Scale the walls of castles and assassinate the enemies of the shogunate in Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, a hardcore real-time tactics stealth game made by Daedalic Entertainment. The Sengoku Jidai is coming to an end. An uneasy peace has been forged between the Daimyos of Japan by the new shogunate government. The Edo Period has begun, but there are still many loose ends and plots, conspiracies, and rebellions brewing threatening the uneasy peace. The Shogun depends on your team of assassins to Eliminate the many enemies of the Shogunate, complete dangerous missions that will take you to many places throughout Japan it will be your choice how you’re going to execute these missions as long as you complete them.    

• The team consists of five members, each of them has a unique set of skills making them adept at handling specific situations: Hayato the Leader is capable of taking out people silently and sneaking past guards, Mugen the Samurai is not good at sneaking around but his brute force allows him to kill multiple targets in one fell swoop, Aiko a master of disguise can fool guards into thinking she’s a civilian, Yuki the street urchin is sneakier than Hayato but she can only set up traps and distract guards, and Takuma the sniper adept at taking out enemies at long ranges with his musket, he also has a pet tanuki.
• Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a real-time stealth game you will have no opportunity to pause the game and issue commands so timing is everything, your team has to be a well-oiled machine and you have to be ready to improvise at a moment’s notice.
• The game is fully in 3D from the slightly cartoonish character models to feudal-era Japan’s rich and detailed environments.

Reviews

For fans of real-time tactics and stealth games, Shadow Tactics is very nearly without comparison. It’s that same classic Commandos gameplay wrapped up in an exquisite new shell; still punishing yet not cruel.

game-debate.com    

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun’s uncommon attentiveness to characters and story elevate what is already a really entertaining and mentally stimulating quest across 17th-Century Japan. The near-constant annoyance of the camera definitely hindered my feeling of being a zen ninja assassin. Overall though, developer Mimimi has put together one of the most punishing and clever top-down stealth games I’ve ever skulked through.

ign.com