Ren Fuchsfein
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fuchsfein.bsky.social
Ren Fuchsfein
@fuchsfein.bsky.social
610 followers 2.4K following 2.3K posts
Hiya, I'm Ren! 🦊🏳️‍🌈
He/They, 34, Autistic, Gay, Lovable Dorkfox from Southwest Germany

Oldschool Gamer, Electronic Music, English & Scottish Folk Enthusiast
Gaming, language, music trivia, nature photography, politics free zone
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fuchsfein.bsky.social
I didn't enjoy Zelda: Phantom Hourglass all that much.

Travelling by ship between islands felt more like an annoyance than fun, and the main dungeon that you have to traverse over and over got old quickly, too.

PH was my friend's first ever Zelda. It was enough to put them off the series for good.
January 17, 2026 at 3:18 PM
fuchsfein.bsky.social
I wonder how this Bomberman & Wario crossover came to be. Quite bizarre.

I guess it was trying to appeal to people who liked Wario Land. But the gameplay is pretty basic and gets boring quickly.

Bomberman GB was a much more enjoyable game for me.
January 16, 2026 at 6:56 PM
fuchsfein.bsky.social
Shadow Man - Additional screenshots

Version comparison: Dreamcast, N64, Windows PC, Remastered
Shadow Man - Sega Dreamcast Version A direct port of the Windows PC original with the level design fully intact but noticeably brighter lighting and less grainy textures. It's the 2nd best version. Sadly it suffers from audio issues. Cutscene voice acting is out of sync, music tracks cut off abruptly when changing areas and sound effects can get swallowed when too much is happening at the same time. The first US NTSC pressing had even worse audio issues, with samples distorting or disappearing entirely after several hours of playtime. This major audio bug got fixed in a later repressing and all the PAL releases. If you want to play Shadow Man on console this is the best way to do it, not counting the modern remaster. But the PC Windows version remains the definitive release as it isn't plagued by audio issues. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man - Nintendo 64 Version A competent port. Level design has been simplified but the gameplay remains intact and the controls work surprisingly well with the trident controller. Many people have fond memories of playing this version, it was probably the most popular release of Shadow Man back in the day. The biggest drawback with the N64 port is the heavily compressed audio quality. In order to fit the full cutscene voice acting onto a 256 Mbit cartridge everything had to be downsampled heavily and this is noticeable. Rate of fire appears to be slower on N64. Enemies take longer to defeat, especially in the early hours without weapon upgrades. This can be annoying, but the problem lessens once you've collected the first couple of dark souls. It's not a game breaker for me personally. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man - Windows PC Version This is the original version, the main release upon which all the others are based. It was the best way to experience the game until the release of Shadow Man: Remastered. Regretfully it has been delisted from Steam. You're not missing out on much if you only play the remaster, but there's a noticeably different vibe in the original version. It looks darker, grittier, and sound effects are much louder and more powerful. I still like it. A few minor graphical effects from this version are absent in the remaster, such as the red fog when swimming underwater and the lens flare effect when looking at the sun in daytime levels. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man Remastered - PC Version The modern remaster released by Nightdive Studios in 2021 for PC and ported to consoles in 2022. By all means this is the definitive way to play Shadow Man. It makes very minor, sensible gameplay adjustments that make things more enjoyable without ruining the feel of the game. Early enemies aren't bullet sponges, the shadow gun is no longer ear grating, controls are much more responsive, there's an optional hint system showing you how many collectibles you can reach in each level with your current abilities etc.. It also restores a ton of cut content that didn't make it into the original version because of time constraints including three entire levels. It's great stuff. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique.
January 16, 2026 at 6:16 PM
fuchsfein.bsky.social
Shadow Man - Some bonus version comparisons

