Shadow Labyrinth is the latest game in the Pac-Man series by Bandai Namco, something that is not apparent from an outside perspective. It is a search-action platformer, more colloquially known as a Metroidvania, that uses the identity of Pac-Man to create something new for the studio. Unfortunately, it is not something new for the gaming industry where search-action games are a dime a dozen, and in this competitive landscape Shadow Labyrinth doesn’t quite cut it.
Originally debuting as a part of Amazon’s Secret Levels anthology of video game-related animated shorts, Shadow Labyrinth appeared to be a bizarre, dark sci-fi adaptation of Namco’s beloved mascot. It was an unexpected but intriguing direction for Pac-Man and, as it turned out, Namco’s other beloved arcade games as well, including Galaga and Xevious. As the story of Shadow Labyrinth unfolds it reveals itself to be a celebration of Namco’s arcade history, combining many of its games into a brand-new universe.
Shadow Labyrinth follows the story of the “Swordsman”, a lost soul pulled into the world of Shadow Labyrinth by PUCK, a mysterious support droid that is still fighting an alien war that began over 100 years ago. There’s plenty of intrigue and twists to the tale as it unravels to be a part of Bandai Namco’s long-running United Galaxy Space Force timeline – a multi-franchise sci-fi epic.
From this perspective, Shadow Labyrinth is an exciting title for world building and long-time fans of Namco’s games will find some enjoyment out of it. Unfortunately, that is about all it really offers as beyond its story Shadow Labyrinth is a fairly mediocre entry into its genre, and a frustratingly boring one at its worst.
The biggest issue is its pacing. In Super Metroid, one of the games the Metroidvania genre is named for, Samus begins her journey with just a blaster, but one hour in and she’s acquired the Morph Ball, Missiles, Bombs and Charge Beam. Movement-wise, Samus can do all the basic platforming movements expected of this era, but also a wall-jump and moonwalk. There is a lot to work with and it provides great variety. Shadow Labyrinth’s Swordsman doesn’t reach this equivalent status even eight hours into the game.
The early parts of Shadow Labyrinth are incredibly repetitive, with long stretches of boring looking locations and the same enemy types ad nauseum. The Swordsman has a sword with a three-hit combo. Eventually a fourth hit is unlocked, which doubles as a ranged attack, a parry is learnt, the Mini-PUCK power is obtained, and a giant robot (GAIA) transformation is unlocked, but the latter two are very situational. Unlike Metroid’s morph ball, the Mini-PUCK power is only usable in specific locations and GAIA is more of a temporary power form that prevents some brief immunity.
There are some additional abilities that can be purchased in the early game but it requires backtracking, and many of them are passive and don’t provide much change to the gameplay. Thankfully, after the eight-hour mark things start to become more interesting, both in the gameplay and story. The new combat and movement options provide a nice change of pace to the tired gameplay and it’s here where the story begins to delve into its lore. Prior to this, the story is just “make it to the tower” and that’s it.
The world also opens up eight hours in. The search-action genre is known for its big, explorable maps where searching for the right route forward is a core aspect of the design. Shadow Labyrinth is one of the most linear examples of this genre out there, pushing the player forward and rarely, if ever, coming back on itself. That makes backtracking for missed collectables in the late game rather slow and boring. There are fast travel options but only to the save points, and even those are few and far between.
This lack of save and checkpoints contributes to another issue that Shadow Labyrinth has: the game is difficult and dying will be a regular occurrence. Thankfully, it is kind enough to place respawn points near difficult encounters, like bosses, but the lack of any kind of health pick-up means that attrition and surprise attacks will slowly but surely drain the health bar, potentially resulting in a loss of progress caused by a slow death. With how large the world is and how repetitive its combat is in the early stages, death doesn’t feel like the only punishment players receive for failure.
Even after the story and combat picks up in the midpoint, the pacing is still pretty poor, and the boss encounters and level design are still occasionally frustrating in a way that feels unfair. Ultimately, when Shadow Labyrinth reaches its high points it very quickly falls back into the same issues it had early on, only to rise once more for another highlight moment. It says something when the best part of the gameplay is the occasional moment it stops being a search-action game and leans into the Pac-Man aspect, which is, for the most part, purely referential.
