Shadows Over Loathing (NSP, XCI) ROM

Shadows Over Loathing is a 2022 role-playing video game developed by Asymmetric Publications. A follow-up to the 2017 game West of Loathing, it was released for Windows and macOS on November 11, 2022, and for Nintendo Switch on April 19, 2023.

It is described as a slapstick-figure comedy adventure RPG full of mobsters, monsters, and mysteries. Your eccentric Uncle Murray has implored your help at his renowned antique emporium in Ocean City. However, upon your arrival, you discover that the old man has mysteriously vanished.

What begins as a quest to find him and uncover the secrets behind his peculiar artifacts soon spirals into a perilous escapade involving clandestine schemes and wriggling eldritch tentacles, threatening the very fabric of existence. Prepare to explore a vast open world brimming with peril, quests, brain-teasers, and stick figures in this single-player comedic adventure/RPG, all set during the prohibition era of the Loathing universe.

Take on the role of the agile Pig Skinner and see how many adversaries you can cram into a phone booth, or embody the wily Cheese Wizard to manipulate the very fabric of cosmic curds and whey. Alternatively, groove to your enigmatic rhythm as the hip Jazz Agent.

GAMEPLAY

Shadows Over Loathing is a role-playing game. Set in a 1920s Lovecraftian setting, the player controls a customizable player character who must explore Ocean City to recover relics and find their missing Uncle Murray. The gameplay is split into six chapters, as the character hunts for relics in a different part of the city while completing side quests. To find the relics, the player character must solve puzzles and fight in turn-based combat. Combat involves using a variety of items, such as foods that grant buffs and throwable objects like baseballs and seltzer grenades.

SUMMARY

The player plays as a character they created who has been summoned by their Uncle Murray to go to his antique shop in Ocean City for something important. However, upon arriving, he is nowhere to be found. The character will have to find cursed objects in hopes of finding a trail to Uncle Murray. Throughout the chapters, the character will gain partners to accompany the character throughout the story.

The character will also have encounters with fish people, hobos, the mob, vampires, Rufus (the protagonist’s younger brother in West of Loathing), gator men, shadow beings, and even a nemesis (depending on the character’s class). As the story progresses, the player learns more about their nemesis and the owner of the cursed objects: the President of Shadows. Upon being summoned to Government Valley, the character will come face-to-face with their nemesis one last time before defeating them and being able to access the Black House, where the President of Shadows is holding Uncle Murray captive.

Previous dream sequences and Uncle Murray reveal that the President of Shadows is Margaret, a woman who, after her dog dying, is made fun of for wanting to become God when she grew up to let dogs live longer, and an explosion in her family barn, the source of the cursed objects, she became the shadow president and gains power with the shadow energy from the cursed objects. The entrance to the Black House is locked by three pillars of Shadow Energy.

If the player has helped the Hobos, the Mob, and Rufus with their side-quests, they can destroy the pillars for the character, rather than battle them. Finally reaching inside the Black House, Margaret reveals that she is opening a giant portal to control the Shadowcaster, the source of the shadow energy, to become Empress of Shadows. The player can decide to sabotage the portal whenever they want, a point of no return and triggering the final boss.

Depending on the character’s actions and partner’s sidequests, there are many endings the player can receive, with them mainly starting with the defeat of the Shadowcaster by the player or their partner, or the Shadowcaster winning and absorbing everything. The rest of the ending sequence depends on the sidequests the player has or has not completed and their consequences.

The game saves before the final boss, so the player can go back and try to get a different ending. Prepare for an uproarious and unforgettable adventure in Shadows Over Loathing, where laughter meets danger and the absurdity of the 1920s comes to life. RPGamer felt as though Shadows Over Loathing was a good follow-up to West of Loathing and praised the humor, animation, and a large amount of side quests.

FEATURES

• A cornucopia of thousands and thousands of jokes, gags, and rib-tickling humor.
• An abundance of new locations, items, allies, adversaries, and familiar faces compared to West of Loathing.
• Expect the same top-notch line art but in even greater quantities.
• Unmatched stick-figure customization options for your characters.
• Engage in strategic turn-based combat, should you desire it.
• An opportunity to overthrow a corrupt government at your leisure.
• Immerse yourself in authentically perplexing 1920s slang.
• Encounter multiple cursed antiques that will pique your curiosity.
• Engage in some rather inappropriate fishing activities.
• Brace yourself for non-Euclidean horrors that defy the boundaries of the screen.
• Embark on a time-travel side-quest, bestowed upon you by your future self.
• Explore an infinitely tall building that defies all logic.
• Encounter sentient math, conversing frogs, and even cats that crave your attention.
• Rest assured, there’s no booze around, as far as the authorities are aware.