This last week I finished up a unique open concept action platformer that rarely gets spoken about. Not to any extent of being unjustifiably so, just, people (even in smaller Turbo communities) really don’t talk much about it. With having it fresh in my memory I can see why it’s mostly forgettable. It has a generic name, lacks any real interesting features from the onset, and the cover art isn’t exactly going to grab you, but how about the story?
The land of Krellion was once a peaceful and prosperous place, protected by five powerful wizards known as the Ring of Five. However, a dark wave of evil swept across the land, causing the rivers to turn black and the wizards to vanish, captured by the shadow realm. The Dark Ones, three evil beings from the shadow realm, intend to shatter the barrier between Krellion and their realm during the mid-summer equinox, plunging the land into eternal nightmare.
The only hope for Krellion lies with Lyos, a barbarian with the power to change his shape at will. His mission is to rescue the wizards and the Ring of Five before the Dark Ones can carry out their plan.
Must be why I picked it honestly. I’ve been on a bit of a quest to find the fun in some of the obscure corners of our hobby, in which Shapeshifter did not disappoint in being both odd and unique. You’re rewarded with an initial feeling of polish in early areas and pounded in the dirt with clunky controls and unfair boss battles. BUT BUT, There’s an AMAZING variety of areas, and LOADS of PARALLAX!!!
WHERE DO I SIGN UP!?!
A lot of this game’s vibe tends to run parallel to other early 90s gems like Shadow of the Beast and Magician Lord. It’s more like the former in terms of you can backtrack in an open world concept not to dissimilar to Metroid of Castlevania II. You have shops you can purchase weapons and armor, you have NPC’s you can talk to (however, town folk wandering around won’t say a word to you), and a plethora of COOL transformations you can use at your disposal throughout the game.
The panther is the first ability you’ll gain, and holy crap THIS is where the pain starts. The very next area is full of near miss platforming up a cliff, and the panther controls AWFULLY! With each major area completed, you’ll save various characters throughout that will reward you with new transformations. Five different creatures in total; the aforementioned panther, shark, golem, gold dragon, and of course ULTRA MAN!! Ok, maybe not actually Ultra Man®, but it’s pretty crazy cool looking and you can fly through space blowing up bad guy alien gods! Ok, phwew, spoilers.. but yeah- this game gets CRAZY!
I struggled to grasp the transformation parts entirely, even if the concept was super fun. A few of them you only need to reach a certain area and then are able to just transfer back into Lycos and continue onward. The golem area alone is rather silly, as all you need to do is walk (slowly) in one direction avoiding asteroids/rocks falling on you. His armored body prevents you from taking as much damage as any other transformation so it’s required, but still a silly spot in the game. While the shark area is really fun! You’re given glimpses of a water world early on but any time you jump in you quickly drown and need to find a way in. Honestly, the shark areas also have the best play control. No slippery cliffs or clunky jump issues in the water, you just swim around and shoot lazers from your freak’n eyes!!
You can tell through my 3 part playthrough that I got extremely frustrated with some of the unfair boss battles at the end. The amoeba boss/machine thingy and final boss are easily the most furious I’ve been at a game in ages. The play controls, especially with the panther in the platforming areas are just terrible, and could’ve easily used a bit more polish. There’s multiple ways to soft-lock your adventure too if you decide to explore a bit more with the transformations. Transforming costs gems and there is only a finite amount available to you throughout the game, and they do NOT regenerate, so once you lose them all, they’re gone forever!! Towards the end, I just used the gold dragon to fly over most everything too, so I was sucking down gems like there was no tomorrow!
BUT! Still, even with all of those flaws, Shapeshifter still is a rewarding adventure that really pushes what our beloved PCE/Turbografx can do. Beautiful visuals with a fun atmospheric (albeit out of place at times) soundtrack leads to an impressive game. I’m happy I took the time to finally play through it all, and would recommend everyone at least check it out. That is, if they have an inner yearning for absolute pain in the unpolished later areas!
