Quick Look: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

HD file is not on the download list :( @unastrike

Oh wow, hadn't seen gameplay of this before. Those green vision cones are straight out of Commandos, so they sure are going for the vibe.

This game is great, but damn does it get hard. I got midway through mission 9 (of 13, I think) and got too frustrated to keep going.

I should go back to it sometime.

This is a great game everyone should try.

Also this is Rorie in his element and I love it.

Yep, it's Commandos in Feudal clothing.

Rorie Quicklook

starts very formal.

Upset Rorie didnt have voices set to japanese (as they are by default, i believe)

Man, Commandos was really fun back in the day. Maybe i should get this...

This is yet another game that looks great but I'll almost certainly never get around to playing it. That won't stop me from buying it on sale tho.

i was dumb and just got disgaea 5 for the switch so i think i'm fine on strategy/tactics for now. also my anime quota has been fufilled for probably the next 20 years.

@ripelivejam: Disgaea 5 is such a great game for the switch. Perfect session length for a commute.

@ripelivejam: I overheard two friends talking about attack on titan about a year ago and my anime quotient has been and will remain filled for at least a decade.

This game looks fucking rad and Matt Rorie is also rad.

Wow, I was really hoping you guys would do a QL for this game! It's a fantastic entry in the genre, and I've been having tons of fun with it. Highly recommend to anyone who's even mildly interested.

@rossco81:

Second that. I can always count on him for a good PC game QL. Although $44 is a bit higher than I'm willing to pay so I'll have to put this game on the wishlist and bide my time for the eventual sale!

Woohoo! I love this game, glad it's getting the Quicklook treatment!

One other thing worth mentioning is the excellent gamepad support this game has. The entire UI changes on the fly, and some days I even prefer it over mouse and keyboard.

Also, the mechanics and visual feedback of this game is great. Definitely right up there with Commandos and Desperados series in level of quality and polish.

I've waited for this QL so damn long but it's finally here.

Thank you Rorie and Brad, you beautiful Samurai Commandos you!

Especially you, Rorie. You really prepared this one well.

Quick Looks like this where Rorie really shines!

Downloading demo now. Thanks for showing this, Rorie.

Commandos, Desperados, Samuraios

I expect the killing of civilians at the end leads into something where the populace can either support you or the person instigating the coup and things change depending on if you acted like an honorable samurai or not. There was an old Robinhood game that did something similar I believe. One quick look criticism I would have liked to see one cutscene to judge the story voice acting did look good from the little bit we were able to see but can't really judge by that.

Can confirm, this game is great. As a fan of the Commandos series, i bought it soon after playing the demo and completed it on hardcore.

@rorie Correction about character selection: you can select multiple characters at once. On a gamepad you hold the character selection button and press X, i think. Don't know how it works on K/M, i'd imagine it would be a single key bind.

Anyone ever play the Robin Hood game like this?

I really liked desperados. More than commandos

@indieslaw: Yeah, Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood. It was fine, I guess. But I didn't care much for it personally. I thought it was a big letdown after having played Desperados and Commandos. Shadow Tactics, on the other hand, is great.

The best part of the game is that they didn't just emulate the Commandos formula, but added a lot of really convenient interfaces touches that just makes the game overall much nicer to control and easier to do what you want to do.

Also, playing it makes me wish that 'Hitman: Tactics' existed.

Silver lining to Drew's departure: Rorie Quick Looks

I will play this at some point, can't believe i haven't yet as i'm a huge fan of Commandos, which someone needs to re-release some time soon.

Yeah, about two years ago, actually. Held up surprisingly well, thought it's definitely very dated. I have a high tolerance for old PC game BS and tactics games, though, so YMMV.

This game is a really good Commandos-style game but my one complaint is that the missions are pretty samey by the end compared to say Commandos 3 which had a lot of variety and cool set pieces. This game has really pretty environments but by the end you are going through multiple similar towns or fortresses so it gets repetitive.

But when it's on it's fantastic and has a ton of usability, feedback, UI improvements for the genre. It was in my top 10 last year.

Imagine having like 4 agents undercover in different spots and moving all at once. At that point it becomes like a heist game or something.

But the genre is about each character having unique abilities. In hitman all agents are clones ;-)

Cool to see this on the site. Everyone should play the demo, it's long and amazing.

Played through the game twice. Great game! You should love it if you were a Commandos fan.

This looks great. I mourn never having the time.

I think Brad might have been sleeping in most of this and any response was pure coincidental of him talking to his dreams, but I do like when Roarie gets to show off one of his nerdy games and give us a look at what makes them cool.

So glad that they showed this game even if its a few months later, it is so amazing.

Finally, i've been waiting for a game like this for so long... commandos is one of my first experiences with pc strategy games, it took over my life for a couple months back in 1998.

"Any penalty for killing civilians?" I think I heard that question at least three times or maybe I was zoning out...

The game looks absolutely rad. Commandos and Desperados were amazing games back in the day.

This game is really good! Hopefully I'll get around to finishing it!

On the bucket list right after Bloodborne!

This looks really cool!

This looks rad!

@rorie: great job with this tricky game in the quick look......Ihave been playing it off and on since December and love it to death.

@rorie: Great job with the quick-look, I enjoyed it a bunch!

I finished this game back in January, and boy, what a ride it proves to be. The one thing that I honestly never would have expected out of it is for the story to turn out as good as it does, especially considering how light the story-telling is early on. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that it goes places, and then some.

Hope to hear your thoughts on it at on a Bombcast at some point in the future! Oh, are you planning to check out "Torment: Tides of Numenera" at some point? That thing has a slow start, but it gets real, real good.

I played this game a couple of months ago, I thought it was rad as fuck. Playing thru without raising any alarms was a damn good challenge (I gave up trying to be nonlethal after the first mission, except with civilians).

Also, I played the entire game with a controller, preferred the direct control.

Pro tips: you are not visible when you are setting up your shadow strikes, so you can run your shadow dude wherever to set up what you want, then execute when the guys are close. Also, set your traps in bushes to auto hide the body after it goes off. In most missions that you use Old Man Sniper you can get more ammo for his rifle, i didn't usually run out.

We're going to try, I think, but it might be a difficult game to QL. I've played a few hours and I think I've only gotten into one fight. With the bulk of the game being reading, it's difficult to show off in the QL format, but we'll see!