Lo Wang is a kind of modern samurai, armed with nothing but a sword as he heads to a potentially dangerous exchange on the orders of his boss, Orochi Zilla.

The original Shadow Warrior was almost devoid of story, but there’s a surprisingly involved story here. And this time he spends a lot of time talking about other stuff too. Lo Wang cracks jokes often, but none of those jokes are based around his accent (unlike the original game) and some of them are even pretty funny. The writing is definitely better, if not perfect. Their efforts in this regard don’t go as far as I’d hoped. Given the controversy around the original Shadow Warrior, I was expecting the team to be more mindful of cultural appropriation, being careful to write an adventure that avoids cultural and racial stereotypes. Why was it so important that Lo Wang have an accent? And if it was that important, why not hire a Chinese actor to play him? Although I wouldn’t blame Chinese actors for not wanting to participate in a remake of a game so infamous for racism, made by a team of mostly white men. Everyone else in the game just has an American accent, even though it’s set in Japan. It’s not nearly as egregiously caricatured as John William Galt’s performance as Lo Wang in the original game, but it’s still weird. And he is still affecting a Chinese accent. Lo Wang is still played by a white man, Jason Liebrecht. Shadow Warrior still stars Lo Wang, an enforcer for Zilla Enterprises in Japan. It’s certainly better than Shadow Warrior, but doesn’t escape some of that game’s problems. The positive reception to these newer games was what inspired me to play the original for comparison, and now I’ve also played the 2013 version of Shadow Warrior, by Polish studio Flying Wild Hog.

Which is why I was surprised to see it get a remake in 2013, and even more surprised that it earned praise from critics and was successful enough to become a whole new franchise, with a well-liked sequel in 2016 and a third game planned to release this year. I’d heard that it was racist, and it very much is. I recently wrote about Shadow Warrior, the 1997 follow-up to Duke Nukem 3D.

As always, you may click on images to view larger versions. This post is part of the Keeping Score series about games and their soundtracks.

Shadow warrior 2013 level 3