Review: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (Steam)

Shadow Tactics is a hardcore tactical stealth game set in Japan around the Edo period. A new Shogun seizes power over Japan and enforces nationwide peace. In his battle against conspiracy and rebellion, he recruits five specialists with extraordinary skills for assassination, sabotage and espionage.

Pros:

• Decent graphics with some really cool animations and environments.
• Video options-Quality, Shadow res, Shadow distance, AA, Texture res, Grass rendering, Reflections, Anisotropic filtering, Ambient occlusion, Resolution, Full screen and V-Sync.
• Colorblind mode.
• Full controller support.
• Sensitivity for mouse and controller.
• Can rebind the keys for the keyboard and controller.
• Japanese/English voice work. Japanese has English subtitles.
• Three difficulties- Beginner, Normal and Hardcore.
• Can save/load at any point in game. You have 3 slots to save to.
• Save timer. Will tell you how long since you last saved, Changing colour the longer it goes.
• Opening and ongoing tutorial support.
• Steam Achievements.
• Steam trading cards.
• Has a Commandos feel to it all and in a lot of ways is a spiritual successor to the franchise.
• Ability to highlight areas of interest like grapple hooks, Doors, Hiding spots and enemies.
• Very atmospheric.
• Powerful yet relevant soundtrack.
• Find/earn new tools and weapons. Things like medikits and Shuriekens.
• Full alert status cycles. Very akin to Metal Gear series. Enemies will go suspicious then attack then full hard boiled, Hunting you down and checking buildings and bushes.
• Enemies have a area of sight and you can see this sight and use it to your advantage.
• Proper stealth tactical game play that is solid! Mistakes are your fault and no one elses.
• Shadow mode- Allows you to have people move to way points or do actions. In short you can give commands to your team members. Including tactics like joint attack moves or hitting switches in sync etc.
• The game is really clever and taxing but the presentation and feel keep you involved.
• You unlock new characters to play as and each one has unique abilities.
• Situations can have many answers.
• The campaign is a long one and can easily take 30 plus hours.
• Badges-Earn badges for doing particular feats in game.
• Well polished.

Cons:

• Long initial load.
• Controls on the controller take a while to get used to.
• Constant difficulty spikes but this depends on the player and his/her actions.
• Game can have you overthinking even the simplest of scenarios.
• Few issues like freezing or save corruptions.
• The auto save/load function can cause long load times in places.
• Some sections of the game feel less “Tactic” and more “You must do it this way to proceed”