Shadow Labyrinth preview — Pac’d full of heart

If my time with its preview build taught me anything, it’s that Shadow Labyrinth should be taken seriously. Although the concept of darkly re-imagining Pac-Man inherently demands you take it seriously, I just couldn’t at first blush. The Amazon Prime series Secret Level introduced this vision of a grittier Pac-Man and at the time I was not having it. In a series full of dark, edgy shorts, Secret Level’s iteration of Pac-Man felt like just another heartless Hollywood pitch to add to the pile. To my surprise, however, Shadow Labyrinth has a heart after all. Shadow Labyrinth’s heart carries a surprising amount of love for Namco’s history, for experienced gamers, and for the little touches that make games interesting. 

Prior to playing, the first question I had about Shadow Labyrinth was “how is this Pac-Man?”. The answer is it’s not. It’s an action platformer with exploration elements that one might say bears resemblance to Metroid. Or the Castlevania games that are like Metroid. A Metroidvania, if you will. Although these days I’ve heard the kids are calling them “2D action exploration and combat platformers” which is equally catchy. 

Shadow Labyrinth doesn’t look like Pac-Man or play like Pac-Man, but it’s also not totally removed from it either: Pac-Man takes place in a maze, and Shadow Labyrinth’s Metroidvania map is basically a giant maze. You collect pellets, you have a little Pac-Man shaped helper, and so on. The connections are there – you just have to squint, turn your head to the appropriate angle, and contort your neck a little. 

I got the impression that Shadow Labyrinth isn’t cynically making Pac-Man edgy so much as earnestly attempting to create a coherent world for not just Pac-Man, but Namco properties in general. Throughout my time playing, I noticed little nods to Namco shmups like Galaga and even the horror side-scroller Splatterhouse. Shadow Labyrinth is not literally Pac-Man, Galaga, or Splatterhouse – it’s a world that uses those titles as inspirations for its own. All of these elements get equally draped in Shadow Labyrinth’s dark atmosphere to make them coherent. It’s a cool celebration with a lot of fanservice for long-time gamers, and a concept I feel a lot better about after experiencing it firsthand than I did seeing the elevator pitch in Secret Level. 

The love for longtime gamers carries over into the gameplay. Shadow Labyrinth knows how to pack a punch with surprisingly involved combat systems and platforming. Your character must use his sword, dodge, and a cavalcade of swappable abilities like a parry to Pac-and-slash through enemies while exploring the map, and they can be pretty tricky. An early cave section featured flying enemies that kept moving just out of reach, while later sections had giant shielded enemies that required rolling past them at just the right time. It’s not just one of those mindless dodge rolls full of invincibility either – you have to be keenly aware of your positioning and timing to successfully get out of danger. 

Between some hectic enemy gauntlets and some tight platforming sections, I died quite a bit. The game does give you a fairly generous buffer in terms of health tanks you can use to recover health like Dark Souls, but it’s also not quite as simple as spamming resources until you get to the next checkpoint. I encountered several longer stretches through caverns and space ships where I’d be unable to recharge my packs, with mid-points only serving as respawn points rather than health refills, so whatever tanks I used stayed gone between deaths. I’m used to games going a little too far in accommodating players to their detriment these days, so I found Shadow Labyrinth’s bite to be a pleasant change of pace. 

Part of the game’s challenge comes from the interesting feel of your character’s movement. He has a bit of momentum to his actions and jump arc that takes some adjustment. Whereas the trend these days seems to be going towards making games control as snappy and friction-less as possible, Shadow Labyrinth takes the more distinctive Super Metroid approach, making the controls themselves part of the game’s identity. I missed many moving platforms during my time with this preview build, but I could never be too mad because I was a little closer to coming to grips with the controls. It gives your hooded figure a bit of character and creates some interesting challenges to overcome.

Although his swordman form took up most of my play-time, the gameplay can occasionally shift. Several platforming sections involved transforming into a Pac-Man and riding along lines. These sections were a fun change of pace and I got the sense there may be some interesting speedrunning strategies to discover during these sections. Depending on how you angle your Pac, you can make him fly pretty far, just barely making some jumps and skipping parts of the section. Definitely something I’ll be fiddling around with in the final release. 

The less mandatory transformation comes in the form of a giant mech. If you have a full meter, you can turn into a gigantic clawed monstrosity and go to town on any enemies in your path. During the demo, I used this mode exclusively on bosses and it’s extremely powerful to the point it almost felt like cheating. I suppose this mechanic may be intended to level the playing field for newer games, but I personally kind of regretted resorting to it. 

My build contained two major bosses – one inspired by the pink ghost from Pac-Man and one inspired by uh, the splatter guy from Splatterhouse? That sounds right. These fights were a major highlight of the game – they each featured multiple phases and interesting attack patterns. I really love the art design on the Splatterhouse boss in particular; he’s gruesome and cool at the same time. Both fights were challenging and required for me to make ample use of the game’s mechanics to dodge attacks, including having to grapple onto walls with a grapple hook power I obtained from the Pinky boss.  

Shadow Labyrinth demonstrated a gripping amount of heart during the few hours I spent with it. It’s looking to be a true love letter to old-school gaming and gamers alike, and I’m excited to see how the final product turns out.