Shadows 2: Perfidia review for Nintendo Switch, PC

Shadows 2: Perfidia is dark. Very, very dark…and, unfortunately, not dark in the way its creators probably intended.

See, Shadows 2 is a horror game. Those, of course, are expected to be dark, both thematically and in terms of lighting. And while the setting of Shadows 2 certainly lends itself to both — it?s set in a dimly-lit hotel, where two characters are first investigating and then fleeing monsters that show up on the security cam footage — the reality is that the whole thing is so literally dark you?ll have trouble seeing any of it, which negates the scares significantly.

Some of this is intended, I think. After all, you?re controlling a pair of security guards who have only crappy flashlights to illuminate their ways, and anything outside the flashlight?s beam is intended to be invisible. Done well, this could lend itself to some pretty tense situations — and, admittedly, sometimes it does just that. You never know when you?re going to turn around and find yourself starting at the dimly-lit outline of a hulking monster.

Unfortunately, more often than not, you?ll find yourself squinting at the screen, trying to figure out exactly what it is you?re looking at. Even with the brightness turned all the way up, most of the time I had trouble seeing anything. And it?s not like what I could see was that much better: the side effect of having only a narrow beam of light guiding your way is that you have to focus on what?s being illuminated, which in turn makes you realize how terrible the graphics are in Shadows 2. This is a pretty ugly game — and again, not ugly in the way that good horror can be ugly, but rather just plain ugly.

I?m not going to say that Shadows 2 is terrible or anything, because it?s not: if you want a few jump scares, it?ll do the trick. If you want more, though — like, say, an interesting story, or creepy visuals, or anything that makes a horror game worth remembering — look elsewhere, because you won?t find it here. Mind you, even if it were here, you wouldn?t be able to see it.

Ultimate Games provided us with a Shadows 2: Perfidia Nintendo Switch code for review purposes.