The Shadow of Yidhra is a promising-looking adult game sold on Steam that holds great potential with its beautiful hand-crafted 2D graphics and animations, not to mention responsive controls and tight firearm combat, yet fails to mention for the customer just how broken of a mess it can be due to a complete lack of quality control.
Ever since its release in March 2021, the game has not received any patches or care from the developer WhitePeach, but instead has found itself lost and forgotten the day it was put on sale In hopes of making a few bucks from unsuspecting customers who get lured by its beautiful world and characters.
Weirdly enough, the game has garnered very positive overall reviews from its players, thus suggesting not everyone may have a horrible time with it, but for those unfortunate enough to run into some of the game’s more disappointing game-breaking bugs, the experience can vary greatly. This is my experience and a warning for anyone looking to purchase The Shadow of Yidhra on Steam in its current state…
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The Shadow of Yidhra Gameplay
Technical issues aside, for now, Yidhra delivers a less than mediocre experience yet decently crafted where the player gets to grab a gun and shoot zombies in hopes of getting to see some skin every now and then through failure.
In the promise of something lewd, the game keeps its players at the edge of their seats pushing towards the next eye-catching enemy worth losing against in order to initiate a hentai scene. While it is a matter of taste whether Yidhra is able to stand strong on its own even without lewd content, it is certainly something many consider when purchasing the game, no doubt.
The Shadow of Yidhra seems to get almost everything right to make an entertaining experience even if by the bare minimum. The controls are responsive and shooting and dodging left and right feels quite smooth and satisfying, which is the one thing that you as a player will be spending most of your time doing throughout the short campaign.
There are several environments to enjoy, not all inside a bloody underground zombie-infested facility. The change of scenery and beautifully drawn backgrounds is what keeps Yidhra fresh and interesting, that and the plentiful selection of weapons to discover and have fun with.
Telling a simple story of a girl named Delta trying to escape the zombie infestation together with a mysterious child, the writing is mostly riddled with broken English, but even before that, it is simply not captivating enough worth following, but that is okay because Yidhra is more about combat and hentai than it is about telling a good story.
On the surface, The Shadow of Yidhra would be a decent game worth recommending for the small price it asks, but what ruins the experience is a complete lack of quality control that has left the game broken for some players to suffer to a point of utter frustration…
Design flaws
The biggest design flaw of Yidhra, even before any technical issues, is the level design in which the player is completely free to skip every and all enemy encounters without a care in the world, not including bosses. Enemies are either too slow to keep up when run past or too slow to hit when attacking that all the player has to do is just dodge and keep running forward to reach the finish line without a scratch or ammunition wasted.
The only carrot to keep the player engaged in combat is knowing losing the opportunity to purchase a few new weapons, ammunition, and health from shops that are scattered around the levels – a small price to pay when there are plenty of weapons, ammunition, and even health to discover in the world for free and no ammunition nor health is lost in the first place when not engaging in combat by choice.
Whether you choose to take advantage of this design flaw or play it clean is completely up to you, naturally, but knowing there really is no need to do combat can end up sucking all the fun out of it.
Boss fights
The bosses in The Shadow of Yidhra are both exciting and disappointingly underwhelming at the same time. The only reason to look forward to the next boss is to see lewd content but beyond that, there is nothing else. Half of the time these “spectacles” end up being nothing but bullet sponges waiting to die as they fail to carry out the most basic movement and attack patterns.
When they work, the bosses can be less intimidating than basic enemies, thanks to their simple attack pattern so predictable and slow that the biggest danger in a boss fight is falling asleep.
Game-breaking bug
The Shadow of Yidhra could be decent fun for one afternoon despite many of its flaws if only not for its game-breaking bug that is sure to put a swift end to the campaign if you happen to be unfortunate enough to run into it.
Not sure what exactly causes the bug to occur, but not even loading a previous save file far away from the bug area or even in the previous level is going to fix the issue. Once it occurs, it is game over for good.
After having defeated the second boss, Delta arrives at a small town from which there is no escape if the bug occurs. An NPC standing in the way of Delta prompts a text window saying “Let’s go to the room and check the situation”, which after Delta turns around with no possibility to advance past the NPC no matter what. Having no other exit leading out of the area, the player is stuck in the town forever.
When searched online, it is clear that this event should not occur after having talked to a certain NPC in the town. With nothing else left to do in the town and with no possibility to get past the NPC, the player is left with no choice but to start all over in hopes of not running into the bug again. At this point, more than an hour worth of progress may have been made already.
By the time I was done with The Shadow of Yidhra and refunded the game, it came to my attention that there might be a workaround for this bug, delivered by a Steam user “Slugula” on 26th of July 2021:
“Yo! I found a work around.
Okay, so go to options, set your language to Japanese (click left on the language arrow) then continue your game ie. beat the second boss (the maid). Go into the room with the people, get through their dialog (I just hit the escape button). Go outside, and see dialog with the children. Proceed to the right. talk to the dude in front of the door, he will take you inside. Bring up your options menu and switch you language back to English.”
Conclusion
There is no doubt that a lot of effort has gone into making The Shadow of Yidhra, but that only makes everything I have just said even more disheartening. I personally adore games with the art style that is found in Yidhra, even when they often end up being just less than mediocre experiences, but there is no excuse nor reason to support a broken game, I think.
Had WhitePeach come forth with an update by now addressing the technical issues, even if not finished, there would be a reason to sing a different song, but alas, there has not been a word from the developer for months, thus giving a reason to believe the developer has moved on with no interest in coming back to make the game worth recommending.
Is it an utter disaster? No, as we have seen from the player reviews on Steam that there certainly are those who have found the game to their liking without running into too many technical issues. But is that going to be you, that is something I cannot answer but only hope that you may be more fortunate in your experience with The Shadow of Yidhra in case you choose to take the chance.
For more barely functioning erotic zombie games to stay away from, check out Parasite in City. To continue the spirit of zombies enjoyed in a fully functioning game, take a look at Antophobia and Overgrown Genesis.
