Shade: Wrath of Angels is a 2004 Hack and Slash-Action RPG hybrid made for the Microsoft Windows.
You are an unnamed mercenary and soldier who received a letter from your brother (also unnamed, though online sources identifies him as "B"), an archeology student currently in Eastern Europe, asking for you to attend an unveiling ceremonry as he excavates an ancient archeological site. But after a lengthy train ride into Europe, you realize the town you arrive in is suspiciously devoid of all life.
And in the equally-deserted hotel your brother rented for you, you discover a pistol in your bedroom. And suddenly there are zombies; which you instantly dispatch given your expertise as a soldier, but on the trail for clues you entered the local church, and meets an angelic figure who calls herself the Angel of Faith, who informs you that your brother - as well as the town's entire populace - has been dragged into the Netherworld after disturbing the peace between angels and demons. The Dark Angel, who fought the forces of Heaven and was sealed away, has been released by your brother and may now return to finish the job.
Determined to retrieve your brother, you volunteer on a mission into the realm of the supernatural to find the souls of the three sisters of Angel of Faith, with the Angel as your guide as she bestows you a holy sword and imbues the soul of her demonic servant into you...
Besides the usual action game format where you alternate between slicing up enemies or shooting them, you're also granted the ability to unleash the demon implanted inside you by the Angel of Faith, turning you into a monstrous form for a few seconds; you're only allowed melee attacks in this form, but your strenght have been enhanced to the point where you deal multiple damage with each hit. You return to human form after a while, and can return to demon form at the cost of your Mana, which you can recharge by stabbing your sword into magical beacons identified by glowing lights on the floor.
"I have transported you through time and space - out of the world you have known. Because it is only here that one can find the truth. Seek the truth. Discover it!"
- 13 Is Unlucky: In the opening levels, you arrive in the desolated hotel you're supposed to meet your brother, with your room being no. 13. That's moments before all hell breaks loose.
- Always Night: Pretty much the entire game takes place at dusk, and the only instance of daylight is in the opening prologue with you on a train and the first stage where you make your way to the hotel your brother's staying for the night.
- Big Brother Instinct: Your Player Character, who goes through three different types of hell and battling hordes and hordes of demons, undead and monstrosities in order to seek your missing brother.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: If your enemies aren't undead, they're giant insects. The pyramids for instance have giant scarab beetles.
- Big Damn Heroes: When the Angel of Faith is revealed to be the evil Dark Angel and tries to banish you, the three other true angels arrives and puts a lock on her power, saving you from a Fate Worse than Death. As the Angel of Faith summons her loyal demonic servant that's inside you to get out and destroy you in her stead, the other angels gives you their energy for the Final Boss fight.
- Blackout Basement: Many levels are set in dark rooms, corridors, or otherwise with your vision heavily limited. You can only see the skeletons, zombies and monsters you sliced up using the holy light energy radiating off your sword as you hack away at everything.
- Blade Below the Shoulder:
- Activating your demon form turns your arms into gigantic organic blades that deals severe damage and send mooks flying.
- The giant demon enemies have organic blades and maces growing from their arms.
- Brain Monster: Floating brains with exposed tentacles appears as enemies in Shadowland.You: Great, I'm fighting a floating brain now?
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are a recurring enemy in all the stages. Egypt even has jackal-headed skeleton mooks.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: The game's Dream Intro-slash-Justified Tutorial have you in an ancient pyramid, learning controls on wielding weapons and fighting mummies before getting outnumbered and abruptly waking up. You do enter one such pyramid later in the game, and considering the stage's tutorial is narrated by none other than the Angel of Faith herself, it's implied she's using her powers to guide you while discreetly hinting to you what's going to happen.
- Fallen Angel: According to the Angel of Faith, one called the Dark Angel is the instigator of a massive war between angels and demons, after being tired of several millenia of peace, with the Angel of Faith being the war's remnant. Your quest have you retrieving the souls of other angels in order to release your brother who was taken by the Dark Angel, but turns out the Angel of Faith is that Dark Angel herself.
- Fantastic Light Source: You illuminate your way across dark castles and interiors of pyramids using your Holy Sword, whose blade radiates constantly with energy.
- Four Is Death: In the past, there are four primary angelic beings, the fourth being the power-hungry, ruthless Dark Angel who kicked off a war that destroys all in heaven, destroying all except the Angel of Faith. And then it turns out the Angel of Faith is the Dark Angel, using you to collect the souls for her.
- Giant Mook:
- Huge, towering demons with organic hook-like appendages in place of hands appears in later stages. The final stage notably have you fighting through dozens and dozens of these in order to battle the Angel of Faith.
- The insect-based enemies like spiders, scarabs and scorpions comes in a variety of sizes, from up to your waist to gigantic monstrosities larger than most vehicles.
- Giant Spider: Oversized arachnids infests the church's basement, ranging from spiders the size of canines to monstrous tarantulas larger than automobiles who can chomp you down with ease. There's a King Mook spider in Necropolis Temple serving as a boss.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Stepping off a ledge taller than you and you'll immediately grab on the egde of where you stumble, and in this state you can move around while dangling but couldn't attack enemies since you're hanging by yur hands. Several stages in fact requires you to cling on edges to scale towers and bridges.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Defied but later enforced when you meet the Angel of Faith the first time. She gives you an enchanted sword, even though you already had a gun.Angel of Faith: Take this weapon. I'm sure you can handle it.
