Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Overwhelmingly Positive
Total: 8.61 ThousandPositive: 8.19 ThousandNegative: 420
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a hardcore tactical stealth game set in feudal Japan, blending strategy, stealth, and storytelling into a captivating experience. With an AI Community Rating of 89.71%, players praise its challenging gameplay, detailed environments, and unique characters like Hayato the ninja and Aiko the master of disguise. The game offers a variety of approaches to missions, from silent assassinations to explosive confrontations, ensuring replayability and creativity. However, some players find the controls and camera mechanics frustrating, and the late-game missions can feel repetitive. Despite these flaws, the game’s satisfying stealth mechanics, beautiful Edo-era visuals, and engaging team dynamics make it a standout in the strategy genre. If you enjoy tactical challenges and immersive historical settings, Shadow Tactics is a must-play.
Before I start off this review, I do want to say I might be a bit biased, because of my love for Japan. But even so, that aside, this is actually a really great game! Shadow Tactics relies mostly on stealth, instead of brute force (which I personally prefer). Set in the Edo period, you control 5 heroes (and a raccoon) in service of the shogun, trying to keep the peace and going after those who disturb it. What I loved about the game, is the developing story throughout the missions, as well as character development. I don’t like killing enemies just for the sake of killing them, but throughout the story I got angered about the injustices I saw and that gave me the motivation for a little payback at times. I was really invested in all of it. Another enjoyable feature is that there are different ways of completing missions. Each of the 5 heroes has their own unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Will you go for stealth, force or just deceive your enemies to reach your goal? Maybe you do all of it? I would personally recommend that you play this game with the Japanese voices, instead of the English, as the latter all sound like Patrick Stewart to me (even the women, lol). I mean, you are in Japan, so it only makes sense if your characters also speak Japanese (and this besides the fact that the Japanese voices are just really good and a perfect fit for each character). Funny thing, I was convinced this game was made by a Japanese video game company at first, so imagine how surprised I was when I discovered Mimimi Games is actually a German company. They did such a good job in giving it an authentic Japanese feeling, they had me fooled! Really, I have nothing but positive things to say about this game! :-)
As of May 2024, this, in my opinion, is no doubt, the greatest real time tactical stealth game of all time. Pretty much after Helldorado, the genre pretty much became dead. That was until Mimimi came with this masterpiece. Pretty much imagine this game being Desperados but modernized and set in feudal Japan. The unity engine surprisingly made the game look good, with the ability of turning 90 degrees around the area in a full 3D environment, so no more blind surprises like in Desperados. There are 13 missions, but just like Desperados, all of them are long and take an hour, two or sometimes three depending on how good you are. There is a replayability involved as many missions can be done in multiple ways to earn badges, or try them out on harder difficulty. The story is very well made, and the characters are each unique and likable. I recommend playing in japanese dub for full immersion. The gameplay itself is like Desperados 1, but with QoL added and improved enemy vision mechanic. You will get to know each enemy and how they react quickly and yes, even civilians can screw you. Overall, if you liked Desperados 1, and you like feudal Japan setting, then absolutely play this. Really amazing game, although shame that Mimimi went bankrupt a year ago. They really nailed this game. Full recommendation.
Commandos: Feudal Japan. A steal at the current 90% discount. The potential difficulty stems from finnicky mechanics (mostly based on exact timing/execution). The playable characters in the game correspond with the Sniper, Thief, Spy, Green Beret and Diver.
[b]If you played a Commandos game before and loved it, then you will love this one. This time the player will be transported into the Edo age of Japan, taking control of various characters such as a ninja, samurai or an assassin. The story is engaging and you will end up loving the characters. The gameplay is smooth and the game feels very well optimized. The soundtrack is just a masterpiece![/b] [h1]9 / 10[/h1]
Good game tactics wise. The first half of the game is great. The last third is a bit of a slog, however the last mission, despite its difficulty is worth it to demonstrate what you have learnt thus far. The story is low key and characters pretty ordinary, however the gameplay is the game's strength. If you like tactics, defs worth your time
6/10 This game is really neat. It requires player to estimate the right timing and execute proper actions precisely. But this is way too hard. Repeating save and load does not make a game interesting.
The first level make the game seem like a well designed tactical stealth game. Sadly, after that it quickly turns into a grind of mediocre level design where the only thing you're supposed to do is attract enemies and take them out one by one. And of course there's dozens of enemies everywhere. Unsurprisingly, if you look at the achievements stats it seems like 60% of the player dropped it before completing level 3 and barely anyone goes until the end of the game.
Those 2 hours of "played time" shown above ? Those ? Ha! 2 hours spent in front of a loading screen, trying again & again, time after time, to get the game to work. Win8 Compatibility mode doesn't help, regedit doesn't help, admin mode doesn't help. Idk what's going on, but of course as it stands, it's a big fat resounding No.
I know this is going against the grain some. A lot of this game is very good. Visually very appealing. Very good controls (I played on the Steam Deck and had zero issues). Really distinct characters with unique mechanisms, nifty new twists in levels (I liked the disappearing snow footprints), and the combinations of the characters really changes how you play. I also liked the Shadow mode that lets you create a simultaneous string of actions to pull off big moves, though I am not sure I truly "got it" and ever truly took advantage of it. But, the game starts to get really hard. I lost interest after I finished Mission 5 (assassinating Yobu at his castle). The level was so tightly patrolled that it felt like a very tedious, trial and error slog of slowly peeling back and onion to do anything. I spent 30 minutes after I finally assassinated the target just trying to sneak my characters out to the escape point as they added even more guards and patrols. When the game focused on cool powers and figuring out the fun way to do something? I enjoyed it. I liked the experiment. But, by level 5 it just went from "neat puzzle sandbox" to "tedious puzzle" and I put it down after completing the level. I think the true way they want you to play this is going through the game to learn the levels and the mechanisms. Then, go BACK through to pull off more challenging requirements, or do it without killing or being seen. That all seems fun if you have infinite time and really want to invest. But, I wish the game's approach to difficulty went a different path and not just "infinite guards." It's very cheap, so I definitely got my money's worth the for the 7 hours I played. Still, if asked, I wouldn't recommend it. Not my favorite stealth game.
This game starts with a tutorial mission that provides no background story, just the task to get to a certain gate, and possibly kill many people in the process. I just look at it and wonder why I should care. It's very uncompelling storytelling and game design. I almost play out of a sense of obligation, because I got the game practically for free in a Humble Bundle, but I figured I should give it a chance when it seems to be of high production quality. The story, at least from the very beginning, sucks. It assumes I care about my character and that I care about whoever my character is working for, and this predicament they are in which has brought him to this point. I actually started to write this review, realized I might have overlooked some background the game had given, and went back in to replay it. Nope - there's nothing here to compel me to care about the characters - this is purely "kill the other people because it's your job" as the motivation. At this point I can't say I'm sure I'll leave this installed on my system. ADDENDUM: Allegedly Peter Marinker is a featured voice actor in this game, so I'll give it another try just because I really like his voice.
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