Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun Demo

Being an assassin nowadays is much tougher than it was a few hundred years ago, given the fact that there are all sorts of surveillance systems and alarms that make it next to impossible to infiltrate certain facilities without inside help. On the other hand, you can also argue that new-age hitmen also have access to advanced weaponry and hi-tech gadgets, so maybe the job is not exactly impossible.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a top-down tactical stealth game designed for the hardcore fans of the genre, in which your task is to infiltrate well-guarded enemy facilities and take out certain targets. Unlike most arcade games out there, the missions are much tougher to pass, especially since you must study the level layouts and pay attention to guard patrol patterns.

The action takes place in Japan during the Edo period, and as it’s only natural for that era, the shoguns are hard at it when it comes to the wars between regions. Obviously, sometimes it’s much easier to destroy your enemies with a hidden dagger than with actual battles, which is where your team comes in. Thus, you have a wide array of specialists at your disposal, and they all have their unique ways to stay hidden.

Although sometimes you are forced to put down enemies in order to get past them, most of the time you are free to choose whether to make your presence known or not. Hence, there are both lethal and non-lethal attacks, depending on your attitude. Naturally, each character has unique weapons and special abilities that allow it to perform the desired moves over the course of a mission.

Lastly, the level design is worthy of praise as well, because the designers managed to create a vibrant atmosphere full of interesting details, even if the maps are fairly linear most of the time. You can tell that a lot of work went into every landscape and scenario, because you can lose a lot of time just admiring the scenery around you.

In the end, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is certainly worth keeping an eye on if this demo is any evidence. Hence, hardcore fans of the stealth genre should feel right at home, although the gameplay seems a bit oversimplified in certain cases.