Replaying it today, Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines feels like some sort of puzzle game, rather than a real-time tactical strategy game with stealth elements. At the time it was an original and very new experience, but over the years it has shown some limitations, especially in the extremely rigid structure of the missions, which often offered only one real solution and were ruthless when mistakes were made.
It was the late 90s, a time when there was still the possibility of experimenting, especially on PC, and innovative ideas like those brought by the Pyro Studios series were still absorbable by the market. Over time, The Commandos set a precedent, but the genre did not evolve much for years, at least until it passed into the hands of Mimimi Games who, first with Shadow Tactics and then with Desperados III, brought it to a new audience, expanding it. , improving it and also removing it on consoles. In it Shadow Gambit Review: The Cursed Crew, Mimimi's latest effort, we will try to understand if we are facing a further evolution of the genre, as the previous test of the game had led us to assume.
History, world and powers of Shadow Gambit
The Inquisition, headed by the Grand Inquisitor Ignazia, is increasingly violent and is extending its control to the entire Lost Caribbean: it is a place inspired by the Caribbean of the golden age of piracy, where it is not so rare to find talking cursed skulls . and pirates. The first mission of the game, which also has the function of Tutorials, asks us to free the ship Red Marley from the yoke of the inquisition. In the role of the pirate Afia Manicato, characterized by a skeletal hand and the use of her chest as a sheath for her saber, we must familiarize ourselves with the game system, learning to hide in the bushes, to read the visual cone of the enemies, to understand how to exploit the darkness to our advantage and kill the victims without being seen, hiding the corpses so that their companions do not identify them. To do this we will have to use Afia's abilities who, like every cursed pirate worth her salt, has special powers: a fast attack that allows her to reach her prey in an instant and a mental attack that confuses enemies for a few seconds. Afia and Ignazia have essentially the same goal: to find the treasure hidden by the former captain of the Red Marley, a certain Mordecay, who is said to hide incredible secrets.
The first mission also serves to acclimate you to the mythology created around the game. Then we immediately came into contact with the different ranks of theinquisition, which includes the common soldiers, the easiest to deceive and eliminate; the commissars, similar to common soldiers but more mentally resilient and less prone to distraction; the priests, who can block the player's characters, and finally several special characters, who are characterized according to the situation.
We also learn about sacred fire, used by the inquisition to purify evil, as well as strange rituals that can block the power of cursed spirits, by which the ship is held captive. In any case, once the Red Marley has been successfully released, we access its bridge: this is the central area of Shadow Gambit, where we can establish the route for the next mission, talk to the spirit of the ship, resurrect the other members of the crew and take care of some small side missions linked to individual crew members. Each character is freely selectable and can talk to all the other characters available, including a timid figurehead and a monkey who seems to know more than the devil. Although the crew is made up of cursed pirates, the atmosphere of these little mundane tasks is decidedly cheerful, with fish to be transformed into spies and strange stains on the deck to be removed without any unhealthy preparations.
always talking about our crew, it must be said that it is decidedly varied: each of the eight members that make it up, including Afia, is equipped with special powers that make them unique during missions. Thus we have a pirate capable of creating bushes and scaring away guards using seeds, or a crazy pirate with a mute fish as a companion who can use his anchor to go to a parallel world, taking enemies and companions with him. Or there's a pirate sniper who shoots an arrow created from his soul, or a ship's cook who is a master at infiltration and teleportation, or a distinguished English nobleman who can possess the bodies of his enemies.
The powers of the individuals are so different from each other and so specific in their use, that every time a new member is resurrected we have to face a dedicated tutorial, integrated into Red Marley. Generally only three cursed pirates can be selected for each mission. The risk, in cases like this, is that the player creates his own group of favorites and always leaves the others in the dust, but in reality Shadow Gambit pushes us to use everyone a little thanks to various stratagems, such as providing missions that require the use of multiple teams and must be played at different times or link the unlocking of new skills to a bar that fills faster when using characters that have been inactive for a while. After a certain event, specific missions are also unlocked for each crew member, which will take place in the field (therefore not on the Red Marley) and which allow you to get to know everyone better. It must be said that the dialogue writing is not exceptional, but the story definitely does its part and is quite enjoyable, also because it is very well handled in terms of twists and progression.
Level design
All these elements of diversification would have been completely useless if they had not been backed by a level design appropriate. And it is precisely from this point of view that Mimimi has proven to be a master, creating large maps, approachable in different ways and capable of supporting the powers of all the characters. Thus, the player can not only develop his own personal style, but never feels that he has selected the wrong character for a given mission, where what makes the difference is more than anything the ability to properly exploit all the available skills. At the beginning of each mission you must choose the landing point on the map, that is, where to leave the crew on the ground. Keep in mind that each mission uses only a part of the large maps designed by the developers and that choosing one landing point instead of another can make life more or less difficult, in addition to radically changing the path to achieving the set objectives. Therefore, during the landing phase it is possible to observe the movements of the enemies, to realize which areas are more or less defended. In general, the game world is divided into islands, which are unlocked as the missions progress. In the initial phases, Shadow Gambit is quite guided, but it opens up soon (after about fifteen hours of play) and the player can begin to select which mission to carry out from a large list, which includes those of the crew and those that serve . to continue the story.
