Venture into the Edo period of Japan in Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun – Aiko’s Choice, a standalone addon to Shadow tactics. Developed by Mimimi Games and published by Daedalic Entertainment, Aiko’s Choice is due to release on the 7th December on PC. Travel deep into the Edo period with a group of Ninja and Samurai assassins to hunt down all the ghosts from Aiko’s past.

Aiko’s Choice is a real-time tactical strategy game where you control up to 5 super secret assassin ninjas to combat the ploys of Aiko’s former sensei, Lady Chiyo, a cunning spymaster who has foiled the assassin group’s plans. Each member of this highly trained group has their own specialties and weaknesses. Aiko’s choice, as stated earlier, is a stand-alone add-on to the highly acclaimed strategy game Shadow Tactics.

It’s being released 5 years after the original, and to be fair, as an add-on to the main game, which seems like it’s a long-ass time for an add-on to be released, the devs didn’t take into account new players to the series, offering an extremely basic tutorial. I was struggling to get my head around the game, and death after death, I was slowly learning, however, if they had taken the time to explain the characters abilities and play styles individually, and the main controls of the game, like the shadow mode where you can queue actions, which I found totally on accident, I would have been away laughing.

Reset after reset and a few hours in, I got the basics down and I soon became the ninja assassin I was destined to be. Now if you think this game is a leisurely stroll through the cherry blossoms on a wintery day, with a beautiful snow-covered Mount Fuji in the distance, while sipping a warm cup of herbal tea, YOU ARE WRONG. This game is brutal.

One small mistake is all it takes to wipe, and the unrelenting marksmen that beeline to your position if spotted for too long make quicksaving your new best friend.

Aiko’s Choice is a vibrant cell-shaded adaptation of Edo Japan with period-correct buildings and environments, and the soundtrack is pumped full of Edo-themed music that gets a lot more intense the more you alert the guards and make mistakes. Every now and then, your characters will quip and chatter amongst themselves, softening the intensity of stealthily taking out the enemies in my path and bringing down my blood pressure.

I did enjoy my time with Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun – Aiko’s Choice, even though it took multiple hours to get into the rhythm of the game. With a proper tutorial that better taught new players and refreshed the concepts to players returning after that massive 5-year gap, the frustrations I felt when constantly resetting and fumbling my way through the opening scenes and levels of the games would have been a lot more tolerable.

The audio and stunning vibrant cell-shaded graphics sat really well within the setting and genre of the game, although being an RTS, I really think being able to pause every now and then, or even having it as a semi-turn-based game, may have been better suited.

Trying to control 5 individual characters in unison, while making sure to not get detected or trying to perfectly time something, had my brain going into overtime and needing a breather every now and then, and it’s very lucky to have quicksaving and quick loading options. I highly recommend picking up the original first, or if you have it, replaying it, just to refresh or relearn the basics of this game.

Written by: Bigfoot