Killing monsters with your katana will produce ammo drops, while killing a monster with a gun will produce health orbs. Using left mouse button to swing his trusty katana and right mouse button to shoot weapons, we are slicing and dicing our way through enemy mobs with blood and guts spraying everywhere.
In a memory sequence, we learn how to play the game. Strutting around in his stained white undies and singlet, he’s explaining to the mask of Hoji, the last remnant of the lost God of Mischief, his adventures and where he went wrong. The game starts at the Wang Cave with Lo Wang lamenting the events of the previous game. As a self-proclaimed mix of an Asian Clint Eastwood with Bruce Lee’s kung fu, this game was like playing an Asian Serious Sam with amazing graphics and perfectly timed one-liners as things blow up in his face. There were numerous times where I would laugh out loud at some of the things he said. I do miss that particular twang that Liebrecht used, but very quickly I adjusted and came to really enjoy Moh’s version of Lo Wang. It’s jarring at first, no doubt about that.
In this third game, Mike Moh does the voice of Lo Wang, and while I had some initial doubts, he has absolutely nailed it.
So many of the lines were funny just from the way they sounded, and the humourous writing just made those first two games so memorable. I only played the 2013 Shadow Warrior so my first hearing of the voice was Jason’s, and I loved the Bruce Lee twang he delivered. The original 1997 3D Realms game featured the voice of John William Galt, and the 2013 reboot’s voice actor was Jason Liebrecht. The voice actor for Lo Wang has been replaced in Shadow Warrior 3.