusch cares: he's a detached weirdo who doesn't seem to care about the temporal chaos he's causing.Įvery time Kusch survives a murder attempt, another is always lying in wait. But as he meddles with the space-time continuum, the town of Lebensbaum and the lives of the citizens who live there are altered too. With this, Kusch can travel back in time to avoid getting that knife in his back. He wakes up in an otherworldly void, silent except for the ticking of a giant grandfather clock, and is gifted a device called a Digipad. This should be the end of Kusch and his stupid hair, but he's spared from oblivion by an eerie being calling itself Homunculus, voiced by Charles "It's-a-me, Mario!" Martinet. Related: Facing Worlds Is The Greatest Multiplayer Map Ever Made He's walking obliviously along a cobbled street in the historic German town of Lebensbaum, before suddenly slumping to the ground with a knife in his back. Protagonist Eike Kusch, one of the worst designed characters in video game history, is repeatedly killed by an unseen assailant, including at the very beginning of the game. Shadow of Destiny (also known as Shadow of Memories in some regions) is an atmospheric adventure game about a guy trying to prevent his own murder, set across a variety of time periods-from the 1500s to the present day. In 2003, Konami released a really strange game for the PS2.
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