Shadow Lords Impressions Thread

If I may suggest a different way of wording the intro?
_"Our dimension is not alone. There exists many alien worlds of unimaginable power, divided by unknown barriers. _

The Astral Plane, a nexus to these worlds, now ruled by the malevolent tyrant known as Gargos.

Eons ago, ruling Astral beings resisted the encroaching Shadowlord. But Gargos’ mastery of chaos proved too strong and the other demigods were slain, their power made one with his.

Guardians, noble beings that defied the evils of the Astral Plane, fled the wrath of the Shadowlord and his minions, escaping to other dimensions…

… Sealing every portal behind them, so that the corrupting shadow of Gargos could not cast upon another world again.

_ However, Gargos’ mind proved too strong for the Guardians’ efforts. The sorcerer Kan-Ra’s thirst for power was a beacon and tether, and so was manipulated into opening the portals that contained the Chaos._

Now Gargos is invading the Earth with his army of perverted mimic fighters, the Defiled.

This twisted demigod must be stopped, or he will enslave the universe… Forever."

i can agree with the wording, the current wording seems abit dull, but otherwise i like the idea of this mode

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So far so good but i have some pretty small problems…
Well i love this mode first of all and the crafting system is interesting.
How friggin ever i have some small problems with it, as i said earlier, these are mostly just nitpicks and things that may be added, i have to unlock or may change in release, i have only had 2 playthrouhghs so please don’t destroy me if i say something wrong.

1: The pre battle dialogue could become a bit deeper. Even though that doesn’t matter so much in normal battles, the fight with Gargos could have more character in it with more lines.
2: The dificulty is pretty much a walk in the street, first time with Gargos i had killed all Omens so he got decimated.
3: This is something i may have to unlock, so i may be saying some stuff that doesn’t make sense, but Eyedol is my main and i REALLY wanna see him wreck Gargos’ face in.

That’s pretty much it, aside from those things i mentioned this game mode is flawless.

This is a really addictive mode I love it. It was a little glitchy but that stopped I wonder what the future has for Shadow Lords.

How do you get to play the other characters in Shadow Lords?

I haven’t gone very deep into the stalker mission, but I’ve heard alot of reports including the one linked above. I find it odd that in a mission like the stalkers you have ample opportunity for cinematics that no one cashed in on.

My feedback is pretty shallow, but I love the VS screen renders from Shadow Lords. Wish we could select them in other modes. Even if they’re static, the poses are cool and they’re definitely an improvement over the often oddly-scaled caught-when-blinking models we got right now.

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Definitely agree on having the versus screens in other modes too…

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I really like this mode. Reminds me of the first Soul Calibur game which had something similar. It’s basically an RPG mode in KI. Thee are things to polish, of course, but I really like the concept.

With one completed first run of Jago and Kim Wu

After my third play I was ‘crafty’ and tried recipes that were uniQue and interesting

It really is a mode where you want to manage and check inventories etc

A great solo mode!

I’ve hardly played spinal tusk and kan ra but shadow lords encouraged me to give the team a whirl

Only thing is I didnt receive my double points

I’m enjoying it, but I do agree about some of the screens slowing up the action. It’s been about a week since I played because my Wulf got Kia and well, life got in the way, so I may not quite be remembering this correctly, but I think I remembered that if I forgot to feed my guardians I had to go back to the guardian screen, and then navigate the war room and re-select my fighter and modifiers again. That annoyed me a little.

Also, I’m missing something. What’s with the “end your turn” option? It seemed like even when I didn’t end my turn, gargos and his forces moved closer to invading earth anyway. Probably my fault in missing the point.

I’ll probably dive back into it again today. Does Raam become playable at some point? Would love to see why he’s in the ki universe…

Anyway, other than those minor gripes, I’m. Having fun with it.

Something that irritates me among consumables. Is the worm artifact vs the finger in a jar. The finger in a jar causes an increases in corruption world wide so you can fight gargos sooner. That’s all well and good, but the shadow worm reduces corruption only in the part of the world where whoever has it is working. Uhh I work all over the map. Having no clear direction which mission is a story mission, character specific, emergency, etc… I am not really paying attention to who fought where vs where the corruption levels are critical. Why can’t the shadow worm just reduce corruption world wide, and serve as the polar opposite to the finger in a jar?

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(Impression of review or tutorial.,
I went into this game enthusiastically and excited but I think it’s just awful!

  1. Mimic character model shaded green, that’s lame.
  2. the cutscenes aren’t entertaining and need a way to be skipped.
  3. having people train is a bad idea, send them to the dojo if they can’t play. Also using Gargos as a training character? Ah yes, my first sneak peak at the end boss and he just stands their and takes it!
  4. creating items feels forced. Just award the item if you think you need them.
  5. The first real fight is Jago vs Jago. It feels like I’m playing my little brother at the arcade.
  6. why focus on Jago? Since when does KI have a back story and what terrible writer did you get to come up with it?
  7. why does my selected fighter not meet the criteria for the fight?

