Support NeoGAF

[More_Badass]

http://www.shadow-tactics.com/
Launch trailer | E3 beta developer walkthrough | Announcement trailer
Steam | GOG | GMG
$39.99, PC/Mac/Linux, coming to PS4/Xbox One later
Demo available on Steam & GOG

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a hardcore tactical stealth game set in Japan around the Edo period.

Take control of a team of deadly specialists and sneak in the shadows between dozens of enemies. Choose your approach when infiltrating mighty castles, snowy mountain monasteries or hidden forest camps. Set traps, poison your opponents or completely avoid enemy contact.

- Play as five completely different characters with their unique skill set
- Conquer seemingly impossible challenges where you are outnumbered ten to one
- Find dozens of ways to take out your opponents the way you want
- Jump from roof to roof and climb large buildings to attack the enemy from above
- Explore beautiful environments of ancient Japan in the Edo era
- Choose from three difficulty levels to match your skill

RockPaperShotgun

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun awakens a genre that has been in deep hibernation for more than a decade...Shadow Tactics recreates the pace and play patterns of its predecessors with touching loyalty. In the few areas where it does alter the formula, it does so with care and cleverness.
Atmospheric and impossible to rush, Shadow Tactics is a fabulous game – a game I think I prefer to both Commandos 2 and Desperados.

God Is A Geek - 8/10

Each level takes plenty of skill, and you’re given some great abilities and weapons to execute your attack, even if the levels take a long time to complete.

Eurogamer Poland - 8/10

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun manages to resurrect a genre without a good representative for almost a decade. Minor shortcomings of this title can't lessen the satisfaction of every successful mission or a smart move around enemies.

 

[prudislav]

yay long lost genre is back and with actually great game \o/\o/\o/

 

[Anno]

I have no concept of whether or not I'd like this game (I think I would), but that's a rad trailer. Gonna track down some additional gameplay.

 

[HashtagLapsed]

Really tempted to pick this up but may have to wait a bit. Fucking Christmas funds.

 

[More_Badass]

I have no concept of whether or not I'd like this game (I think I would), but that's a rad trailer. Gonna track down some additional gameplay.

Real time stealth strategy, using each character's unique abilities to distract, outmaneuver, kill, etc.

Try the demo, the missions are long (first one took me like 90 minutes)

 

[More_Badass]

Reactions to the demo from the other thread

The demo made me want this day one, not played a Commandos style game in years. Great fun.

I think I'll buy this game. The demo is well done, mechanics are fleshed out, runs great and I'm a Commandos fan.

Played the demo and thought this was a very good one of these type of games. Seemed a bit more forgiving than I remember the Commandos games being too.

I grabbed the demo... this is really good. Commandos for the modern era. Lots of nice little features and tweaks that make the core systems shine. I love the theme and the Japanese is quite convincing. Will buy when it comes out!

Everything about the game feels really well thought out and polished from what I played in the demo. The Japanese voiced dialogue was really well done, too. It's clear some native speakers worked on or consulted on the game.

This game really came out of nowhere for me, but I'm very excited for it after trying the demo.

I tried the demo the other day too, it really is Samurai Commandos. Pretty good intro level and the game works with DS4 without needing third party software.

I'll probably wait for reviews though.

Finished the demo as well. Loved It, day one!

Yeah I think this will probably be my xmas treat to myself and pick it up closer to xmas day. The demo's fantastic, it also has full controller support and actually works pretty well from my time with it as far as I can tell. Feels a bit different as you are directly controlling the characters too. I must pick up the devs previous game The Last Tinker also, heard that wasn't too bad either.

 

[Coriolanus]

The game is outrageously good from the very first level. Truly a modern Commandos, with all that it entails.

I mean, by default, a color-coded timer pops up on screen to warn you if your last quicksave is older than a minute, heh. (And yes, it can be toggled off. nearly everything can).

 

[HashtagLapsed]

Fuck it, bought it now. Can't wait to jump into it tonight.

