SHADOW TACTICS: BLADES OF THE SHOGUN is a pretty nifty game. I bought it yesterday after playing the free demo (remember when all games had demos? Good times).
This is a real-time tactics game focused on stealth, infiltration and using characters with desperate skillsets to complete missions in large, sandbox levels. You have an objective and it's up to you how you do it. It's very heavily influenced by the first two COMMANDOS games, DESPERADOS: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE and ROBIN HOOD: THE LEGEND OF SHERWOOD. A more recent example, although rather less hardcore (but still lots of fun) is the cyberpunk game SATELLITE REIGN. However, SATELLITE REIGN allowed you to walk into targets all guns blazing. BLADES OF THE SHOGUN makes that a lot more difficult, so the focus is firmly on stealth.
The game is viewed from a fully-rotatable overhead isometric viewpoint. You can only control one character at a time, although you can give delayed orders so characters will act simultaneously. The game rations which characters appear on which levels, so sometimes you'll have access to all 5 and sometimes only 2. The levels are HUGE. There are only 13 of them, but some could take 2 hours+ to clear on a first playthrough. You can also hide in wagons, disguse yourself as a civilian and distract people with the help of animals (or anger a cow so it kicks a passing samurai in the face).
There's some excellent emergent gameplay as well: one guy on Steam reported throwing an unconscious body off a building and it landed on top of a passing guard, knocking him out as well.
The game is heavily reliant on lines of sight, the use of bushes, buildings and rooftops for concealmeant and hiding slain enemies. You can knock people out but they come around after about 5 minutes, so a complete non-lethal playthrough is highly improbable (but apparently possible). You do get bonus marks for not killing civilians, remaining undetected and speed runs.
Enemy AI is impressive. They will note when guards have disappeared from their posts, raise the alarm if they see a dead body, help an unconscious person back to their feet and can even spot your footprints in snowy levels. You can kill enemies using daggers, swords, shurikens, traps and even primitive guns (one of the characters has a matchlock rifle and can provide fire support if you get him into a sniper's position), but mass combat is not advised. Your characters are quite fragile and not able to withstand a stand-up fight.
I really like it. It's a smart game which ticks a lot of the same boxes as DISHONORED, DEUS EX and the earlier COMMANDOS/DESPERADOS games. It has a fantastic art style, excellent acting, engaging characters and an interesting (if somewhat generic) storyline.
There's some very good reviews around:
http://www.godisageek.com/reviews/shadow-tactics-blades-of-the-shogun-revie w/
http://kotaku.com/shadow-tactics-is-a-stealth-renaissance-1789765814
http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/12/shadow-tactics-blades-of-the-shogun-re view/18145/
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2016/11/21/shadow-tactics-blades-of-the-shogun- review/
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/02/wot-i-think-shadow-tactics-blad es-of-the-shogun/
You can pick up the free demo here (it's also on GoG).
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Shadow Tactics continues to massively impress.
One mission required me to carefully eavesdrop on two samurai whilst they were circling around a guard post. I had my ninja on a roof nearby, a courtesan hiding in a building and they got about 2/3s of the conversation between them. I couldn't find a suitable position for my third agent until I realised there was a cow in a pen nearby. I tried hiding behind the cow but got killed. I realised that was because they could see my agent's feet protruding under the udders, so repositioned behind the cow's arse and was able to complete the mission.
First time I've ever typed that in relation to a video game.
I picked the demo at GoG yesterday on Friday but haven't installed it yet.
There's a big 33% discount on the game on Steam this week. They've also doubled the size of the free demo to the first two whole levels of the game, which is very generous.
The PS4 and X-Box One versions of the game came out this week. There's also a free demo for the XB1 version and there's a special version for the PS4 Pro with better graphics and 60fps.
This is a pretty sweet game, took me forever to beat it though, even on normal.
The same team are now making Desperados III, using the same engine and style of gameplay but with some key differences (like a pause and order mode).