Shadow Gambit proves to be yet another great tactical stealth game made by Mimimi, who are one of the best stealth game devs in the business. It also proves, unfortunately, to be an excellent swan song for Mimimi as they announced that they would be closing after support ends for the game in the coming months. (Just the day after I beat the game early this week too) It truly is a shame because as I said they’re among the best in the business of the genre and really are like the only ones that do the isometric style stealth tactics ala Commandos. The silver lining at least is that this was on their own terms and hopefully they can move on to achieve better work/life balance.
Anyway I do think that among their games, which also include Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes 3, Shadow Gambit is the best one. It definitely feels like an even more polished refinement like Desperadoes 3 was to Shadow Tactics. There are some differences, one of the major ones being is that the game is more freeform. Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes were more like puzzles to solve, observing enemy visions cones, and figuring out openings to take them out with your character skills. Usually in those games there was more a rigid order you had to approach them in, especially because the game picked the characters for a level for you. Shadow Gambit eventually chooses to let you choose any crew member you want on missions and they have all wildly different powers. Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes were mostly grounded aside from Isabelle’s voodoo ability to kill two enemies at once. In contrast, as the title implies, the crew in Shadow Gambit are all undead pirates and they all have more fantastical abilities. Because the cast have more wacky powers and the game lets you choose your crew roster, the game is easier in a sense, but it does give you more freedom to play how you want. You can also choose which missions you want to complete first, unlike the previous two games which were completely linear. In Shadow Gambit you revisit each island to complete different missions, but they have it where a mission will just take you to certain area of the island, while another takes you to a different part so it keeps it fresh enough. I think the tradeoff of the gameplay is ultimately worth it because the supernatural powers are fun and they really take the abilities from previous games into fun directions.
The writing is actually rather good too, like the characters initially seem rather one note but the last half of the game is essentially doing each character’s personal sidequests and they all do mostly a nice job fleshing them out. The setting is a neat one; funny enough it’s actually a bit annoying to me because the game legit has good lore tidbits that are teased at and drip-fed at you throughout the game but they never delve into them too much. I’d actually would have liked more exploration of them, but that’s less of a con and more that they did a good enough job where I was interested to want to see more. Teresa’s sidequest especially has some real neat lore and character stuff with ramifications that explain the entire villain faction of the game that’s just kind of mentioned in passing.
Overall Shadow Gambit is a fantastic game and one of my favorites of the year. I wish Mimimi was able to keep improving on their formula, but they should be proud they went out on such a high note.
Anyway I do think that among their games, which also include Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes 3, Shadow Gambit is the best one. It definitely feels like an even more polished refinement like Desperadoes 3 was to Shadow Tactics. There are some differences, one of the major ones being is that the game is more freeform. Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes were more like puzzles to solve, observing enemy visions cones, and figuring out openings to take them out with your character skills. Usually in those games there was more a rigid order you had to approach them in, especially because the game picked the characters for a level for you. Shadow Gambit eventually chooses to let you choose any crew member you want on missions and they have all wildly different powers. Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes were mostly grounded aside from Isabelle’s voodoo ability to kill two enemies at once. In contrast, as the title implies, the crew in Shadow Gambit are all undead pirates and they all have more fantastical abilities. Because the cast have more wacky powers and the game lets you choose your crew roster, the game is easier in a sense, but it does give you more freedom to play how you want. You can also choose which missions you want to complete first, unlike the previous two games which were completely linear. In Shadow Gambit you revisit each island to complete different missions, but they have it where a mission will just take you to certain area of the island, while another takes you to a different part so it keeps it fresh enough. I think the tradeoff of the gameplay is ultimately worth it because the supernatural powers are fun and they really take the abilities from previous games into fun directions.
The writing is actually rather good too, like the characters initially seem rather one note but the last half of the game is essentially doing each character’s personal sidequests and they all do mostly a nice job fleshing them out. The setting is a neat one; funny enough it’s actually a bit annoying to me because the game legit has good lore tidbits that are teased at and drip-fed at you throughout the game but they never delve into them too much. I’d actually would have liked more exploration of them, but that’s less of a con and more that they did a good enough job where I was interested to want to see more. Teresa’s sidequest especially has some real neat lore and character stuff with ramifications that explain the entire villain faction of the game that’s just kind of mentioned in passing.
Overall Shadow Gambit is a fantastic game and one of my favorites of the year. I wish Mimimi was able to keep improving on their formula, but they should be proud they went out on such a high note.