 

[Anno]

Looks like one of the dev studio co-founders is/was doing an AMA on r/games

 

[afternoon delight]

I'll be purchasing this thanks to watching several level playthroughs, it's exactly my kind of puzzle game. What a dormant genre to revive! And with such nice presentation and options. The devs have my attention most definitely from now on.

I'm also a real sucker for the period and stealth tactics sooooo yeah it's on mi radar.

 

[More_Badass]

I'll be purchasing this thanks to watching several playthroughs, it's exactly my kind of puzzle game. What a dormant genre to revive! And with such nice presentation and options. The devs have my attention most definitely from now on.

I'm also a real sucker for the period and stealth tactics sooooo yeah it's on mi radar.

I'm hoping it's the Divinity of this subgenre, I want more games like this

Looks like one of the dev studio co-founders is/was doing an AMA on r/games

This is interesting

We'd love to work on the Commandos IP and we've tried to contact Pyro regarding this, but without any relevant success. So there's nothing we can really share, sorry! Maybe, if the game does really good, they'll answer us

 

[Karak]

Working on my review now. It is nice to see these kinds of games being made good or bad. They just get so little representation.

 

[Anno]

This is interesting

So is this!

Weellllll ... first of all, the IP of Commander Keen is kind of "buried" in contracts. Not even Tom Hall, the original creator of the game, has access to it. So, before really thinking about how the game would look like, one would have to negotiate a lot (I tried, but there's not a lot of interest in that IP from the publisher side, afaik it's currently owned by Bethesda/Zenimax ... and they are looking for much bigger content).

 

[Atolm]

Bought it as soon as I received the email saying it was up. I'll try to play for a bit tomorrow , downloaded it today and booted it up for a few mins. Progress from the demo carries over to the main game so you won't have to repeat the tutorial mission.

 

[Coriolanus]

Huh. The game has no drm.

These devs really are something special.

 

[More_Badass]

Working on my review now. It is nice to see these kinds of games being made good or bad. They just get so little representation.

Looking forward to it

 

[arcticice]

Looks awesome. will give demo a shot tonight

 

[Granjinha]

also doing a review for it but it's going to take some time for it to come out

went in expecting a janky mess that was good fun, came out with a super polished, beatiful and responsive game, full of options

it's legit good. every commandos/desperados fan HAS to buy this.

 

[Morfeo]

This looks amazing! I loved Commandos enough to even complete the expansion, which is one of the hardest gaming Ive ever done. Could never get the sequel or Desperados to work for some reason, so didnt play that. But definitely keeping an eye out on this!

 

[Sloane]

went in expecting a janky mess that was good fun, came out with a super polished, beatiful and responsive game, full of options

it's legit good. every commandos/desperados fan HAS to buy this.

Yeah, same here, game feels incredibly polished, quite the opposite of what I was expecting. Great stuff so far, might very well be a GOTY contender for me. Please don't ignore this one, guys!

 

[epmode]

I really love the option for Japanese dialogue. The whole package is polished as hell and I'm glad I bought it.

 

[Sinatar]

Well all the positive impressions here and elsewhere, along with being a huge fan of Commandos, I decided to pull the trigger on this. I probably won't have a chance to play it for awhile, but I think it's worth supporting efforts like this.

 

[grandwizard]

I really dug the demo of this. Seems like they've made some really smart changes to the formula to make it more playable today. Price is a bit too high right now though so I'm going to have to wait for a sale.

 

[Sinatar]

I really dug the demo of this. Seems like they've made some really smart changes to the formula to make it more playable today. Price is a bit too high right now though so I'm going to have to wait for a sale.

It's $10 off at Green Man Gaming if that helps.

 

[More_Badass]

It's $10 off at Green Man Gaming if that helps.

Nice, added to the OT. Devs didn't have that link on their site

 

[HashtagLapsed]

I've played for a couple of hours now. So far it is absolutely fantastic.

 

[Chichikov]

The game is outrageously good from the very first level. Truly a modern Commandos, with all that it entails.

