Shadow Tactics: Aiko’s Choice (PC)

Powah Dunk | January 26, 2022 | Review | No Comments

Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun was such an underrated gem when it released that we had to shout about it from the rooftops. Mimiproductions have decided to return to the property with a standalone expansion, worth a revisit? Let’s have a look.

To perfectly sum up the game we can look back at what I said initially about the title “if I personally was handling the review I would have no qualms about slapping 9 all over the review” which I still stand by today, fortunately I can amend that with this release. If you want to see what I said, hit the link here to find out.

Shadow Tactics: Aiko’s Choice is a “stand alone expansion” for Blade of the Shogun, basically using assets from the main game to create a smaller original campaign, only this time round you don’t need the base game to play it unlike expansion packs from “back in the day”.

Now a little disclaimer, I wouldn’t advise just diving in with this title even though it’s possible. Without the base game you’ll be missing a lot of story and this game in fact warns you about not having at least a certain amount of knowledge from Blade of the Shogun.

Aiko’s Choice doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it merely polishes it’s controls and takes what the studio learnt from the phenomenal Desperados 3 and brings it into its own I.P with great effect.

Visually it is just a little sharper but this game was always a looker with its strong art direction which did an amazing job of bringing you into its feudal setting.

On the gameplay front it also doesn’t really add anything other than slight control tweaks and performance tweaks, I will have to admit I played the original on PlayStation 4 and this on PC so the controls felt ALOT more natural.

What Aiko’s Choice does infact offer is 6 or so hours of engrossing strategy gameplay with an engaging story and expansion of some of the most well written characters this decade.

One mission sees your characters split up from each other on separate islands and the juggling act you have to do will test your skills but also feel so rewarding when done.

I wouldn’t suggest buying this as a standalone, it’s like a small sliver of an amazing cake passed to you by a stranger. If you have played through Shogun though it’s like seeing an old friend again for the first time in five years, an amazing experience that is sadly over all too soon.