Despite it being a short game outside of its high replay value, Shu is a charming and beautiful 2.5D platformer that has a lot to offer between its calm stages and its more frantic moments.
Shu is a platformer that while short, is a magnificent piece of gaming to discover and explore. Its wonderful audiovisual component, a difficulty curve that gradually increases the performance demanded from the player and a capacity to keep the players holding on to it until the very end make this a title that is more than worthy of its praise.
Very good looking game. all hand drawn. beautiful art style. wish more games looked like this one. Is not very challenging until you reach the end with the bonus cave levels. finished the game in less than 7 hours. it totally worth it for the price. wish it was longer. maybe in a seque!
Completed Shu on the Switch yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised by this title especially for the price! The graphics and background are beautiful, but the music is ok (not very good). The controls are tight and the levels are well designed, but there are only 21 levels and I completed the game while collecting everything in about 6 hours. The game's difficulty is good, but some passages are quite hard and it is not easy to collect everything (unfortunately it does not provide more content which I don't like). The game does remind me of Rayman Origins/Legends, but definitely less polished. It is decent platformer with different abilities and I would recommend it! 7.5 out of 10 in my book.
While The Refuge, released on the PS Vita, is not present this does not impact gameplay and the Switch version of this title is far superior to its previous mobile incarnation. The team at Coatsink has optimized this title, making excellent use of the Switch’s power. If you were disappointed by the pace of Sonic Forces and absolutely love games like Rayman Legends, then this game will have you hooked. Shu is out now in the Nintendo eShop.
Yoshi's Island this is not, but it's a honest and cute (albeit very short) platform, with a handful of good ideas but a strange difficulty curve. If only it didn't play that safe, it could have been a first choice for Switch owners.
There are times where you’ll love the flow of the levels and the tension of the darkness chases, but sometimes those moments will be clouded by the horrors of the frustrating level design and unnecessarily brutal difficulty.
Shu is a game with a simple but strong core. Unfortunately the extra features often don't do anything or don't work properly. Although the game looks great, its story is very short and the controls suffer from some frustrating bugs. Your money could be better spent on other games.
Originally released in 2016 by developer Coatsink, Shu has now gilded it’s way to the Nintendo Switch.
When a big bad storm monster destroys Shu’s village, leaving the bird-like villagers scattered across the land. Shu embarks on a journey to save them all and return them to the village. Playing as Shu, you will travel between five different worlds, each containing two villagers that have survived the storm. Fully realizing Shu’s owl-like appearance, along with being able to jump, you can glide, either free floating across the level or riding air currents to reach new heights.
However, each of the survivors that join you for a specific level with imbue you with a unique ability. Picking from a hat of platforming mechanic favorites certain levels being able to butt-stomp, wall jump, double jump, or air dash; the abilities as the survivors come in pairs. So in world one you can butt-stomp and control platforming flowers, while in world five you can air-dash and slow down time. Each corresponding world is cleverly designed to take advantage of their respective mechanics. Giving you just the right time in each level with each mechanic to keep them feeling fresh, just when you truly get the hang of them, you move to the next world and begin learning your next tools of the trade.
Culminating in the final level as many platformers of the past, in an extra long level that requires you to play through all of the mechanics you have learned throughout the game.
While the cute and stylized world in Shu begins as a carefree platformer, the difficulty increases as the game goes on. From juggling well-timed platforming challenges to running from the village destroying storm monster, which resurfaces in worlds randomly. You will die quite a lot. Each level is littered with checkpoints, giving you five lives at each checkpoint, but if you get stuck at a certain section and lose those five lives, you restart the level from the beginning. As the controls aren’t as fine tuned as some of the indie platformers of today, maneuvering quickly through levels while being chasing a huge plume of smoke, doesn’t feel as you would hope. Leaving deaths and successes sometimes feeling more a luck of the draw than a challenge of skill.
Throughout each level you collect butterflies and owls, mastering a level when you have found all of the owls. Which you can replay each level to do, although you don’t unlock anything when you have collected them all, it left me with little motivation to go back and do so.
Included with the Nintendo Switch version of Shu is a sixth world, the Caverns of Nightjars. A DLC pack with six additional levels that utilize different combinations of the mechanics learned from the main game, adding a clever spin on previously mastered moves.
Verdict
Shu is a short and sweet melting pot of modern day platformers. Not breaking any ground, but sturdy and well-executed, I can happily recommend Shu to any platforming fan looking to spend a few hours gliding through this beautiful world.
Be sure to watch my video review on my YouTube channel TheFlannelFox
A half-baked platformer game, which is a little bit overpriced for what it is. Sometimes it's a little bit confusing to understand what is just the background and what can really kill you. Some levels are too easy, some of them are too hard and unfair, especially the last level, when you have to rely on luck instead of ability to progress, which shows that there are some problems in level design.
Each level was a bother, a pain-staking bore that I had to force myself through. The level designs are poorly made, the collectibles are pointless, and the "boss" is sometimes unfair. This games rating should be a 50 or less.
SummaryWhen the great and terrible Storm destroys Shu's village, he embarks on a desperate journey to survive. On his travels he'll encounter stranded villagers survivors of the devastation that need his help. In return for his assistance, these peculiar characters will grant Shu unique special abilities that he can use to traverse the treacher...