
Wang himself is supremely likeable, thanks to the aforementioned witty writing and actor Mike Moh’s bewitching performance.

The ratio on hits to misses in regard to the one-liners is safely on the side of hits, which stops their constant presence from becoming grating. Protagonist Lo Wang spends much of the gameplay and cutscenes cracking one-liners, including some absolute gems like “This is what I call a Power Point presentation! I point – you die!”. As an example, one of the early finishers grants you boosted health for crushing an enemy’s head… with your bare hands. The experience never shies away from the fact that it’s more than a little preposterous and instead, does one better by capitalising on it with self-referential jokes and mechanics that make no sense whatsoever. It was intense and the creativity behind the enemy design was striking, demanding a high level of skill from the player and plentiful use of the movement and weapon options available to them. Yeah, the fight offered its fair share of humour with its enemy’s design and the ridiculous second stage, but at its core, it worked because the gameplay held up its end of the bargain.

It was a boss so big, I couldn’t believe my eyes. At chapter 5 of Shadow Warrior 3, I was met with my toughest challenge up until that point, the ‘Ancient Cock’.