Why even bother with this? The cutscenes often don’t move and when they do I feel like I’m playing a Nintendo 64 game. Its not original as I feel like it’s a cheap mortal kombat spoof and I’ve always put killer instinct above that. You’re better than this. I’ve found no playability issues but how could their be? It’s the same game as before but with 3 new features, some cut scenes and Gargos.

  1. Your opinion.
  2. They are skippable and it being boring is your opinion.
  3. Ok then. Send them to the dojo? Ok. Once you enter Shadow Lords,it sends you to the dojo and you have to all 32 lessons before you can continue. Great work. Also it was the first form of Gargos. That form isn’t that great.
  4. How does creating items feel forced? You don’t have to craft any.
  5. What?
  6. It doesn’t focus on Jago…
  7. Because some story missions require a certain character(s) or it wouldn’t make sense.
    They bothered because they wanted to make a unique single player expierience. Name a single N64 game that is like this. KI was always a spoof of other fighting games.
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I think this mode is fun and “fresh” to play…

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Did you get butthurt I was giving my first impression. I’ll be giving more feedback. This isn’t a debate forum. Have fun with the preview!

Butthurt? What? I’ll wait for the feedback lol.

The thing I love most about this mode is that I have yet to even spend a single coin of KI gold, getting astral gems is really easy.

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So I just beat Shadow Lords on Normal after getting rekkted on Challenging difficulty. Normal is definitely the way to go initially if you’re a casual player, but for the more skilled should start with Challenging. This game mode is definitely a good use for all that KI Gold people may have bought over the years as it will allow them to even the odds against the harder 3-character gauntlets like triple Arias/Fulgores, or Mimic Thunder, Hisako, Omen teams. It definitely adds RPG-elements to KI and I think it would be a great mode if it had launched with Season One. As I see it, its a good start for a potentially bigger version in a Season 4 or a KI4.

Here’s my pros: The game has microtransactions which allows you to cut corners with KIGold to get the better artifacts for your characters, but just playing the game will allow you to avoid paying money. Its a great compromise that many games already do and I’m glad KI gives you the option. The story itself seems pretty good, and if you can avoid corruption long enough, it extends the story greatly, allowing you to acquire more dossiers, artifacts, and materials to level up your characters. Its quite challenging for even the best KI players as the Omens are quite difficult with their status buffs. The game seems to vary a lot on each playthrough so its never quite the same which allows for replayability. Requiring a complete playthrough including beating Gargos to unlock the Astral Plane stage is a good way to get people to play it at least once. I love deploying Characters to a fight to win without having to play as I lost to Shadow Jago (my greatest nemesis) on Challenging difficulty. He game over-ed me and I could’ve easily won had I just deployed Kim Wu. Going to the barracks and applying the right artifacts to your characters greatly increase your odds throughout each fight and I can’t wait to see how the daily rewards will add to your assortment of materials and artifacts. There’s a ton of information to unlock, but the only problem is the random encounters may make it difficult to collect all the dossiers.

Cons: While Shadow Lords is quite in depth on the surface, I feel it probably would’ve been better to include a Season 2-like story mode or a typical Arcade Mode than Shadow Lords. Not every studio has the budget for a full story mode like MK9/X/SFV, but I feel KI would’ve been better served with that and the information included in the KI Novella (which I haven’t read yet, but I will). A typical Arcade mode (and no Survival doesn’t count) is just a faster way to beat the game sometimes and that’s what I would’ve preferred. When playing SF4, I often went through arcade mode just to play for five minutes, beat the boss, and watch the cutscene ending. And really, who wouldn’t like a ladder with the flaming background where Spinal, Fulgore, Aria, Eyedol, and Gargos sit at the top with a hidden Shadow Jago fight from KI S1 (if that’s still in the game)? Shadow Lords doesn’t allow for a quick in and out because the RPG elements make it a bit more involved. Speaking of that, its going to take a lot of playthroughs for people without KIGold to amass good artifacts that’ll help them through the more challenging difficulties. Anytime a game allows people to pay to shortcut the more difficult aspects of a game is good, but it also costs more money. For long time players that paid for the Ultra/combo seasons, that might be off-putting, but for the newcomers purchasing the Definitive Edition it may be welcome. I wish there was more content to be unlocked through Shadow Lords rather than just the Astral Plane stage and dossiers, like more stages, ultimates, or costumes, but that’s just wishful thinking. All in all, I think this mode would’ve been a lot better if it launched with Season1 than at the end of KI3’s life, if this is the end.

Sorry for my long post, I write novels in my spare time which explains my elaborate explanation. But I give the mode a first-impressions score of 7/10.

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Personally, there needs to be a suprise of some sort. Survive 30 days and once you defeated Gargos,insert cutscene where Eyedol manages to wake up because of the extended period that Gargos was alive.

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