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c'mon you can do better

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: November 24, 2000
Author: Amazon User

well this game started out ok, but as it turns out, is the first 5 hours of the game is just in memory, or story being told to someone? But, you still can be killed in memory? The graphics are VERY BAD, the storyline is reeealy boring and there barely is one. The character develpoment is also bad, I mean like some person just walks up to you says a few things and they just join you for no reason. You can only hold a certain amount of items too, and that really stinks and gets very annoying. Oh, and I almost forgot the battle system... heh..heh..heh..this was the [worst] and horrable battle system i've ever seen. one more thing, the world map lools [bad] and once you leave somewhere they dont give you the slightest idea where you have to go next. there usually is nothing on the map that keeps you from going to somewhere you dont have to be at yet..like (i didnt do this really) you can go to the last place were you fight the last boss right after you leave the first village (i'm exaggerating). And it has the same old basic event of an RGP, which is your home village is destroyed at some point in the game but this one is destroyed as soon as the game begins , gee i think i'v seen that some where before hmmmmm.also, one last thing-the music isnt that good either. overall i hated this game but maybee some of you out there like it but i just doesnt suit me. if you want a real good game try Xenogears or most any final fantasy game.

Awful!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: August 11, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I would never recommend this game to anyone. It's boring and slow. The art looked sloppy and the story line was lame. I've played an extensive amount of the rpg's on the market and this had to be one of the worst.

Waste of time...waste of money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game when it first came out...big mistake. I've heard some people say games like Legend of Dragoon are the worst the PSX has to offer, but nothing can touch this game in sheer lack of effort. Are graphics important to an RPG? Yes, if they weren't, we'd all still be playing pen and paper RPG's. They aren't everything, but this game is just horrible, as well as the character designs...c'mon the Cabin Boy would've been a better choice of hero. "My family died, so I'm on this wisecracking adventure to save the world."

I've given this game plenty of chances, played through it plenty of times, but after every time I just feel "dirty." It's horrible, nuf said.

Isn't what I expected

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: January 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Shadow Madness sounded good,but it isn't.The graphics are O.K. If I were you I wouldn't buy it. I rented it and I was only about 15 minutes into it till I relized it wasn't very good.If it got a grade it would be a C.It is 2 disks long.If it was a rating 1 being the best and 100 being the worst it would be 70th.So far of what I have played Final Fansty 8 was the best.

Its a ; flat out your hand and shake it game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 23, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The Graphics.Battle and Dungeons In this Game are good but the Storyline Is confuseing when you get near the end I suggest (when playing the game) you read and study the games past in the game wizard Libraries, thats the only way to get the hang of this game

By Adam Rees

Has its flaws, but overall good

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

One of the few RGPs made by an American company, Crave, Shadow Madness was widely maligned upon its release, ignored by players, and faded into obscurity. Contemporary players with $20 or less to spare for a game will nevertheless find it enjoyable enough if they approach it with an open mind. I know I did. The story of a ragtag group of wanderers out for revenge (yes, it sounds familiar) and seeking to free the world from an evil sorcerer, Shadow Madness is not perfect, but has many strong points. Here's the breakdown.

THE GAME'S FLAWS

GRAPHICS: 2/5
Shadow Madness was released 2 years after Final Fantasy VII, and with such tough competition the graphics could not look anything but adequate then, and they are somewhat outdated now for players of modern systems. Still, they do their job well enough, and some of the backgrounds are very nice. The use of the map, which features stylized drawings, is interesting, but as noted by other reviewers the drawings could have been better, and sometimes they are tasteless or downright ugly.

ARTWORK: 1/5
The character artwork for SM had been justly maligned. Of special note is Windleaf, who combines in her design all that is tasteless and mediocre, but the other characters do not stand out, although Stinger's is adequate (and do not, in my opinion, resemble FFVII's Cloud as greatly as often accused). All the characters in the game, including the 'townspersons', have portraits.

GAMEPLAY AND GAME DESIGN: 2/5
The game's biggest flaw (apart from the artwork) is the mundane gameplay and inconvenient battle menu. It features 3 battle styles, "aggressive", "normal" and "defensive" (hint to new players: do not use normal initially, when Stinger is alone-it lowers his defense and contributes to a quick demise.) Although the game begins on a medium difficulty, it quickly progresses into "very easy" due to the unbalanced experience system, which allows your characters to level up at a high rate, and the differences between the effectiveness of these 3 modes of attacks quickly become unimportant. Each character has a special attack which becomes available at some point of the battle- for example, Stinger throws knives- but again, they do not provides much variety to the battles. The magic system is the worst. The battles are 'real time', which means that the enemies attack without waiting for the player to attack. There is a lot of magic available for the magic-users, but it is a run-of-the mill magical attacks, and the list of the attacks (which are learned in 3s) becomes so long that the player often barely has time to scroll down during the 'real time battles', and often does not bother with it. (Although the game become so easy, and the enemies give so little damage, that eventually I could use the magic anyway). Worst of all, the inventory is tiny and the player wastes time sorting out and getting rid of the more useless items to keep it organized (and the game features too many useless items). Thus, the entire game is played without much variety, and the amount of time contributed to organizing the inventory is frustrating.

