A trip to the Edo period
Established in 1615, at the dawn of the long Edo period, which has shaped Japan for more than two hundred years as we know it today (between the 17th and 19th centuries), Shadow Tactics does not care to offer the player a particularly complex plot , nor to deepen the personalities and motives of the five swords at the service of the Shogun, which has just settled down, but already smelled to be overthrown.
Such Kage-sama, feared and mysterious warlord, aims to restore the chaos before the advent of the Shogun, probably because of the factional warfare has much more to gain than a peace situation: the true motivations of the main villain, as his identity, however, will not reveal that in the pursuit of the adventure,
As with Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed’s arcinota series titles, rather than interlacing in itself, Shadow Tactics puts its best pieces into the incredibly detailed setting that manages to convey the sensations, smells, colors of a Japan divided between medieval traditionalism and the pursuit of profound social and political innovations that would have invested so little thereafter.
The fatigue of the guys at Mimimi Productions clearly points to the complexity and depth of its gameplay, although some of the dialogues between the five samurai at Shogun’s service have been reported for their quality: the narrowness of the whole narrative and the dryness of the Much of the exchanges between NPCs are clear signs of how the German developer was focused on re-launching a type of game that many believed dead and buried rather than offering a noteworthy script.
Not bad, however, because it is in the most contingent aspects of a video game (that we will never tire of repeating it, it’s playability and fun factor) that this stern and engaging real-time strategy offers the best of itself.
Daggers in the shade
Each of the levels that make up the main story of Shadow Tactics encloses a huge jigsaw puzzle, which in most cases can be solved in a variety of ways, using very different approaches.
There are some constants: numerical inferiority, and with it the need to move in the shadow, a good artificial enemy intelligence (forget the so-called stealth sections of the major triple A titles) and the need to optimize resources available form of the five different selectable characters.
Around these hubs there is a gameplay of precision and of a severity that is far from negligible: to enter the visual cone of one of the enemy sentinels, unless it evaporates within a couple of seconds, means calling at least another guard, as well as to modify, even radically, the path of enemy swarms, so much as leaving behind a dead body without having concealed it properly means going to a hell of reinforcements.
The level of challenge is high, but the title does not play dirty: if you use it properly, the player’s resources are always sufficient to solve the various situations proposed.
Each of the five samurai that make up the player’s party has access to unique abilities, which can be combined in the shadow mode so as to put into action diabolically planed designs at the pressure of a single button.
Hayato is the typical ninja that moves in the darkness: he can use his shuriken infinite times (by retrieving him from the cold body of defeated enemies) and distracting the guards throwing pebbles in the opposite direction to where he is hiding.
Mugen is a self-propelled wardrobe, the only one capable of handling the samurai directly, carrying heavy loads and chilling three enemies in one stroke alone, as well as attracting the attention of the guards throwing sake bottles on the ground.
Too bad it is as agile as a grizzly and noisy like a herd of elephants.
Takuma (who has earned our favorite status) reminded us of The End, the old sniper seen in Metal Gear Solid 3: slow in movement and unable to exercise physically, but is deadly from distance with his rifle, which combines to a trained tanuki, ideal to attract the attention of multiple enemies.