Uccidere in silence
The action is framed from above, with the camera able to pan or zoom as needed. He control system It's really simple, especially if you know the genre, as the interface seems very clear and provides all the necessary information at a glance. During missions, in addition to acting in real time, it is also possible to activate a tactical pause to coordinate the crew's movements. In the first hours of the game it is used relatively little, but as the adventure progresses it becomes a precious tool, as well as essential to be able to carry out the most complex strategies, such as killing three guards at the same time or organizing. an exit with escape (if you wish, you can also use the guards' alert to clear some passages, even if doing so is very dangerous). When you master the tactical rest, which allows you to assign an action to each character, it is exciting to see a well-thought-out plan put into action or to be able to recover at the last moment from a situation that was about to become lethal for the crew. Consider that as the missions progress, the spaces for maneuver become increasingly narrower, new obstacles are introduced into the action and, therefore, coordination between the characters becomes truly essential. When the characters are discovered, they must flee to find a hiding place, where they can wait for the alarm to stop, represented by a timer clearly visible on the screen, and then act again.
If one of the characters dies, it is possible to resurrect them on the field by reaching the corpse before the timer expires, otherwise their spirit is transported to the Marley and you must continue the mission with one less member. From the point of view of recovery situations, Shadow Gambit is quite permissive, with the guards getting tired of looking for us after thirty seconds and with a certain ease to escape, at least at the beginning, in addition to an on-screen system that reminds the player that it is best to save the game from time to time. It is not an easy game, but it is much more forgiving than other exponents of the genre, Shadow Tactics itself. This may seem like a flaw to some, but in reality it has to be, because we are talking about a very long game, with dozens of missions, which would otherwise have become excessively frustrating. Anyone who wants can select the maximum difficulty level and immediately make their life hell.
A rewarding and exhausting game
What Shadow Gambit achieves perfectly is involving the player in its dynamics, which become increasingly complex as the difficulty of the missions increases. At a certain point you find yourself thinking as if you were playing chess, that is, trying to anticipate your opponents' every move and evaluating every available skill to choose what to do. He implication It is very high, as is the space for experimentation, which ends up rewarding every time you manage to do something new by taking advantage of the different systems.
In some cases, the satisfaction is enormous, as is the perception of having overcome obstacles that at first glance seemed impossible, perhaps changing the approach with respect to the one initially chosen. In this sense, the one created by Mimimi is a perfect machine, the maximum expression of strategic stealth, capable of giving a lot of freedom to the player, who sees his effort rewarded and understands after a few missions that he does not need to continue. a predetermined path to achieve objectives. In short, you can develop your own style of play without fear of being slowed down by the system itself, which ends up promoting personal initiative in some way, obviously within the limits of the genre itself (don't expect to be able to face everyone). from the front, for example).
One of the problems with Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is that it is an extremely tired. Missions can last over an hour and are generally very difficult, especially after beating the first half of the game. Therefore, they require a lot of experimentation to be able to overcome the different obstacles, with the enemies that, as has already been said, are positioned in such a way that they offer less and less room for maneuver. The result is that you also spend several minutes studying their position and movements, taking advantage of the tools that the interface provides, such as the ability to see the visual cones of individual opponents and check whether a specific point on the map is under control or not. .
When you identify some flaw in the defensive wall, also related to the characters you have brought to the mission, you try the exit that does not necessarily go well immediately, because the execution of the tactics can require multiple attempts, especially when they are more structured. . Of course: everything works very well and the involvement is enormous, as is the satisfaction when you manage to apply complex tactics.
This does not mean that after spending more than an hour on a single mission, you will eventually want to catch your breath given the mental commitment it requires. The intermediate phases in the Marley help break things up and as such should be read for their simplicity, but perhaps a gentler modulation of the missions would have been good for the entire experience, with the more difficult ones followed by less demanding ones. and, perhaps, more cutting.
de technical point of view Shadow Gambit does its job, offering a good level of detail, many well-characterized environments, and some valuable effects for the crew's abilities. Of course, don't expect miracles, but the creation is undoubtedly competent and the style adopted is more conscious and marked than in previous Mimimi games. In short, even from this point of view a step forward has been taken, giving greater personality to the work and making wandering through the damned Caribbean more pleasant. The soundtrack is designed to never distract the player while they plan their moves. The musical fabric, therefore, is made up of background songs that tend to disappear in the action and that become more present only in the presence of particular narrative turns or relatively more tense moments.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, epic games store, GoG, playstation store, Xbox Store Price 49,99 € Holygamerz.com 9.0 Readers (10) 9.0 your voteShadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is the best stealth strategy on the market, little to add. It is an evolution possible thanks to the great experience of Mimimi, who has thought a lot about how to expand the formula of the genre without distorting it, creating an experience of greater scope, which has the only problem of being tiring, precisely because of its rigor. It is, therefore, a mentally demanding game, which can nevertheless give a lot of satisfaction, especially when you master all the different systems that make it up. Shadow Gambit is an absolutely recommended title, which anyone who appreciates Desperados III or Shadow Tactics should not miss under any circumstances.
PRO
- Great map design
- The maximum expression of strategic stealth.
- Exciting plans can be conceived
- Evolutionary, but on the right track.
AGAINST
- It can be a little tiring
- The crew's missions on the ship aren't exactly exciting
