Genre blockbuster.
Few players have heard of Mimimi, the little-known German studio, but when it comes to their signature stepping stone, Shadow Tactics: General's Blade, there is a chat for not so many real-time tactical (RTT) enthusiasts.
As the spiritual successor of classic series such as "Allied Expendables" and "Bounty Raiders", Mimimi has successively completed "Shadow Tactics: General's Blade", "Bounty Raiders 3" and "Shadow Trick: Cursed Pirates" under the framework of modern RTT, which are three brother works with different themes but similar cores.
League of the Resurrected
The latest "Shadow Trick" adds many changes in character skills and gameplay rhythm on the basis of the gameplay of the first two works, which can be seen as the culmination of "modern retro RTT". This can be seen from the 8 optional characters in this game.
The "Shadow Trick" will unleash its tactics from the historical shogunate of Japan and the Wild West to the "uncharted sea" where gunpowder and magic are rampant. The player's character has also changed from ninja and cowboy to undead pirate. One of our early main lines is to fight the religious fanatics of the Inquisition on various islands, collect "Black Pearls" and "Soul Energy", and resurrect the 7 crew members who were previously scattered.
Each of the 7 crew members has unique skills, such as a Japanese chef who is proficient in knife skills, a necromancer who "saves the dead", an aristocratic gentry who loves to play Takeover Cosplay, and even the ghost ship piloted by the player, the Red Mary, often complains that you are slow to play games. If that's not enough, there's still a monkey on deck that opens a teleportation rift.
If you like the deviant pirate theme, then this game's witty plot experience may give you the illusion of playing Captain "Jack".
But under the "new shell", the core of the "shadow trick" has not changed much. The gameplay is still built on the interlaced enemy field of view and the box court level in all directions. The specific gameplay experience is similar: at the beginning, the game will set a general objective on the map, but there is no specific process for tackling the problem, and players can use their imagination to solve patrolling enemies that stand in the way through the skill cooperation between characters and special mechanisms on the map.
There are so many enemies that it is a little dense-phobic
As for the specific operation process, I believe that players who have played similar games must know it - to sum it up simply in one action, it is to unnestigo dolls.
When you want to get rid of a particular guard, you will find that this guard is often under the view of other guards, so you must first get rid of the guard who is staring at the guard, and when you touch over to get rid of the guard who is staring at the guard, you suddenly realize that behind the guard who is staring at the guard, there is also a guard who is staring at the guard.
Classic "three times at first sight"
All the player has to do is use their brains to find the loose buckle from the interlocking level elements, and then start from this breakpoint and peel the heart of the game layer by layer. After a masterful and detailed plan, combined with a thousand and one time backtracking Dafa, you can become that foolproof tactical master.
It sounds difficult, complicated, and challenging, and it is, otherwise RTT wouldn't have been out of sale. This is a powerful category that single-handedly pushes fast saves to the entire gaming industry. Other games are saved before a major event, and the action of RTT players pressing the quick save button is as natural as swallowing saliva and breathing.
Our abuse of F5 and F8 is so high that "Shadow Trick" has made a set of plot animations for quick save files. The explanation in the game is that "Red Mary" can save the memories of the crew with the sacred F5 blessed by soul magic, and once the mission goes wrong, use the sacred F8 to smash the memory ball and rewind time to a certain memory point before.
suffocate
While it didn't have any effect on the gameplay, this "eye-catching" animation did significantly reduce my save frequency. It's not because of visual fatigue, but the conspicuous animation will make people realize that frequent reading is a very ghostly game habit. In this game that emphasizes holistic tactical thinking, it is unhealthy to abuse this trial-and-error mechanism.
Of course, reducing the number of saved files means that the thinking is prolonged, and the pace of the game will be further slowed down. The modernization of Mimimi focuses on the rhythm of play.
When you can't take advantage of the levels and mechanics, the game will give you stronger characters and richer skills to alleviate those possible embarrassing moments. For example, the protagonist of this work, Afia, has the most invincible ability in the entire RTT game series - time stop.
The distance of normal kill skills is also ridiculously long
That's right, it's literally time stop. While the big-headed soldiers and ninjas are still throwing cigarettes and whistling next door, you've been freezing an enemy with the D key for 5.5 seconds. And as mentioned at the beginning, the 8 cursed crew members each have unique skills, the Japanese chef uses the double technique to teleport to kill the enemy, the old gentleman enters and exits the no-man's land after taking the house, and the ship doctor can directly "plant grass" in place.
Infiltrate the character
Sniper characters
Thanks to the variety of character performance, many matryoshka dolls that could not be solved before have new countermeasure ideas in this work. After all, where there is no grass, you can make a bush of grass, this is no longer the category of problem solving ideas, to some extent, you are even directly modifying the question stem, even the Red Mary will spit on the grass you planted will actually "eat people".
Plant grass
Therefore, compared to most of the slow-paced peers, the operability of "shadow tricks" can be described as dazzling. Combining global acceleration and shadow commands from the previous two games, combined with fully enhanced character mechanics, it will even allow you to play a hearty sense of action in this game.
The most handsome and skinny Japanese chef in history
This does not mean that the level design and enemy configuration of this game have moisture, on the contrary, "Shadow Trick" has increased the density and strength of enemies. For example, advanced synesthetic enemies already frequently appear on the third map in the game, requiring players to kill at two points on the map.
And as mentioned earlier, both enemies are part of the matryoshka doll, so to speak, a kind of twin matryoshka doll. But even so, characters with long-distance teleportation and time-stop can still solve most puzzles without triggering alarms. Of course, the premise is a little bit of brainwork.
Overall, the experience of this game is not much different from Mimimi's first two works, but "Shadow Trick" does have some improvements, at least in terms of physical feeling, it is undoubtedly more coherent and smooth. However, like those ongoing operating games that enter the end of life and begin to let themselves go, being able to play a system to the top may itself be a manifestation of the end of a crossbow.
Given that the media demo currently has only three playable islands, including a tutorial, and the fact that the characters in this type of game generally have little room to grow - the character skills in this game can only be increased by a fixed level, which will rely more on specific level design and mechanism changes, so the subsequent performance of "Shadow Trick" is still unknown.
Smash, you can smash
But as far as the content of the game is concerned, at least Mimimi has not lost the spirit of studying Wanda Plaza in the screw shell. I believe that under the solid level design skills, "Shadow Trick: Cursed Pirates" should be the culmination of the reform of real-time tactical gameplay.