Version 1.1.1:

Character balancing is done by a group a brainless devs. For a PvE game if you try to teach the gamers how to play the game you will become Blizzard, but even more stupid. Instead of being taught on how to play the game, I will teach the devs how to actually make the game design and mechanics better and more fun.

I'm a Ferry main, and generally also plays as other female characters, only touches the male ones when I really need them.

Let's start from the bugs. Damage caps being overridden(Parci/Ferry/Zeta/Captain etc.) is definitely a bug and needs to be fixed, otherwise the devs can not properly adjust the ratios of each move for balancing. This is totally reasonable.

However, there are some cases that the exploit found actually ADD more game mechanics and makes the game more fun to play with. Simply eliminating it is both stupid lazy patching and removes the fun too.

Let's start with the canceling charging. This is definitely a bug because a player can get a charge speed boost for free with no price. However, since the offset and dodge canceling is part of the fundamental game design it actually makes the game more FUN. For an ARPG game the action system is the core game mechanics, and the canceling charge actually becomes some kind of "just/timing" system for Parci like Sieg and the others, which isn't his designed game mechanics but it adds more game mechanics to his original boring XXXY combos and people feels really good from the rewards. Basically speaking the game gets free new content/mechanics without the programmers' extra effort. Why do you abandon it?

The only problem is this becomes a META with almost no price and gamers can spam it. The way to patch it is so simple, just trigger the ability CD but only partially. This becomes a price(ability is cancelled but still goes into CD) but also a FAIR price because it only goes into partial CD. And because it is a continuous slider of number one can easily balancing it by adjusting just the number and the gamers will find the best practice on their own. e.g. use cascade for the normal XXXY to trigger the shortening of CDs so that they can start another canceling charge. Now the player can enjoy varieties of playing style and the game becomes even better. Why NOT.

The same thing applies to Ferry and Zeta too. The supplementary damage triggering double loop is actually ADDING more game mechanics and it is EXTREMELY difficult to trigger. Still people try to practice in order to reach the limit, which means a higher ceiling for such a character and longer lifespan for the game's existing content. Why do you patch it? The reason nobody does the normal Zeta loop but just fly and ground pound immidiately is due to the low rewards, which is already the opposite of what the devs want her playstyle to be. The gamers themselves find their own way to recover her original fun because the lazy stupid brainless devs can do nothing but now this is patched? Really?

For Ferry the SBA spam is the same thing. People starts doing the just attack spam because her normal play style has very bad rewards already but even the jump spam does not do much. The only reason she is still fun to play with is because of the SBA gain! Add the SBA gain is not like a order of magnitude larger compared to Cag/Io. If the devs want to normalize her playstyle they should buff the rewards of Onslaught! Onslaught does a lot of stun damage but because stun rewards is so low and so useless due to the stun gauge CD and also the low damage Onslaught is generally weaker in every aspect than the jump spam. People will still do the jump spam if they insist on playing as Ferry but now because the SBA gain is gone there is almost no reason at all to play as her. Cag is an overall superior option to her with a variety of fun combos/mechanics and better support/buff/debuff skills and much higher DPS. What is the point of Ferry now?

If you don't know how to make the game better you can hire me and I will teach you how to do it because I actually play the game!

My favorite part of this game is actually trains and laser turrets. And you sure have mods combining them together. Wonderful. Old-school nerds laying out railways every day.

我一直以为我1.4之前就合出了泰拉靴，后来才想明白我其实是因为一直被霜花和Lava Wader两双鞋子给逼疯了所以产生了曼德拉综合征。

买了好几个月没完等着其他人探雷然后修bug。
什么煮茶老师你还没修恶性bug？
，，，
不行的不行的，这么漂亮的烟火特效结果只是存档成功提醒，用心做特效用脚修bug，煮茶老师你这样是不行滴。
但我还是TM吹爆。

一周目通关，只有一个感想：
太田顺也是怎么他妈想出来瞬移的键位是双击低速+方向键的。
我觉得喝啤酒的人是想不出来的，肯定是喝了伏特加了。
我TM玩了这么多年游戏从未见过如此硬核之键位。
低速改手柄R1之后更是有一种在玩只狼升级版的感觉。
我求求你单独做一个C键不行吗，你天空璋不是做过吗？

The bloody fact that this game can't be launched unless I hack some game files(literally swap filenames of th155.exe and th155_log.exe) shows one truth, that is, more programmers do not reduce number of bugs, especially compared with ZUN's shooter series.( although th16 also has several fatal bugs).