MINOR STUFF
The game is full of small bugs and inconveniences which attest to the inexperience of its designers. They never become frustrating, but they do hinder the smoothness of its execution.

THE GAME'S STRENGTHS

MUSIC: 5/5
Brad Spear's score is great- varied and melodious. Best of all, there is a great deal of variety in even ordinary battle music, so you do not have to hear the same music over and over again- something of an irritation in Japanese games.

WRITING: 5/5
Attesting to its American origins, the writing of the game is good to excellent, even today. There is a lot of humor in the exchange between the characters, and rarely awkward grammar or spelling.

STORY: 3/5
As a reviewer noted, SM falls into its own genre of fantasy-horror, which is somewhat gloomy initially, but becomes better as the story fleshes out and the world becomes more well-defined. (At first you do nothing but wander amid ruined towns and mad people, which is a little unnerving and somehow fails to define the world of the game, as if you stumbled into a formless madhouse). The story is smoothly executed and always keeps you interested, although never particularly shocking or exciting. Plot twists are few and often predictable. Still, it is a solid, well-developed story.

CHARACTERS: 3/5
Some complained that the characters of SM are two dimensional, but in my opinion the strong writing more than covers up for the lack of quirks and unique personality traits in the characters. The characters are meant to be ordinary, but most of them are likable, and their 'ordinary' personalities shine through the strong, humorous writing. Stinger, Harv-5 and Clemett are particularly fun, in my opinion, but I found myself liking all the characters. People who find them not sufficiently well-developed should remember that "characterization" is not always necessarily a collection of unique traits or a complex background or reactions to dramatically unfolding events. Sometimes a good writing can define characters simply because they are well-written, act 'natural', and amuse the players with the exchange of their conversation- as SM's characters do.

OVERALL: buy it. It's only $15 nowadays. You'll like it if you keep an open mind.

Many flaws, but one ingredient makes it superb!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: November 19, 1999
Author: Amazon User

You may have heard bad things about this game. And they're probably all true, because this game has many flaws. The cutscenes are kinda crappy, the battles could of been made easier to control, the polygons are kind of bad, but one thing that they probably didn't mention is that this game has one of the Best storylines i've ever seen in a game. I'm talking Xenogears, and FF7 calibur here. I think that the storyline is also very unique. The graphics look great when they're not moving, but when ur playing the game, the frame-rate slows down, and little fuzzy spots show up, but as I said, the storyline is the key. If your expecting another FF7, it's just not gonna happen here, but the storyline is probably just as good. This game deserves way more credit than it got. The pre-rendered backgrounds are very nice though. But this also makes the game 2D. But The Storyline RULES I say. So just go out and get this game.

True RPGers take note

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: April 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As always, retaining my belief that if you are a real role player, the two most important things about gaming are a good story and a good game master, I would reccomend Shadow Madness to anybody. Are the Graphics as good as ff7 or 8? No, but give me a break, you could be trapped in a room with six other people arguing about whether or not you get to make a saving throw against some semi intelligent form of mutant pinkeye. Know what I mean? Where RPGs are concerned what is important is that the game is imaginitive, and that it flows, not getting bogged down in exposition or pretty bells and whistles that end up taking away from, rather than adding to the experience. This is a requirement that Shadow Madness fills easily. The story and dialog both move easily and are creative enough to keep the player interested. For someone who got into video gaming because he got tired of game night lasting three hours to get maybe a half an hour of actual play time in, this game is a dream. The graphics and combat system are nothing new, but the story has me intrigued. This game is what ff7 and 8 would be if as much thought was given to the plot as was given to the marketing and graphics. Try it. You'll like it. The folks at Crave can be my Dungeon Masters any time.

Possibly the most underrated RPG of all time.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was hesitant to get this game at first and still have some reservations because of it's flaws, but I honestly believe that this is a good, solid game that could have been one of the best if it weren't for those glaring flaws.

Stregths:

Storyline, Characterization(especially when they interact), the depth of the world(LOVED reading through the libraries), some of the spells/FMVs, music and dialogue that rivals Lunar. In fact, IMO, the dialogue is considerably better than most Final Fantasies and even the Suikodens!

Weaknesses:

Graphics(but not a big deal to people not too concerned with that, like me), certain elements of the story could have been expanded, could have had better characterization and the battles were awkward and took a lot of getting used to as you didn't have time to do much of anything.

So, the game is good, just good. It could have been much better, but it does NOT deserve the bad reputation it has.

If you love RPG's, you should definitely check this out

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 15, 1999
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of my favorites. It's got an engrossing story and the characters are definitely original, and so is the battle system. It also has a great feature (that I think other RPG's should have in the future), where the monsters make noise just before they attack you. If you are quick enough, you can duck and avoid battle. If you're an RPG fan like I am, you know how frustrating those random battles can get. The atmosphere in the game is kind of dark and eerie, which I'm sure some people won't like, but all in all, this is definitely a game worth buying.

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