I mean, by default, a color-coded timer pops up on screen to warn you if your last quicksave is older than a minute, heh. (And yes, it can be toggled off. nearly everything can).

Finally, a game that cater to my style of play.
#SAVESCUMMING4LIFE

 

[Brakke]

Woah this looks dope. Will grab the demo.

 

[AusRoachman]

Love the setting, and i was a huge Commandos fan back in the day. Keen to see how well this turns out.

 

[More_Badass]

Oh, cool detail: the game has controller support, and a different control scheme to suit gamepads. Rather than mouse/KB click-to-move, you control the character directly

 

[O.DOGG]

Played the demo yesterday. I love the game. I was really impressed by the Japanese voices. The devs really put in the effort to make the game look and sound authentic.

I'm just not sure I have the time to play it right now to pay full price just to have it sit around in my backlog. Hopefully it's discounted during the Christmas sale.

 

[grandwizard]

It's $10 off at Green Man Gaming if that helps.

In! thanks

 

[Finaika]

Oh, cool detail: the game has controller support, and a different control scheme to suit gamepads. Rather than mouse/KB click-to-move, you control the character directly

Which control scheme is better suited for the game?

 

[John Caboose]

Looove Commandos. Will have to try this.

 

[Dascu]

Bought and played the first two missions yesterday. Loving it so far. Incredibly polished, including the Options and game settings.

 

[Mikke]

Man, I love Desperados. Buying this blind. Hope it is as awesome as it looks.

 

[spineduke]

This looks so good. Totally unexpected and a welcome sight to see.

 

[UnluckyKate]

learned about this today. Gamekult gave it a 8/10 and it's very high score by their standarts.

This look just amazing. Right down my alley. Out of nowhere. I'm super excited

 

[Twinsen343]

Had no idea this was even releasing until today

 

[Garuda1One]

Theres something wrong with the steam download for this game, i cant even reach 2 MB/s. I tried other game, and it can easily hit 6MB/s.

 

[epmode]

Theres something wrong with the steam download for this game, i cant even reach 2 MB/s. I tried other game, and it can easily hit 6MB/s.

Maybe the game is being downloaded from a problematic server. Try another data center.

 

[Jb]

Really impressed by the demo, I immediately grabbed the game on Steam.
I was wondering why this wasn't on my radar until now, and it's probably because of its name. Shadow Tactics is incredibly generic, I imagine they wanted a name that could be used for a bunch of different settings and time periods, but it sounds like a cheap and janky game you'd find in a store's bargain bin.

 

[BeeDog]

Sounds like a super-nice game! Too bad my PC is falling apart :/

Any word at all on when this might hit consoles?

 

[Duebrithil]

Huge fan of Commandos, loved playing it coop with my brother. This doesn't seem to have a similar setup right?

 

[derFeef]

Commandos <3 so much memories.
I will get this for sure, when I have more time at hands.

 

[Ragnar Blackmane]

Will grab as soon as I have some spending money for games next month.

Loved Desperados 1 and the medieval Robin Hood version by the same developer. I think we haven't had a game in the genre for almost 10 years now, can't wait to play this (especially as a nut for Japanese history).

 

[Nikodemos]

Shadow Tactics is incredibly generic, I imagine they wanted a name that could be used for a bunch of different settings and time periods, but it sounds like a cheap and janky game you'd find in a store's bargain bin.

Sounds like a generic Final Fantasy Tactics mobile clone.

 

[xVodevil]

This is super awesome! Easily could be the surprise of the year, and I do hope this will be somewhat successful, and even might lead to some new kickstarter games within the genre, or just remakes/remasters of the older ones.
Oh, boy, I haven't really played for months now, but could I wish for anything better, to pull me back in?! Hell, no.

 

[RM8]

Wow, this is pretty great, and I never played Commandos. See, this is why demos are good.

 

[sfedai0]

This is awesome! I have a feeling Im missing out on a bunch of games like this. I just discovered Shadowrun. Are there other tactical games I should be trying?