Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Developer(s)	Mimimi Productions
Publisher(s)	Daedalic Entertainment
Director(s)	Dominik Abé
Designer(s)	Martin Hamberger Moritz Wagner Felix Friedlein
Programmer(s)	Dominik Abé
Artist(s)	Bianca Dörr
Writer(s)	Martin Hamberger Dennis Huszak
Composer(s)	Filippo Beck Peccoz
Engine	Unity
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows Linux PlayStation 4 Xbox One macOS
Release	December 6, 2016 PlayStation 4, Xbox One August 1, 2017
Genre(s)	Real-time tactics
Mode(s)	Single-player

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a stealth-oriented real-time tactics video game, with a gameplay similar to the Commandos and Desperados series. The game was released on December 6, 2016^[1][2] and received three German Developer Awards (best German game, best PC/console game, best game design).

Plot

The game's setting is loosely based on Japan's Edo period. A new shogun has unified Japan after years of war, but now a mysterious new warlord named Kage-sama has emerged, jeopardizing the country's stability. The shogun tasks Mugen, a samurai in his service, with determining Kage-sama's identity and alliances. Mugen recruits four agents skilled in infiltration and assassination: Hayato, a ninja; Yuki, a thief; Aiko, a spy; and Takuma, a sharpshooter. They identify and kill two of Kage-sama's allies: Lord Yabu and the rogue general Okkoto. While pursuing a lead on Kage-sama's location, they are caught in a trap. Kage-sama turns out to be the shogun's brother and senior general, Noboru. The shogun's peace doesn't suit Noboru and he wants to return Japan to a state of war, where warriors like him are in their element. By holding Mugen's comrades hostage, Noboru forces Mugen to lead him to the secret refuge of the shogun's son, whom Noboru's own son murders. Noboru imprisons Mugen's comrades and leaves Mugen a knife for him to commit suicide with. Mugen's comrades escape, but Mugen chooses to commit suicide for failing his shogun. His four comrades kidnap Noboru's son and drag him before the shogun where he confesses. The shogun then sends his agents to assassinate Noboru in his castle. Having avenged Mugen, the four comrades part ways.

Gameplay

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is patterned after the Commandos games. It is a real-time tactics video game with an emphasis on stealth. The player commands a squad of up to five characters and must infiltrate heavily guarded enemy compounds. Each enemy guard has a cone of vision which the player characters must evade. If a guard spots a corpse or one of the player characters, he will raise the alarm, and additional soldiers will spawn from nearby buildings and begin patrolling the area. Thus a reckless approach will only make the player's task more difficult. The crux of the gameplay involves studying the patrol routes of the guards and their cones of vision, isolating a single guard by distracting his comrades, then killing said guard stealthily and hiding the body. In this way, the player can pick off enemies one by one in order to work toward the objective.

The environments in this game are more detailed and interactive than the environments of the Commandos games. Some objects such as vases and icicles can be dropped from a great height to either create a distracting noise or kill an enemy beneath (or both). Bushes can be used for concealment and to dispose of bodies. In night missions, the enemies' cones of vision are weakened, but standing in bright light makes you especially noticeable against the darkness. Whereas the Commandos games had mostly 2D environments, the environments in this game are rendered in a fully-3D, which means the camera can be rotated freely.

In each mission the player has up to five of these characters to use:

• Hayato can kill enemies other than samurai at a distance with his shuriken, which he can recover and reuse. He can also distract guards by tossing pebbles.
• Yuki can set a trap that kills anyone who steps on it other than samurai, and can lure guards to her location with her flute.
• Mugen can lure a guard to a certain spot by a tossing a bottle of sake there. He can kill any number of non-samurai guards within a circle at once with his Sword Wind ability. He can lift heavy objects such as barrels of gunpowder or two corpses at once. He is the only character who can fight samurai in melee, being a samurai himself.
• Aiko can disguise herself as a geisha or priestess once she steals some appropriate clothing. She can distract most enemies with small talk, but her disguise will not fool enemy samurai. She can also toss sneezing powder to temporarily reduce a guard's cone of vision.
• Takuma has a sniper rifle, grenades, and a trained tanuki that can distract multiple enemies by dancing and chirping. Because of his advanced age, he cannot fight enemies in melee or move bodies.

All the player characters carry firearms, but only Mugen's hand cannon is powerful enough to kill samurai. Most of the guards in the game are also equipped with firearms. Eschewing historical accuracy, these firearms can fire repeatedly and with great accuracy. Hayato, Yuki, and Aiko can climb vines and jump off roofs, making them very mobile.

The NPCs the player will confront in the game include:

• Regular guards are usually armed with muskets but occasionally spears.
• Straw hat guards cannot be lured from their posts.
• Samurai are immune to many forms of attack.
• Most unarmed civilians will panic at the sight of the player characters and alert the guards. A few civilians are friendly.

Reception

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun received "overwhelmingly positive" reviews from critics according to review aggregator website Metacritic.^[4] Rock, Paper, Shotgun found the game better than Commandos 2 and the Desperados series.^[9]

References

External links

• Official website