Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Are you in the market for a turn-based roguelike deck builder that has more of a focus on strategy than luck? Well good news for you, Shogun Showdown might be what you're looking for!
In Shogun Showdown your goal is to traverse a series of areas, reach the Shogun's Castle, and defeat him. To do this you will have to take turns on a 2D "line", loading and using tiles and your character's special ability to fight your way through waves of enemies to get to a boss of the stage. Upon defeating the boss, off to the next stage, as well as a merchant. Between sets of waves and after the boss and before your next area, you can upgrade tiles, or purchase or exchange with a shopkeeper respectively. You will also be able to select from new tiles to put into your deck as you progress on your quest.
Fighting your way through enemies and bosses has a very interesting action economy system. Essentially, both you and your enemies are on a turn-by-turn basis. Selecting a tile, using tiles (yes, multiple), moving, using your character skill, or turning around takes a "turn", with a few exceptions. Enemies will express what their next turn is via an indicator, and you can do your best to disrupt it. Using an attack? Move out of range. Moving to a position? Fill that position yourself. Not all of these will necessarily be the best option, but they're still available to you.
You can load up to three tiles in your attack schedule, each loading taking one "turn". Once you have multiple tiles in your attack lineup, you can swap their places in turn order. Once you choose to use your tiles, they will be used from the bottom up in order and one at a time. Thankfully you can swap the order as long as they're loaded without expending a turn. Some tiles will have different ranges and damage, some are primarily for movement, and some have special effects, such as curse which damage received by an enemy on the next hit.
Tiles themselves all have a "wait" value as well, indicating how many turns you have to wait before you can use those tiles again. Sometimes this means you'll be left without a method to attack for awhile if your tiles are all on cooldown. There are a few ways to deal with this. First is to strategically place yourself so you can expend turns without getting hit. You also have a number of consumable items you can discover or buy. These do not use a turn to consume, and one of them has the effect of bringing all tiles off cooldown. There are a few more methods to help with tile cooldown, but probably the most prevalent is to find an upgrade that offers cooldown reduction. You can reroll at progressively more expensive rerolls, but sometimes it can be worth it to reduce a large cooldown to a small one.
After you have finished a run, you will be left with some skulls for meeting certain benchmarks. These skulls can be used to permanently unlock slots in the merchants as you progress through a run, or at your sort of base camp, where you can spend them to unlock new tiles and skills that you can find, earn, or buy while attempting a run.
Shogun Showdown is framed in a charming bit-style graphics with an oriental stylized soundtrack, and characters/enemies to boot. Shogun Showdown does a good job of showcasing a fairly simple system that can really draw you in. As a wonderful added bonus for me, unlike most roguelikes or deckbuilding style games, there is a much larger focus on strategy here than on luck and hoping you get what you need. Sure, there may be luck involved in getting tiles, skills, and upgrades you want, but planning when to use what tile, how, and when to use your character's special move are all a lot more important in the grand scheme of things. Proper planning can lead to a victory even without good luck.
Overall, Shogun Showdown is a wonderful little adventure in turn-based roguelike deckbuilding. With a heavier focus on strategy and planning than luck, it's a nice change of pace from what's currently in the market. With a wide variety of options to add to your deck, as well as an upgrading system for your tiles, Shogun Showdown is a good showing in the roguelike deckbuilding genre.
Score: 9.5 / 10
