Like a samurai poised patiently for a gap of their opponent’s defences, Shogun Showdown understands that focus and finesse are the means to delivering an impactful blow. This uncommon roguelike distils the style right down to its purest elements, all in favour of amplifying its dizzying fight that performs gracefully with the ideas of positioning and endurance. Extremely refined, fashionable and sophisticated, Shogun Showdown is a delight.
Right here’s the pitch: you might be on a quest to kill the Shogun. The Shogun is a Unhealthy Dude, corrupted by some type of cataclysmic occasion that has shaken the earth, darkish forces gushing free from the ensuing cracks. Not less than, I feel that’s what’s occurring? Shogun Showdown is fairly gentle on story, to be trustworthy, and outdoors of some small cutscenes, there’s not a lot to chew on right here. At first, I discovered this determination regarding, earlier than it grew to become obvious after just a few hours of play that like most features of the sport, this was merely extra proof of developer Roboatino’s cautious intent.
Shogun Showdown is a roguelike in probably the most conventional sense of the time period. All of the style staples you’d count on are right here: a node-based map, outlets, and managers. Unlockable characters, weapons, and abilities. There’s no fats to trim right here, no extra runes that dole out minute proportion boosts or fancy narrative conceits to incentivise or reward loss of life. You get a single forex used to purchase extra stuff,and that’s it: all the pieces is in service of the fight, repeatedly funnelling you into its glorious clashes.
| Picture credit score: gamerjive Shotgun/Goblinz Publishing/Gamera Video games
A turn-based twist on the style, positioning is your most necessary weapon towards the Shogun’s hordes. Initially of a run, you might be positioned within the centre of a row of tiles. Motion is locked to single hops left and proper, however you may also flip round to face the opposite approach. Assaults, stylised as playing cards on the backside of the display, might be dragged above your character’s head to outline the order during which they’ll be carried out. As soon as a card has been used, you’re pressured to attend a quick cooldown interval earlier than it may be primed once more.
Each motion (aside from particular playing cards) takes up a flip. Whether or not you determine to maneuver to your left or prime your bow for an assault, the baddies chilling round you’ll additionally decide on the identical time. Their actions are visualised on display alongside your personal, their upcoming actions or fight talents displayed on their physique or above their head. Assaults that can be carried out after your subsequent transfer, in the meantime, flash yellow to encourage you to get out of their approach, lest you be recognized with a terminal case of Massive Sword In The Chest Illness.
Contemplating all your assaults are tied to cooldowns, and the arenas you battle inside are as cramped as a London home share (typically stuffed stuffed with as many individuals, too), each alternative you make turns into the distinction between life and loss of life. Fortunately, your choices are plentiful, the results of a wealthy and numerous number of weapons and perks handed over with beneficiant frequency as you choose your approach by means of the sport.
Though some weapons are pure harm sellers, most might be higher described as motion modifiers. A splash that flings you throughout the world. A smoke bomb that switches your character’s place with that of your closest opponent’s. A grappling hook that pulls an enemy into the tip of your blade. Mixed with character talents (beginning character Wanderer can swap locations with whoever she’s going through, whereas the unlockable Ronin shoves enemies into their allies, the affect decreasing them to a fountain of blood) weapons encourage you to contemplate your broader technique each single flip. You possibly can’t coast by on brute pressure alone.
It’s astonishing stuff. Regardless of being turn-based, the drama it generates is a testomony to the breadth of creativeness on show throughout the design of those weapons. After just a few hours of play, it turns into obvious that no two encounters will ever be handled in the identical approach. You start every run with two default weapons, however can solely choose out of your unlocked pool after particular rounds. You’ll not often have entry to greater than a handful of assaults, mainly, and though throughout a run they are often upgraded to spice up their energy, scale back their cooldown or develop into imbued with a useful skill, the quantity of fiddling you are able to do to every one is capped.
In observe, all this creates an enormous quantity of spectacle regardless of being locked to a single 2D airplane. To play Shogun Showdown is to search out your self caught between two enraged fighters with no clear resolution on find out how to keep away from sure loss of life. Do you leap out of the way in which of the Ashigaru’s katana, solely to be pierced by his good friend’s spear as a substitute? Do you loosen a crossbow bolt, figuring out that its skill to chop by means of a number of enemies without delay could be extra helpful when you’re in a position to flip round to face the group behind you? Ah! Wait! What in the event you swap locations with katana boy utilizing a smoke bomb as a substitute, inflicting him to strike down his pal within the ensuing confusion? Sensible!
It’s right here, amid this strategy of fraught decision-making, that Shogun Showdown reveals its breathless, exhilarating core. Ducking and weaving. Pushing and pulling. Slicing, dicing, bludgeoning and cursing. That is fight at its most enjoyable, regardless of its relative simplicity. Battles are both hard-won (with defeat averted on the final minute by a well-timed well being potion or the slice of a sword that cleaves your two remaining enemies into chunks) or achieved with such ferocity and velocity that the sport has no alternative however to plaster the phrases “Obliterated” over the display (which, simply as a facet be aware, feels actually good).
Who wants real-time motion when turn-based battles like this could conjure such moments of brilliance? After one significantly memorable battle, I shouted so loud that I obtained a mild textual content from my companion asking me to maintain it down. In her defence, it was 2am. Such is the time-deleting pleasure this recreation gives in abundance.
I’ll let you know what, it helps that it’s a looker. With most features of the sport pruned to perfection, the artwork isn’t any exception. Every stage is framed superbly, with a number of layers offering a way of depth that, mixed with the fight, lends it an efficient cinematic high quality. Fights play out surrounded by silhouetted flora, splintered pagodas bathed in sunset-hued gentle, scattered loosely behind the bloodshed. Backgrounds particularly are a spotlight – detailed vistas convey a way of rot and corruption that has tainted this sparse world – however in reality, all features of the sport, from its characters to its UI, are readable and fairly.
And when it’s carried out? Nicely. A great roguelike is rarely actually carried out, is it? All I’ll say is that defeating the Shogun is much from the tip, with harder challenges awaiting these courageous sufficient to enterprise forth after the titular ruler is toppled. Even then, there are all the time new ways to find, new toys to play with, and new characters to be trialled on the battlefield. I concern my time with the sport is much from over (complimentary).
2024 has been such a superb yr for roguelikes that I used to be satisfied I had already had my fill. How, in a yr that has already supplied each Balatro and Hades II, may one thing of equal high quality make a real try and steal the crown? Extra idiot me, I suppose. After taking part in Shogun Showdown, it comes as no shock that it has ducked and weaved its approach into my life with such grace that I barely even observed the blade it slipped into my coronary heart. This can be a dazzling gem of a recreation you merely can’t miss, even in the event you do get smoke-bombed.