PS1, Nvidia NV10 Enhanced Prototype, 20th Anniversary Retexture Mod by John Navarro (Karrot250)
Shadow Man - Sony PlayStation Version It's a terrible port, I'm sorry to say. It was a last minute decision to have Shadow Man ported to PS1. The developers were inexperienced with the hardware and tried their best within the short time given to them. We shouldn't blame them for this. The PS1 version is an ugly, low resolution, blurry mess with framerates resembling a slide show. It lacks many sound effects and voice acting outside of cutscenes is entirely absent. Collision detection is wonky. It's possible to get stuck on fences and doors and you can sequence break and go out of bounds with little effort due to inaccurate jumping physics. It reuses the simplified level design of the N64 port with further changes made to get it running on the weak hardware. One neat little detail unique to this port is vertex based wave displacement. Some of the water surfaces such as the lake in the Louisiana Bayou or at the beginning of the Asylum level are animated. The water surface deforms to resemble the movement of waves. It looks quite nice and isn't included in any other version of Shadow Man. If the framerate wasn't so bad it would still be an enjoyable port, but if you have any other version available there's no reason to play this one. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man - Sony PlayStation Version It's a terrible port, I'm sorry to say. It was a last minute decision to have Shadow Man ported to PS1. The developers were inexperienced with the hardware and tried their best within the short time given to them. We shouldn't blame them for this. The PS1 version is an ugly, low resolution, blurry mess with framerates resembling a slide show. It lacks many sound effects and voice acting outside of cutscenes is entirely absent. Collision detection is wonky. It's possible to get stuck on fences and doors and you can sequence break and go out of bounds with little effort due to inaccurate jumping physics. It reuses the simplified level design of the N64 port with further changes made to get it running on the weak hardware. One neat little detail unique to this port is vertex based wave displacement. Some of the water surfaces such as the lake in the Louisiana Bayou or at the beginning of the Asylum level are animated. The water surface deforms to resemble the movement of waves. It looks quite nice and isn't included in any other version of Shadow Man. If the framerate wasn't so bad it would still be an enjoyable port, but if you have any other version available there's no reason to play this one. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man - Unreleased Nvidia NV10 GeForce-256 Graphics Card Enhanced Build This is an early prototype of an enhanced Shadow Man PC version with higher quality textures, models and additional details in the levels. Acclaim worked on this for a few months in 1999 but it ended up being cancelled and never released. As the story goes someone backed up the work stations and wiped the hard drives without checking first if the backups were successful. They'd failed, and all work on this version of Shadow Man was lost. An incomplete build of this enhanced version dated October 5, 1999 was discovered in 2022 on a disc in the collection of Duffy, a former Acclaim beta tester who had passed away. Thanks to the efforts of his nephew Duffy's collection of video game prototypes was preserved and made available online. The prototype only updates the levels up to the first part of the Asylum, everything after that appears to be unchanged. The executable is incompatible with modern graphics cards, but the build can still be played by copying its data folder into the retail PC version of Shadow Man. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique. Shadow Man - Windows PC Version - 20th Anniversary Retexture Mod by John Navarro (Karrot250) A fan made mod released in 2019. It upscales the textures, fixes bugs and restores cut content. It was fully integrated into Nightdive Studio's 2021 official remaster, which is pretty cool. There's no real reason to play this version now, but I found it interesting to revisit it and compare it to the other versions. Karrot spent years datamining and modding Shadow Man and for a while this was the best way to play the game. Shadow Man is a dark, metroidvania Tomb Raider clone from 1999 and one of my favourite video games of all time. It's a love it or hate it affair. You platform and shoot your way through sprawling labyrinthine levels with nothing but your own sense of orientation and memorisation to rely on. It has a spooky synth soundtrack and a cool and unusual story. You play as a voodoo demi god who can travel between our world and the world of the dead and has to stop 5 immortal serial killers lead by Legion from bringing about the apocalypse. I think the only other game that comes close in terms of setting and gameplay is Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver but even that doesn't quite hit the same strings for me. Shadow Man is pretty unique.
January 16, 2026 at 6:13 PM
fuchsfein.bsky.social
I have fond memories of playing SNES Aladdin as a kid. Very fun platformer.

The flying carpet lava cave was a struggle. But the Genie levels that came after felt like a reward. They were really great.

Imagine my surprise when I learned later that Mega Drive Aladdin was a completely different game.
January 15, 2026 at 1:07 PM