izigame.me

Shogun Showdown Review


**Spoiler free**

Overview: Shogun Shodwdown is a fantastic turn-based rogue-lite that strikes a great balance between randomness and determinism. The gameplay loop is extremely addictive with a great sense of replayability. The 2D pixel art and minimal animation manages to convey suspenseful and cool combat, and creates well-scoped zero-to-hero experiences in a Japanese-warrior setting. After 55 hours of gameplay, I’m still interested in working towards those achievements.

Gameplay: The goal in Shogun Showdown is to complete a run by defeating the shogun. You’ll choose a difficulty and between 5 unlockable characters, each with their own special Ability and starting load out. During the run, you’ll fight your way through an overland map with your standard roguelike pathing choices. Which path to take can determine what enemies and mini-bosses you’ll fight, and what items and abilities you might find at shops in between levels.

Combat is the meat of the game, and each encounter feels like a fun tactical puzzle. You take turns with the enemy one action at a time. An action can consist of moving one space, using your special ability, queuing an attack, or executing your queue of attacks. Using a potion, removing an attack from the queue, and some “free attack” tiles don’t count as actions.

The attack queue system is a really fun mechanic, and adds a nice layer of depth to the game. Deciding whether to attack immediately or queue up a series of (up to 3) attacks really forces you to read the layout of the battlefield, and even think a few steps ahead. Enemies telegraph their moves for their next action. Having all of this information creates some great deterministic combat that allows you to strategies your gameplay.

Attacks are represented as tiles “in your hand”, though there are no decks of cards. Instead, you always have access to your tiles, but they have cooldowns that tick down each action. Tiles display a weapon graphic, damage number, and cooldown ticker. Pressing the “I” key will let you hover over the tile and read the full description. These tiles can be upgraded between levels, and new ones can be learned from a randomized pool of tiles unlocked in the meta progression. Personally, I’m really happy with the tile ability system instead of yet another deck building rogue-like. “Decks of cards” have been overdone in my opinion. This tile system adds much more determinism and tactical strategy to the gameplay, yet also allows for synergies via the attack queue.

Passive abilities can also be purchased during your run, and are loosely categorized into different shop types you might encounter on the world map. These range from combo, agility, warring, and more.

Outside of the world map, the entire game is played on turn-based 2D battlefields with spaces ranging from 5-11 or so. (Even the main menu and market place takes place on this 2D setting). On the main menu you’ll be able to check quest (achievement) progress, tile unlocks, select a character, and set the difficult level for the run.

There is meta progression, which unlocks new tiles and abilities for the randomness pool between levels and at the shops. I also felt the meta-progression was well balanced, where the process didn’t feel like a grind, and unlocking everything didn’t make the game feel too easy. Overall, the meta-progression felt well-paced and rewarding while not undermining the core rogue-lite gameplay loop.


Atmosphere: You are a warrior fighting their way across various islands to confront and defeat the Shogun. That’s all there is to the story. It’s as basic as it gets, but it does ground the game in an epic setting. A lone warrior against an army? Count me in.

The pixel art style is all based on 2D battle zones set in a variety of island biomes. Each one has a distinct color palette, from green jungles, to blue snowy caverns, to moonlit ports. The animation is also very basic but effective. Units have a basic breathing loop, hop from space to space, and simply rotate back on death. Even though the visuals are simple, they are very effective at immersing you in the gameplay puzzles. Once you’re playing the game, the art style feel very robust.

The music is pretty good and engaging. It varies from light Japanese Strings, flutes, and percussion to heavy metal mixes, all while keeping an 8-bit feel. It really sets the mood of the particular island you’re fighting on. At first I thought the soundtrack would get annoying and repetitive. But after getting to different islands, I was happy to hear the variety of music tracks. Combine this with the 8-bit SFX and you get a surprisingly immersive and appropriate soundscape.

Conclusion: Shogun Showdown takes a lot of what I like about roguelikes and creates a solid package of content, strategy, variability, and fun! Using cooldown-based abilities instead of card drawing mechanics incorporates more determinism and agency into the tactical gameplay loop, and benefits all the more for it. Runs are also not too long, and fit a nice timeframe to get your zero-to-hero power arc, leaving room to start another one immediately after. With a cohesive and well scoped artistic presentation, Shogun Showdown is a great rogue-like experience that’s well worth it’s full price. I definitely recommend getting this game!