I'd say I have been spoiled by steam platform's convenience. And I shouldn't have expected so much for a doujin game. However, it is still painful to accept all those stupid problems after the game is delayed for so long. Even with that hacking steam can not record my game process. So after playing this game for several hours my gaming time record is still only ONE minute, which makes this review looks absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at first glance lol.

Addup: I'm sorry that I can't submit this review after I write the first version of this since I have to play the game literally for at least 5 minutes. The trick to do that is to launch the game in steam without hacking and leave the memory reading error box on. The nice thing is that steam now thinks I am playing the game and can record time. Awesome!

The controller support sucks. Never try to use left joystick to move. Use keyboard please.

Anyway, I will give thumbs down to this game as a warning to Tasofro. However I'm still very lucky since at least I'm not a windows 7 + nvidia graphic card user, an unfortunate group that even has no way to hack to make their game playable.

English language not supported lol.

It is true that you can use fan made translations as Zun suggested. However, it seems that you can not fuse them into game files legally (literally) without a steam workshop support.

At the very beginning I prayed for either a workshop or Zun-style trade cards but later on I found I would get neither. Furthermore, no bugs would be fixed XD, this game is identical to the original doujin version with readme.txt & omake.txt encoded in Shift-JIS LAMO. (You definitely need a GOOD text editor)

Anyway it is now on Steam, which is enough. I have dreamed this day for many years. Zun is not fond of chasing new tides. And it is the tide that is pushing him. Maybe you will get th20 in a couple of years on Steam with a workshop. Or maybe you gotta wait longer. Just pray for it.

| System : 8/10. I like the new system although it is a mess when cherry petals meet bullets.
| Music : 6/10. I am little bit disappointed at th16's music. Only EX boss and several other sound impressive.
| 2UN : 0/10

一周目通关了，成就完成了约三分之二，来写一下测评吧。

第一次听说shadow complex是七年前的2009年，经由《Geek》杂志的游戏推荐栏目，如今终于得到复刻版登上PC，得以一览真容。那时这款游戏还是xbla上提供下载的xbox 360独占的“小游戏”——是的，单纯看容量这并不是一款大作，甚至都算不上3D游戏。这是一款类银河战士的2D卷轴游戏，只有在特定的固定武器的位置才能开启3D射击的视角。

然而使用3D的引擎表现2D的内容本身就是一个非常吸引人的想法，虚幻3的引擎赋予了这个古老的游戏类型新的生命，虽然玩家的移动被限制在了二维的平面里，但是射击却是三维的——虽然用摇杆操纵起来并不是那么舒服，却丝毫不影响战斗的爽快，除了手枪。抛开恶俗的剧情和隐藏道具不谈，剧情战斗一气呵成，也没有什么困难的谜题，对道具的使用靠直觉就能想到，不会打断战斗的节奏，地图细节方面也下了不少功夫，有大量可以通过技巧实现跳关或者提前收集到补充道具的地方，和成就系统一样可以依赖玩家自己去摸索——这种发现甜点的乐趣是很让人满足的，比如突然你就达成了某一个成就，只因为你一时兴起的尝试。在二周目时可以通过这些地方挑战高难度成就，另外还有三个额外训练场挑战操作，目前我卡在ground 3的中间了，嗯，还是有点难度的。

缺点的话：剧情恶俗，BOSS战偏简单，当然我是指拿到恶俗道具的情况下。

操作建议使用手柄，3D射击视角时可以换用鼠标。

之前一直比较喜欢玩模拟飞行类的游戏，所以对于H.A.W.X.还有ACE都不怎么关注，不过趁着打折就喜+1了。看到有人说是空战COD，这比喻简直妙极，真TM是在玩飞机无双，完全没有驾驶飞机的感觉，玩了3关我头都晕了，各种炫酷机动各种狗斗天昏地暗，竟然还有慢镜头和击杀特写，实在是可怕。第三关油田差点把屏幕炸了，这烟火是跟好莱坞学的吧？总而言之，玩腻了枪枪枪，想换换口味，这游戏绝对可以帮你继续释放肾上腺素。听说还可以联机，等先把单人战役通了再试试吧。