And so we reach September and the 9th (sort of!) game in my Year of Gaming Challenge for 2025. This month, I’ve been playing a game that’s been in my backlog for a very long time: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

Reminder: For the Year of Gaming Challenge, I have to play one of the many games I’ve bought in Steam sales and never got around to playing. I must give it a fair chance and write up my thoughts by the end of each month. (That may not sound like much of a challenge, but as a father with a lot going on right now, it will be hard to fit in!)

I saw Shadow Tactics in my Steam library when I was looking for my September game. It’s a nearly 10-year-old game that I apparently bought for myself in 2021. This is an example of exactly the thing I started this challenge for: a game that appeals to me, that I’ve wanted to play for ages and bought in a Steam sale before promptly forgetting about it.

So, I finally got to play it. Was it worth the wait?

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Shadow Tactics is a real-time tactics and stealth game, where you view the game from a top-down perspective and must control a number of characters as they sneak and kill their way around enemy bases. It was developed by Mimimi Games and originally released in December 2016.

Story & Writing

Set in feudal Japan, the story begins with you helping the Shogun bring an end to years of war and unite the country. The rest of the story is set some time later, when a rogue warlord known as Kage-sama is plotting against the shogun, and it’s up to you to find out their identity and put an end to their plans. You do this with a small group of specialists, who must infiltrate various enemy bases to achieve their goals. Over the first few missions, you are introduced to your standard archetypes: the stealthy ninja, the burly samurai, the femme fatale, the old man and the obligatory quirky young girl.

Now, I could probably have made an educated guess at who the characters in your party would be. And, even though I haven’t completed the game, I think I have a fairly good idea of who Kage-sama is.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the story and characters aren’t interesting and very well written. I did roll my eyes a little when that character and the quirky girl were introduced, but I still grew to like them and became invested in their story. It doesn’t have to be original to be absorbing, as long as it’s done well. And what I’ve seen so far has been very well-written and performed.

Gameplay

You spend most of your time avoiding enemy view cones, killing guards and hiding their remains in bushes before their friends discover the body. You have your five characters, who each have unique weapons and abilities: the burly shinobi Mugen has an attack that can take out three guards at once and can carry two bodies at once, Aiko can steal clothes to disguise herself, while Yuki can set traps. Each mission mixes up which combination of these characters you have to play.

There seems to be a lot of trial and error. Because it’s real-time and not turn-based, it can be hard to predict overlapping guard movements, and it’s easy to make the smallest mistake, get spotted and set off a cock-up-cascade. At which point, you’re better off reloading your last save and trying again. And the developers seem to know this. Quick save and quick load are probably the game’s core mechanics. In fact, if you don’t quick-save the game for more than a minute, a timer pops up to remind you. It’s basically save-scumming: the game! And the times I got frustrated and turned it off were usually the times when I hadn’t saved for a long time and didn’t want to have to repeat everything I’d done to get back to the same point.

That wasn’t the only frustration, either. There are occasional glitches. Characters will get in each other’s way, sometimes pushing the other out of cover to get past them. I also got frustrated when I wanted one character to hide under a grapple point, but they kept grappling up onto the roof instead. The camera controls can be a bit fiddly, too. You press Q and E to rotate by 90 degrees, but you need finer control than that. You can do it by holding Alt and using the mouse, but I still occasionally struggled to clearly see what I was doing and to click on what I wanted to click on.

There was also an odd moment where I found a cart that seemed to take me into the town past some guards. I hopped in (and got an achievement for doing so), then discovered you couldn’t get out unless the cart was stationary. But there seemed to be no way of getting out of the cart at the other end without getting into a fight and alerting several guards around you. It may be possible to survive these fights and use the bandages that some characters seemed to be equipped with to heal, but I never did. When you’re spotted, all nearby guards are summoned on high alert and additional guards spawn out of various buildings, so it’s generally quicker and easier to reload.

Despite the frustrations, however, it can be deeply satisfying to work out a way to distract one guard, long enough to take out his companion and then finish him off too, allowing you to progress. However, more often than not, this felt more down to luck than to any skill on my part.

Craft

The game has a gorgeous, painterly art style. The writing and voice acting are generally pretty good as well. It’s a beautifully well-made game, particularly considering its age. I was surprised when I looked it up to find it was made nearly a decade ago! It’s a beautifully crafted game that has aged pretty well.

Stats

• I got the game on Steam in 2021 for £3.49, a 90% discount on the current full price of £34.99
• I played it for a little over 7 hours and have beaten the first 5 levels, earning 5 out of 45 badges.
• I may play more, but I’m not sure I have the patience to play it in large chunks. I also don’t feel particularly motivated to replay the previous levels to unlock the additional badges.

Final Thoughts

Shadow Tactics felt like a safer bet than some of the other games I’ve recently played in this series. Stealth/tactics is a lot more my style. And I found the story, writing and general craft of the game to be excellent. However, I found the actual gameplay to be a little frustrating. It seems to rely on save-scumming over skill and planning, and I just don’t think I have the patience to keep making plans, failing, reloading and trying again. If you are someone who enjoys that sort of challenge and has the patience to keep trying, then I would definitely recommend giving it a try. I just don’t think it’s for me!