Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun Arrives on Nintendo Switch 2!

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Gameplay for Strategy and Stealth Lovers

Do you love strategy and have always been fascinated by feudal Japan? Then you'll be happy to know that Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is back in the spotlight, thanks to a new edition dedicated to Nintendo Switch 2. Released way back in 2017, almost ten years later, the title developed by the Mimimi team continues to represent one of the best exponents of the real-time tactical stealth genre, a worthy spiritual successor to the Commandos and Desperados sagas. We will lead a group of five characters commanded by the Ninja Hayato and must do our best to protect the shogunate from threats and dangerous intrigues.

In the early stages of the game, we will meet our companions who, from time to time, will join us to form a diverse team ready to solve any situation. In addition to the aforementioned Hayato, a ninja master of stealth actions and shuriken use, we will have the very strong samurai Mugen, the infallible and elderly sniper Takuma, the disguise expert Aiko, and the agile Yuki. By combining the abilities of our heroes, we will have to overcome guards, traps, and various dangers to complete our missions. The 12 missions of the main storyline are joined by the 6 from the Aiko’s Choice DLC, included in this edition, making it the most complete version of the game ever released. Thanks to an isometric top-down view, we can move the camera and get a complete view of the maps (which are, by the way, very well designed). This allows us to study the situation and decide how to use our team's abilities and combine them to achieve success in the name of the shogun.

The game is real-time, so every move we make will see all other characters, allies or adversaries, move. It will be necessary to use the pause to decide which moves to order our heroes, and then put them into practice once time resumes. The mechanic, called Shadow Mode in Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, works very well and performs best when situations require learning to combine the actions of various protagonists, an essential element for overcoming obstacles that would otherwise be insurmountable. To give an example that explains the gameplay of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, you might find yourself having to cross a door guarded by two guards, while others are patrolling the area.

You will need to find a way to avoid being noticed by their line of sight, so as not to trigger the alarm and be attacked by dozens of enraged and well-armed soldiers. Using Shadow Mode, you can start planning what to do: Takuma could target a lookout and hit them with a sniper rifle, while Aiko could distract some guards with a disguise, and Hayato could throw a stone to divert the patrol. Meanwhile, Yuki would have time to set a trap to slow down soldiers, and Mugen could throw a flask of sake to distract the guards at the door, allowing him to kill them in seconds with his lethal katana. Needless to say, to successfully complete such an action, it is necessary to carefully study actions and execution times, and this is precisely what makes Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun a game with a very high learning curve and suitable for gamers who are willing to face a considerable difficulty.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Still Entertaining After Many Years

Even playing on easy difficulty, you find yourself facing situations where you need a lot of patience and must accept a “trial and error” mechanism: try, fail, and start over, learning from your mistakes. In Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, it is necessary to save very frequently to secure every small progress made, so as not to have to repeat actions that might have required enormous effort.

Of course, it must be said that at several points, you get the feeling of being in front of a puzzle where you have to find the right solution by mixing the abilities of the characters at your disposal, especially as you progress through the story, but in several cases, there is a fair amount of freedom of action, and you can devise your very own plan of action, and the excellent level design helps stimulate players' imagination. A very interesting element is that you can use the sensors of the Joy-Con 2 to use them as a mouse, overcoming the problems that classic controllers have with strategic titles. You can use either the left or right Joy-Con by resting the part that attaches to the Switch 2 screen on a flat surface, and by moving it, you will have control that is very similar to that of a mouse. Of course, we are not talking about feedback equal to that of a gaming mouse, but everything works well and makes playing Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun simpler and more enjoyable, making great use of one of the most interesting and underrated features of the Nintendo console.

Assuming that the greatest merit of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is precisely its gameplay, provided you have patience and a strong predisposition for problem-solving mechanics, the game developed by Mimimi Games is still well-packaged today and capable of holding its own against more recently released strategy games. The graphics do their job, and thanks to excellent color and light management, they manage to display delightful Edo period settings and very fluid animations, even if you can only use two zoom levels.

While this isn't a problem when playing on large screens, it proves to be a significant drawback when playing in handheld mode, because even when zooming in, the Nintendo Switch 2 screen is too small to fully enjoy Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and everything it has to offer. I would have liked the option to increase the zoom further, but it's clear that the development team would have had to undertake much more work than what was done for this port, which, by the way, is sold on the Nintendo store for €39.99 with an additional €4 discount if purchased before March 18th. All texts are in Italian, the music creates a good atmosphere and completes the offering of this Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, which once again manages to demonstrate all its qualities. If you own a Switch 2, love strategy, and haven't played it yet in one of its many incarnations, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is the title for you!