In general, I’d say I’m a fan of the strategy genre as a whole, though there are some corners of it I’m less fond of. What has been surprising this generation, has been the emergence of new subgenres and styles of play within the space though. Outside of big picture strategy like Civilization, tactical turn-based affairs like X-Com, real-time strategy, and now even a variety of deckbuilders, I’ve still been impressed that new forms keep popping up. In my mind, Shogun Showdown falls squarely into this mold, with its relatively basic turn-based setup and roguelike elements it may look simple, but once you get into the groove it plays in a wonderfully distinctive way.

What I think helps set this style of strategy apart is that it feels like it’s based squarely on a philosophy of economy of movement. You’ll operate completely within a limited number of tiles that are on a single plane, with one or more enemies popping in at a time, capable of surrounding you at almost any moment. Where the game is on your side though, at least to a limited degree, is that your enemies will telegraph what their next move will be over their heads. That will leave you to then figure out what combination of your moves, attacks, and skills to use to hopefully avoid, or at least minimize damage.

I’ll admit that starting out there’s simply quite a bit to absorb, most critically that what direction you’re facing is almost always important, especially since you can skip past opponents by approaching them while you’re facing them. When you’re in the zone this can result in a pretty interesting dance of “ducking the wave” to some degree, borrowing some terminology from swimming in the ocean. This can be especially devastating to your enemies (and loads of fun for you) when you’re able to evade an attack and it ends up then clobbering one of their own instead. The thing is, as you move ahead you’ll accumulate more weapons and skills to work with, you’ll be given the opportunity to upgrade them, and your enemies will similarly get tougher… especially when you’re in a boss fight.

The result is both fundamentally simple while often being brutally tough. You really need to think over what combinations of weapons and skills you want, which of them you may want to power up or put on a faster cooldown, and then try to think a few moves ahead whenever possible to try to avoid falling into a potential trap. It took me a few runs to have it click fully, but I really appreciate that fact since I realized I just wasn’t seeing the whole picture yet. It may trend a little tougher than average, but being a fan of new ideas that are implemented quite well this was a wonderful surprise.