Released in 2021 on PC, Shieldmaiden is coming to home consoles in a more polished Remix Edition. The third game from indies Dumativa Game Studio, it promises hours of “Neon Lit Pixel Art” fun across nine action-packed levels.
So many broken promises in a single sentence, that it would have to be listed in the Guinness World Records Book.
So there is a scenario…
Shieldmaiden Remix Edition puts us in the shoes of… a girl. With a shield. Who fights robots. To save… another girl. Who is trapped… Of said robots…
Ok, let’s not beat around the bush, we are writing these few hot lines at the end of the aforementioned video game “experience”. However, we are left with only a few vague snippets of a soporific plot with a particularly poorly thought-out staging.
If it is normal that an independent game does not benefit from the same treatment as the AAAs abounding on the market, it is on the other hand incomprehensible that developers had the completely absurd idea of telling us the majority of their plot… during the action steps.
Indeed, 90% of the scenario consists of a dialogue between the heroine and an AI inside her transmitter. This uninterrupted litany continues unfailingly through the levels, simply never giving us the opportunity to enjoy it. Between reading and living, the choice is hardly complex.
The rest is nothing but hackneyed cliches over nonsense in dubious writing, all in English, in a barely legible font intended to be pixel-compatible, in white on a black background.
So don’t rely too much on the plot to keep us going. But maybe the gameplay is better…?
When nothing goes right
The first contact with Shieldmaiden is pleasant. Our character responds well to commands and we are happy to discover the use of our shield as our main weapon.
The latter can indeed be used to defend oneself… but also to strike in close combat and from a distance. A true Captain Carter of the poor, she can throw him in all directions, the latter systematically returning to her hand.
Of course, the eternal jump and dash keys are included, allowing many aerial acrobatics like… jumping, then dashing or dashing, then jumping. Is a revolution looming on the horizon? No ! It’s totally basic and uninteresting gameplay!
It is impossible to duck, dodge projectiles, or even dash backwards. The wall-jumps, used excessively during the entire adventure, are a nightmare. Our jumps are uncontrollable and have a fixed length, so falls are particularly frequent and infuriating…
To complete this ordeal, a gauge allows us to trigger a super attack grazing everything in its path. But to fulfill the latter, the developers had the wonderful idea of forcing us to… block the yellow projectiles. Not the reds. Not melee attacks. No. It is only the little chick-colored balls that have the ability to recharge it.
Worse still, the bosses (an incredible number of… four) are immortal. To succeed in hurting them, it is mandatory to break their defense… using our super.
We therefore regularly find ourselves facing enemies whose pattern we must learn in order to absorb the right attacks at the right time, before releasing the pressure and hammering them. Exciting.
The other antagonists are unfortunately not much better. A dozen different robot models will try to hinder our progress. And if we insist on the term “try”, it’s not for nothing: Shieldmaiden wants to be an old-fashioned action/platform game, in the purest line of Mega Man. The problem is that by offering us very wide levels with a level design that is anything but mastered and by removing any possibility of earning the slightest bonus for eliminating said enemies; the title strongly encourages us to… simply dodge them.
The vast majority of fights are just pointless and very easy to skip. To overcome this, we are regularly confronted with areas impossible to flee where it is necessary to get rid of all the antagonists on the screen. One more cache-misery which is certainly not to be credited to the title.
Subway Surfer
Not content with a bland plot, a puppet gameplay and a forgettable level design, Shieldmaiden also dares to offer us four areas to cross (and not nine, as indicated on the developer’s site). And if we didn’t use the term “biome”, it’s on purpose.
On the program: a city in ruins and a botanical garden. Others ? They’re the same, but with a slightly different level design and way more enemies. Ah yes, at the end we are entitled to a city in ruins… but with a big yellow ball in the background, symbolizing a cataclysm visibly.
But what is the lifespan of this exceptional title? One hour. We completed our first run in a small, tiny, rickety hour of play.
To bring these different levels together, the developers still thought of adding a completely empty central hub, in the corridors of a metro. We will therefore go through the decrepit corridors of the RER B between each one, to better appreciate the quality of writing and to cuddle the robotic dog, or even to detail the rare recoverable and sometimes concealed objects (such as a teddy bear, a ribbon or a seed). Is it useful to the plot? Do they unlock new abilities or features? Absolutely not. They’re just cosmetic and aren’t even equippable to add a touch of “fun” to the title.
Tested on Xbox One X
