Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun - Review

 

A couple of years ago a friend loaned me a copy of Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun by Mimimi Games, sadly it kept having issues running on my computer. Unfortunately, I ended up forgetting about it until I recently saw it on sale in the PlayStation Store. The thing that drew me to the game is that it reminded me of years ago when I used to play Commandos. Wanting to feel a little nostalgia from my childhood I decided to purchase it.

Growing up something I really loved eating was toasted peanut butter sandwichs, the combination of toasted bread, crunchy peanut butter, and some additional butter to go with the peanut butter. It was simple, tasty, and went well with a glass of milk. I have had them since and I am still taken back to my childhood. Playing Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun I found myself asking was nostalgia a good enough reason to try something and would it feel as good as when I was a child. 

Story

The game is set during the Edo period, after years of turmoil and war, Japan is finally united due to Shogun. There seems to be a growing conspiracy to destroy this peace and the only name whispered is Kage-sama. The Shogun assigns Oshiro Mugen, a trusted samurai, to investigate and stop this new threat to Japan. He gathers four allies in his mission, ninjas Hayato and Aiko, a thief named Yuki, a crack shot and gunsmith Takuma and his fluffy tanuki companion. Things grow ever darker as the story unfolds, and you start wondering will five allies be enough to halt the unstoppable force. 

Overall the story is fantastic and had me hooked from start to finish. Watching the characters develop was really interesting and added a lot of depth to the game, some points in the story are really gut-wrenching. 

Visuals 

There are many great backdrops in the game, there are beautiful lush forests, flowing lakes and busy towns. There are no two levels that look the same, and each provides a lot of diversity from both a visual perspective and a gameplay one. The character models are good but could certainly use a little polish as the game looks a lot older than four years old. The only other trouble I had is sometimes it was difficult to see my character and had to pan the camera around and zoom in to get the perfect angle.

Overall the visuals are good and while they could use some polish and a little bit of camera work it definitely wasn't a deal-breaker for me.

Music

The music for the game has a beautiful oriental feel to it and one I enjoyed listening to multiple times. The music is created by German composer Flippo Beck Peccoz, who worked on; Desperados 3, Growrilla, Light On Earth and Fox N Forest to name but a few.

The soundtrack runs at almost ninety minutes, and not a moment of it is wasted. The soundtrack is perfect for the game and for me was one of the highlights of the game as a whole.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a top-down strategy and anyone familiar with playing Commandos will easily see the comparison. Mimimi games have created a modern-day Commandos with an Edo Period backdrop. The game has you command five units, with unique skills across a campaign of thirteen missions. Some missions you will only have two or three of the units other times the whole squad. What makes a game like Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun so great is that there multiple ways to complete each level. Most levels took me one hour to, well, quite a few hours, others online seemed to finish some missions in as little as twenty minutes!

Each level has a main mission and submissions that will generally help make the final objective easier. While the game is very much a strategic one the strategy employed is entirely up to you. For me, Yuki was one of my favourite characters has her trap skill was great for thinning out enemies and was handy with a knife. That being said all of them are very good in their own way. The game allows you to see how far the enemies vision goes with a press of a button, this is invaluable throughout the game. The next most important thing is the Shadow Mode which allows you to coordinate your entire squad and execute a plan at the same time, it can really change a mission.

One of the most things in the game is that if you are going to kill someone make sure to hide the body afterwards as the last thing you want is an alarm going off. If you do set off alarms it will cause more soldiers to appear on the map, stealth is optional, but also advisable.

Overall the gameplay is fantastic, my only regret is that I played in on PlayStation 4 rather than PC as it would have likely improved the fluidness of the game.

Final Thoughts

So, after almost forty hours how did I feel? Pretty damn good! The story was solid, had a lot of heart and certainly hooked me. The visuals were one of the weaker elements of the game, but that isn't to say they were bad overall. Whatever shortcoming the visuals may have had were certainly made up by the solid soundtrack and gameplay.  Overall this one gets a 4 out of 5