Like a samurai waiting patiently for an opening in his opponent's defenses, Shogun Showdown understands that focus and finesse are the tools to land an effective blow. This rare roguelike strips the genre down to its purest components, all to power its dazzling combat that elegantly plays with concepts of positioning and patience. Utterly refined, stylish, and complex, Shogun Showdown is a delight.
Here’s the plot: You’re on a mission to kill the Shogun. The Shogun is a villain who has been corrupted by some sort of cataclysmic event that has shaken the world, with dark forces seeping through the cracks that have formed. At least, that’s what I think is happening. To be honest, Shogun Showdown’s story is pretty light, and aside from a few minor cutscenes, there’s not much to think about here. At first, I found this decision disconcerting, but after a few hours of play, it became clear that, like most aspects of the game, it was a testament to developer Roboatino’s careful intentions.
Shogun Showdown is a roguelike in the most traditional sense of the term. All the genre staples you'd expect are here: a node-based map, shops, and bosses. Unlockable characters, weapons, and skills. There's no fat to trim here, no additional runes doling out minute percentage increases, or fancy narrative ideas to incentivize or reward death. You get a single currency that's used to buy more thing,and that's it: everything is in the service of the struggle, leading you into perfect conflicts again and again.
A turn-based version of the genre, positioning is your most important weapon against the Shogun's armies. At the start of a run, you're placed in the middle of a row of tiles. Movement is locked into single jumps left and right, but you can also spin to face the other way. Attacks, stylized as cards at the bottom of the screen, can be dragged over your character's head to define the order in which they'll be performed. After a card is used, you're forced to wait a short cooldown before it can be primed again.
Each action (except for certain cards) lasts one turn. Whether you decide to move left or prepare your bow for an attack, the baddies lurking around you Moreover Make a decision at the same time. Their actions are visualized on the screen alongside yours, with upcoming moves or fighting abilities displayed on their bodies or above their heads. Meanwhile, attacks following your next move flash yellow to encourage you to get out of their way lest you be diagnosed with a fatal case of the Great Sword Disease in the Chest.
Considering that all your attacks have cooldowns, and the arenas you fight in are as cramped as a London house (often filled with the same number of people), every choice you make becomes the difference between life and death. Thankfully, your options are plentiful, the result of a rich and varied selection of weapons and abilities that are generously given as you pick your way through the game.
While some weapons are pure damage dealers, most are better described as movement modifiers. A dash that launches you across the arena. A smoke bomb that replaces your character’s position with that of the nearest opponent. A grappling hook that pulls an enemy to the tip of your blade. Combined with character abilities (the starting Wanderer can swap places with whoever he encounters, while the unlockable Ronin pushes enemies into his allies, the effect reducing them to a fountain of blood), weapons encourage you to think about your broader strategy each turn. You can’t just get by with brute force.
It's a surprising amount. Despite being turn-based, the drama it creates is a testament to the breadth of imagination that went into designing these weapons. After just a few hours of play, it becomes clear that no two encounters are ever going to be treated the same way. You start each run with two default weapons, but you can only choose from a pool that you unlock after a certain number of rounds. Essentially, you rarely have access to more than a handful of attacks, and while they can be upgraded during a run to increase their power, reduce their cooldown, or imbue them with a helpful ability, the amount of play you can do with each one is limited.
In practice, all of this makes for quite the spectacle, despite being locked into a single 2D plane. Playing Shogun Showdown means being pinned between two furious brawlers with no clear solution as to how to avoid certain death. Do you jump out of the way of Ashigaru's katana, only to be impaled by his buddy's spear instead? Do you unbolt a crossbow bolt, knowing that the ability to slice through multiple enemies at once will be more useful if you can look back at the group behind you? Oh wait! What if you switch places with the katana kid using a smoke grenade, and in the resulting confusion, he knocks his buddy to the ground? Great!
It’s in the midst of this gruelling decision-making that Shogun Showdown reveals its thrilling, thrilling essence. Bending and twisting. Pushing and pulling. Slashing, chopping, hitting and cursing. This is combat at its most exciting, despite its relative simplicity. Battles are either hard-won (defeat is averted with a well-timed health potion at the last moment or a sword slice that dismembers your two remaining enemies) or achieved so brutally and quickly that the game has no choice but to plaster the words “Destroyed” on the screen (this is just a side note, Really Good).
Who needs real-time action when turn-based battles like these can produce such brilliant moments? After one particularly memorable battle, I shouted so loudly that I got a polite message from my partner asking me to be quiet. In his defense, it was 2am. This game provides plenty of time-wasting fun.
Let me tell you, it also helps that it looks beautiful. While most aspects of the game have been pruned to perfection, the art is no exception. Each stage is beautifully framed, with multiple layers providing a sense of depth that, when combined with the combat, gives it an effective cinematic quality. Fights play out surrounded by silhouetted vegetation, with shattered pagodas bathed in sunset-toned light, scattered loosely behind the bloodshed. The backdrops in particular stand out – the detailed landscapes lend a sense of decay and decay that taints this sparse world – but in reality, every aspect of the game, from its characters to its user interface, is readable and beautiful.
And when it's over? Well. A good roguelike is never really over, is it? I'll just say that defeating the Shogun is far from the end, and once the titular ruler is overthrown, tougher challenges await those who dare to press on. Even then, there are always new tactics to be discovered, new toys to play with, and new characters to try out on the battlefield. I'm afraid my time with the game isn't over yet (completionist).
2024 has been such a great year for roguelikes that I was convinced I had had enough. In a year that has already delivered both Balatro and Hades II, could anything of the same caliber make a real attempt to steal the crown? I suppose that makes me cringe even more. After playing Shogun Showdown, it’s no surprise that it slithered into my life with such grace that I barely even noticed the knife it stabbed into my heart. This is a dazzling gem of a game that you shouldn’t miss, even if you’re smoke-bombed.