Few strategy games step outside of their genre to attract gamers that don’t generally see themselves as strategy gamers. Even those games that do tend to be epic in the grand scheme of things; such as fending off aliens in a very tactical environment, à la X-COM: Enemy Unknown. X-COM’s strategic depth rewards players for their slow, thought-out advances and has the capability to root deep emotional attachment.
On the complete opposite end of this scale sits Skulls of the Shogun Bone-A-Fide Edition, a game originally released on XBLA but now making it’s way to Steam.Skulls of the Shogun pits armies of dead samurai against each other in turn-based combat and laces it with a hilariously written story.
It’s not really the story itself that is funny. The overlying story arch isn’t anything groundbreaking. Instead, it’s the little quips I heard throughout the game that made me crack up laughing. The soldiers, even in the midst of battle, are not only warring with the other team physically, but the trash talk between the multiple sides made me laugh out loud multiple times. It’s really the strongest hand played by Skulls of the Shogun, and the main reason I continued playing through the campaign.
Gameplay is fast-paced and accessible to people not used to strategy games, as turn-based strategy games tend to be slower, plotting affairs. Instead of moving along a grid, each participant in battle has a movement range outlined by a large circle around them. I loved the additional freedom this presented, and it opened up the battlefield for more tactical options.
As someone that plays a handful of strategy games, I will admit that a lot of the time, I don’t notice how bad the AI is. So it’s actually really bad if I do point out bad AI, and worse yet when I cite instances to back up my point.
Scenario one needs a little bit of backstory. At certain times, I was faced with taking out the enemy general. No matter how the battle is going, if you can manage to get in and kill the opposing general, you win the game. Additionally, you can let your general rest (and basically not move him from the beginning) to gain some extra power. This goes for the other team’s general, too.
Now then, imagine my surprise when the other team not only awakens their general, but moves him into the middle of the map, unprotected. At this point in the match, I was slightly losing, though not by much. However, it only took one turn to kamikaze attack the enemy general and win the match. That match lasted just a few minutes, and even though I made a handful of mistakes in the opening moves, I destroyed the enemy with just a few sacrifices. There was no reason whatsoever for that general to move to the middle.
Example two was my breaking point. I brushed off the previous story as a fluke. What really just blew my mind was late in the game during a boss stage, I was very much outnumbered and had some random third-party monsters roaming around (they attack anything and everything that moves). I had carefully and painstakingly made my way to the end of the map, where the opposing general sat surrounded by three soldiers. They had just smeared my only archer available, and all I had left was my general, who was surrounded by their general and the three soldiers. During his move, the AI could have taken me in three swift motions. Instead, one guy is sent to haunt a shrine (haunting shrines will give you a bonus troop, something he did not need at this point), another guy to eat my dead archers skull (regenerating health, something he did not need at this point), and he took two attacks at me, which left me with one health point. On my turn, I killed his wounded general. And won.
At first, this was a sigh of relief. This match had taken quite a bit of time compared to most (about half an hour), but once it settled in how I won that match, I felt cheated. I didn’t win that match because I had outsmarted the AI. Well, I did, but the stupid choices the AI made certainly didn’t make me feel any better about that victory.
I stopped playing the campaign shortly after this. I could see how the charm of the story had won some people over, but the blatantly bad AI was something I just couldn’t get past. For someone who appreciates strategy games, and appreciates the thought process involved in them, it’s hard to find satisfaction in playing a game like this. For those just seeking a slight challenge and some hilarious writing, this has their name written all over it.
What Skulls of the Shogun lacks in the campaign’s AI could potentially be found playing online. If you have a friend, or friends to play with, that is a great way to make up for what the single player lost. But if you want to take on strangers in ranked play (or even just unranked play), I had no such luck finding random people.
The main charm of this game is, in fact, the story. But if you want serious AI, you won’t find it. If you are content with enjoying this funny tale of an undead samurai for just what it is, by all means it is a good game. But for strategy gamers looking for a quick dose of tactical thinking, the AI will probably infuriate you as it did me.
This review was written based on review code received from the publisher on the PC platform. For more information on our review process, please read here.
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