You: What for? I have a gun, I'm sure that's enough...
Angel of Faith: Just. take. the. sword. - Hulking Out: The Angel of Faith embues you with the energy of her loyal demon servant, allowing you to switch modes from human to demon. Your demon form is noticeably larger and stronger, with your hands turning into massive organic blades that rips enemies to shreds easily, although you revert to human form after a few seconds and the transformation drains your mana.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Claw, which you obtain at the pyramid's exit. Not only does it have the greatest range of all melee weapons (including spears and pikes) but it deals greatest amount of damage as well, and can even stun large enemies and knock them backwards.
- Justified Save Point: The save points are Magic Portals that "records your soul's progress", which can be activated because the Angel of Faith made you The Chosen One.
- Light Is Not Good: Yes, the ethereal, benign-looking Angel of Faith, who's constantly shrouded in an aura of pure, angelic light? She's actually the Dark Angel who destroyed the rest of her kind, sparking a war in heaven several millenia ago. Even with the revelation of her true, sinister identity, she's still made entirely of shinning golden energy.
- Manipulative Bitch: The Angel of Faith, your Treacherous Quest Giver, is using you as her pawn in achieving her domination of both the heavens and humanity, by sending you on a quest to collect all the souls for her under the pretext of using them to free your brother.
- Mummy: You'll inevitably encounter these enemies in the second stage, set inside a pyramid.
- Mysterious Mist: Shadowland is constantly shrouded in a fog, where monsters will frequently spawn from.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Most of the levels are populated exclusively by the undead, including "Necropolis", "Ancient Crypt" and "The Hippostyle Hell".
- No Name Given: None given to your Player Character. Meanwhile your brother, whom you spend the whole game seeking after receiving his letter, is called "B".
- Our Zombies Are Different: The game have zombie enemies everywhere, and despite being undead some of them actually maintains a certain level of sentience. Where they can even use pikes and arrows on you.
- Playing with Fire: The minor fire-sorceror enemies attacks you by flinging fireballs, with a Mini-Boss being their leader, a sorceror whose body is shrouded with flames that he picks and hurls from a distance.
- Quicksand Sucks: A few segments in Shadowlands' swamps contain quicksands that will swallow you if you remain idle for too long.
- Scary Scorpions: Giant scorpions appears as enemies in the pyramids and in the Temple of Seth, including a gigantic King Mook scorpion boss.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: You seek your brother, dragged into the netherworld together with the entire town's inhabitants, after the Angel of Faith tells you by retrieving the souls for her she can bring your brother back. It turns out she's lying and your brother's soul has already been consumed, with no way to retrieve him, at which point you decide to put an end to the Angel of Faith's reign. Subverted with the Golden Ending - killing the demon and charging your sword with sacred energy will have the three lawful angels returning the town's populace back to the plane of living - cue a cutscene returning you to the train at the start, and your brother is waiting for you at a crowded station.
- Shown Their Work: The non-undead Egyptian enemies are ancient priests, whose character designs are hairless, right up to their lack of eyebrows (which you lampshade with "die, hairless!" when killing them). Ancient Egyptian priests are indeed shaved of all hair
to represent their divine purity. - Spirit Advisor: The Angel of Faith appears to fulfill this role, showing up in checkpoints and after boss battles to guide you ahead. But it was subverted with the Hidden Villain revelation that she's your Treacherous Quest Giver using you the whole game.
- Squishy Wizard: The first stage have hostile mages who attacks you with either fireball spells or magical thunderbolts. They're however a lot weaker than the recurring zombie and skeleton foes, and doesn't even have parrying abilities, getting killed with quick slashes once you bypassed their ranged attacks. You can also shoot them immediately.
- Swamps Are Evil: Shadowland is set in a swamp infested with monsters, and it houses the last piece of Soul you'll need to collect for the Angel of Faith.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: After your first meeting with the Angel of Faith, you then receive a Holy Sword capable of hurting the monstrous denizens of the netherworld.
- Sword Plant: How you recharge your mana when you found a magic beacon on the floor - press action and you plunge your Holy Sword into the floor, restoring your health until the beacon runs out.
- Teleport Spam: The Final Boss, the Angel Of Faith's demonic servant who's residing inside you before taking a mortal form will repeatedly teleport throughout battle, every time you score a hit with the Claw.
- Undead Counterpart: The skeleton enemies are undead equivalents to flesh-and-blood opponents, but otherwise their stats are the same. Egypt notably have dog-headed mooks and dog-headed skeletons.
- Unexpectedly Abandoned: After arriving in Europe, you reached the town where you're expected to rendezvous with your brother only to realize the train station is strangely devoid of life. As is the whole town and the hotel you're supposed to spend the night in. And then the zombies comes in...
- Voice of the Legion: The Angel of Faith, who speaks with a voice composed of multiple different voices all at once. Each and every single one of her sentences resonates with an echo.
- The Walls Are Closing In: A section in the pyramids have the walls trying to seal you in as you're in the middle of a corridor, and you must make a quick run to the exit.
