Stealthy Tactics

Stealth games and I have a bit of a mixed record.  When I play a game where stealth is an option I will usually opt to be as stealthy as I can.  Usually one of two things happens--my lack of sneaking skills means that my stealthy cover gets blown and I end up in guns blazing mode or I run out of patience with the constant watching and waiting and say "screw it" and decide to tackle things head-on.  Generally I am able to completely ruin the whole concept of being stealthy which sucks because most games reward you with bonus XP, damage or other perks for being sneaky.  I had this knowledge of my own lack of stealth skills when I decided to pick up Shadow Tactics:  Blades of the Shogun which is a game that is completely about stealth.  Sounds like a disaster in the making, eh?

Shadow Tactics:  Blades of the Shogun is set in feudal Japan and follows a group of unlikely heroes working to unravel a dangerous secret plot.  As the name implies, it is very much about being stealthy, planning, and trying to be a discreet as possible.  If you're like me and you end up in chaos mode...things are going to be painfully rough.  I discovered this fact very early on and was forced to reassess my playstyle so that I could finish the game.  It was extremely rough--at one point I ragequit and swore that I wouldn't pick it back up...but I did and managed to finally solve the roadblock that was keeping me from progressing and it felt like magic.

Yuki sneaking up on a guard.

The gameplay consists of a series of missions that involve using the unique cast of heroes to sneak around the map.  There are many places on each map where you can hide--bushes, buildings, roofs, cliffs...the difficulty comes in trying to navigate these places without attracting the attention of the numerous guards patrolling the area.  Unlike many other stealthy games I have played this is one where you absolutely do not want to attract any attention--there's almost no chance of surviving if the guards raise the alarm....you can't brute force your way through it.  Avoiding the guards means you have to choose how to deal with them, you can opt to kill as many of them as you can or you can do the viewcone tango and try to stay out of their line of sight.  Each option has its own challenges--killing guards means you have to hide the bodies and not killing them means that they will continue to patrol and still have a chance of discovering you even if you've gone well past them.

As the story progresses your party grows to include a diverse cast of characters with their own unique abilities and weaknesses.  Learning how to harness those abilities to your benefit is one of the major challenges in Shadow Tactics.  Yuki can lure enemies toward a certain position which is very useful for taking out guards; Mugen can attack multiple enemies at once; Aiko can use disguises and provides an invaluable distraction for sneaking around heavily populated maps.  One very handy part of combat is the ability to assign actions to each character--for example you can assign one character to attract a guard toward a position and another to sneak kill that guard.  When actions are set up simultaneously it plays out in a perfect series of events.  Taking out multiple guards at one time might seem impossible, but it's completely doable with some strategizing.

Each level presents its own set of challenges.  Some levels are set in the snow which means that your characters leave footprints.  Footprints can attract the unwanted attention of guards and make sneaking more difficult but they can also be useful in trying to lure guards toward a specific character.  Other levels take place a night which means that guard visibility is greatly reduced and sticking to the shadows allows for more sneaking.  The presence of civilians on certain levels presents another layer of difficulty as they will run and get guards if they catch sight of your character.  This also presents a moral quandary--you can opt to kill the civilians to get them out of the way.

Shadow Tactics is challenging and can be extremely frustrating.  I opted to play on the default difficulty and will freely admit that I struggled and almost gave up.  If you have a tough time failing in a game you might want to think twice about picking this one up--you will find yourself failing so many times.  Shadow Tactics is one of those rare games that almost demands perfection in order for you to be successful.  Even though I found myself getting frustrated, the feeling of finally finishing the game was very rewarding.

I would recommend Shadow Tactics to fans of both stealth and strategy games.  If you don't like failing and want a game that is fairly easy to finish...it's probably not a good choice.