PAC-MAN: Circle, the Secret Level episode in which the loveable yellow ball-shaped hero was recontextualised into some sort of sci-fi post-apocalyptic eldritch abomination, was pretty weird. However, while it was a radical departure from the likes of the colourful PAC-MAN WORLD platformers, it did turn out to be a stealthy teaser for this game, Shadow Labyrinth. Shadow Labyrinth is a tough-as-nails 2D metroidvania platformer where you play as a nameless Swordsman teaming up with a floating drone named PUCK as you unlock new moves and attempt to escape the maze. Having played several hours of it now, this bold reinvention of an arcade classic is surprisingly compelling, with some reservations remaining regarding some of its mechanics.
The playable chapters I had access to allowed me to experience some platforming challenges as well as a boss fight. While the main game does appear to have an elaborate narrative involving aliens, ghosts, and steadily learning more about PUCK’s enigmatic agenda, I wasn’t able to explore very much of it in the version of the game I played. As the Swordsman, you can jump, dash and slash foes with your blade along with some special attacks. The aesthetic concessions to Shadow Labyrinth having anything at all to do with PAC-MAN seem minimal at a glance, with some of the bosses being vaguely inspired by PAC-MAN’s ghostly nemeses from his host game and some familiar sound effects when picking up collectables. In terms of gameplay nods, however, the Swordsman can turn into a PAC-MAN-shaped Mini-PUCK while grinding along wall-mounted rails in a similar vein to Samus’ Morph Ball mode in the Metroid games.
The other major PAC-MAN-esque feature is the ability to consume defeated foes. Doing so increases your GAIA gauge, which you use to transform into a giant invincible robot with a PAC-MAN in its chest for a short period (it makes about as much sense in context at this stage, trust me), as well as harvest materials which can be spent on things in the main game. The contrast between the bleep-bloopy arcadey sound effects and the highly detailed and grotesque enemy designs did create a bit of a tonal whiplash, but you get used to it after a while.
What I was surprised about was the unforgiving level of difficulty in Shadow Labyrinth. While the demo build of the game fortunately loaded me up with a lot of powerful mid-game abilities and upgrades, enemies hit like trucks, and healing items were scarce, forcing me to be cautious with how I approached combat and to git gud with the parry timing ASAP. The platforming challenges could occasionally be garment-rendingly frustrating, often featuring very tight time limits and highly precise jumps, all the while enemies are taking pot-shots at you in the sky or rushing you from below.
I’m also torn on the way the ESP gauge works. In Shadow Labyrinth, the majority of your special abilities, including dodge rolling, air dashing, special attacks and consuming enemies, all draw from the same slowly-recharging energy meter called ESP. That, on its own, is fairly reasonable as far as resource conservation is concerned. That said, the fact that if you accidentally reduce the gauge to zero, it needs to recharge all the way up again before you can use it, felt needlessly punitive.
It reduces the player to a sitting duck for nearly 10 whole seconds while they can’t even dodge roll through hazards, air dash across gaps or consume some defeated enemies to go GAIA mode and rampage their way back to a safe area. While it isn’t the worst mechanic in the world, it would be nice if the recharge time were a bit speedier to at least enhance the game’s pace and reduce the amount of waiting around after misjudging your ESP use.
Despite those minor annoyances, this small slice of Shadow Labyrinth left me keen for more. While PAC-MAN was quite a bit before my time, and thus I’m probably not enough of a devotee to the original arcade game to get all the references that Bandai Namco Studios have slipped in there, as a fan of metroidvania platformers, I was very impressed. Even the trickier platforming sections never felt insurmountable, and the game’s smooth performance and innovative mechanics drove me to delve further and experiment with what the game had to offer.
After this hands-on preview of the game, I am keen to experience more of Shadow Labyrinth and see more of what it has to offer when the game eventually releases on the 18th of July 2025 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
About the Author
Tom Quirk
he/him
Tom Quirk plays a lot of video games, but when he isn't, he is reading fantasy novels and watching way more television than is healthy.
