Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

If anyone needs that old school Commandos fix, this is it - just with better graphics, more interesting story and more polished gameplay.

Very nice stealth game. Nice plot, good gameplay, very nice soundtrack. Loved playing it.

LOVE IT! ITS MY FAVOURITE TYPE OF GAME. COMMANDOS OF JAPAN. GREAT GAME

This was my first game of its genre, and what a first impression it has made! The character skills complement each other in various interesting ways, the enemies are challenging, but the absolute highlight is the level design. Each level is a carefully assembled and massively large area populated by a seemingly insurmountable multitude of enemies – but look closely enough, and you'll find the small holes in their security, the crucial gaps in their interlocking lines-of-sight that allow your heroes to slip through and chip away at their armies one guard (or sometimes, three or five) at a time. This way, the large levels become series of little manageable stealth puzzles, each as rewarding as the last. The exhileration I felt when perfectly executing a simultaneous multi-kill of an entire group of guards after several minutes of planning just never got old. And indeed, you get all the time you need. There are speedrunning achievements for every level, but if you want, you can take hours trying different approaches and finding your ideal way to deal with the next little group of enemies. Nothing is ever on a timer, the guards will repeat their patterns patiently until you've worked out your plan. This game is real-time, but it's not hectic – and quick-save and quick-load are always there for you. Real-time tactical games had always seemed overly daunting and punishing to me, which is why I had shied away from the genre before. This game made me fall in love with it.

Personally, I always preferred "Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive" to the commandos series because it was more interesting story-wise, and paid more respect to details than the series most people mention when speaking about this kind of game. That said, this is more of a "sequel" to desperados than commandos, and one feels the love that was put into this game immediately. It is awesome, and I haven't had this much fun playing a game of this sort since the original Desperados. The beauty in the environments, the character models, and the gameplay is unfathomable, and one can clearly see, also, how important it was for the developer to make sure that no two missions felt the same way. Make no mistake, this game is no mere imitation, it truly continues the spirit of the older games. That said, there is one point of criticism that I have to give: a lot of the abilities your characters have seem a bit too similar for my tastes. Many of the older games did a better job of it in that regard. However, this is still an extremely fun game that anyone who enjoyed commandos should play. There are many little things this game does well, like the subtle way in which it tells you that it's time to save your progress, or the narration between characters during missions without interrupting the gameplay. I love this game, and I truly hope that we will begin to see sequels because this is a game that I have been waiting on for many, many years. As far as difficulty goes, well, it's hard, extremely hard. That is to be expected. But on the normal settings, I found that it was easier than desperados and commandos. For those who have patience, and enjoy solving puzzles without being limited to the solutions given to them, this game is a beauty. 5/5. Amazing game. Wish more developers were as devoted as these.