Andy O’Flaherty Reviews Shu…
Originally slated for a release last year after impressing at GDC 2014, and after many graphical overhauls and gameplay tweaks, Coatsink and Secret Lunch’s Shu is finally here. A 2.5D platform adventure with emphasis on speed-running, players control the bird-like ‘Shu’ (a reference to the Greek God of Air) and go on a quest to keep one step ahead of a threat posed by ‘the storm’. Along the way Shu encounters various stranded villagers with differing abilities, and rescuing them grants the player with new abilities such as walking on water, wall jumping and floating on air currents. Players need to use these additional abilities to progress, before coming face to face with ‘the storm’. The game then enters a ‘RUN’ section, where the player has to keep ahead of the storm while quickly dodging spikes and navigating the increasingly complex stages. Fall too far behind and you will be consumed…
Graphically, the game is beautiful, in a hand drawn style that is hugely reminiscent of the recent Rayman games. All the locations are extremely well presented and each carry their own distinctive visual style. The characters are also well animated, but since the default camera view is significantly zoomed out they can be quite hard to see most of the time. The stages are well designed, with multiple routes through each, secrets to find and sections that truly test the players abilities. The storm is also well drawn, throwing a slight nod in the direction of artist H.R. Gigers bio-mechanical abominations. A nice little touch is how Shu holds hands with the villagers he rescues, adding subtle weight to the ‘teaming up’ of the characters in the face of adversity.
The sound design on the game is typically serene, with soft melodic music accompanying the action, that quickly switches to a tense and frenetic score during the run sections. I would have liked a bit more variety in the music, as it stands although fitting, it is fairly nondescript. The SFX and voices are sparse, but serve their purpose and fit well with the overall presentation of he game.
So how does Shu play? The controls are simple enough – a single button to jump, one to glide and buttons to use special abilities. The platforming feels a little imprecise to me, with many deaths occurring through no fault of the player. Speaking of deaths – the game is somewhat on the difficult side, with some extremely unforgiving instant death gameplay that harkens back to the trial by fire philosophy of classic 80’s game design. There is a section on the very first level where the player is tasked with outrunning a massive wheel, which is probably much more difficult than it should be this early on. The ‘Run’ sections are also extremely difficult, and at times feel at odds with the tone of the rest of the game. This is obviously intentional, but some of the time outrunning the storm first attempt is practically impossible – even once familiar with the routes. To put into perspective how difficult this game is, the game fully replenishes your lives every time you pass a checkpoint (of which there are several in every level). Imagine how hard the game has to be for it to do that and you still regularly get game over…
Once done with the main game there are time trials to unlock with corresponding leaderboards to keep you coming back for more, and various collectibles and secrets to uncover throughout the levels. However I find the game a bit too imprecise and frustrating to build up any enthusiasm to revisit the levels once complete. I also encountered a few bugs, one of which put me out of bounds and required me to reset the game, which didn’t do anything to alleviate my already wavering patience…
In conclusion Shu is an excellent looking platformer that plays well enough for the most part but has a few niggles that stop it reaching true greatness. The trick to making a great game is to make it challenging enough without making it unfair. Shu sadly oversteps that mark on more than a few occasions.
Rating: 7/10
Shu is available now for Steam and PlayStation 4, with a PS Vita version incoming.
Andy O’Flaherty
