Zeph Reviews: Shogun Showdown
Introduction
Admittedly, I'm a fan of roguelite games. The innate challenge of the game itself combined with the steady progress of growing ever stronger run by run scratches my gamer brain just right. There's no better feeling to me than triumphing over a challenge, particularly if it has flummoxed me for any length of time. As long as the gameplay is solid, story becomes secondary, and I'll just enjoy playing the game. This is exactly what happened, for me, with Shogun Showdown. I didn't know much about this game going into it, but it didn't take long at all for me to get hooked.
Story
The story can be very hit or miss for roguelites. Some roguelites have an extremely heavy focus on a story, with each run typically advancing some aspect of the plot (or, at least, a side story) in some way (Hades, for example). Other roguelites instead focus more on the other aspects of the experience, leaving the story to be communicated through lore, optional scenes, or sometimes, not even focusing on story at all. Shogun Showdown leaves more toward the latter category.
The story revolves around your character's quest to slay the titular Shogun, who leads an army of demons that are spreading corruption across the land. Some time ago, a great battle happened on the day of an eclipse, and stars fell from the heavens. It's heavily implied that the Shogun, as well as many (if not all) of the bosses, touched the fallen stars, which may have begun the spread of corruption across the land. You play as one of five characters who are on a quest to defeat the Shogun. ... And that's it. That's essentially the entire story. You get hints of prior interactions between the boss characters through their pre-fight dialogue, but other than some minor cutscenes that play as you progress, you never get more story, nor a solid resolution to it.
The story that exists is fine to set up the game and give you motivation to play, but there was still plenty of room to expand on some details and really build a world. Kind of a missed opportunity, in my opinion. Score: 2/5
Graphics/Art Style
Shogun Showdown focuses primarily on pixel art, and it does it well. All of the playable characters are distinct in appearance, and small details on all of them add some much-appreciated detail. The enemies all have a similar color scheme and general design, but they're all unique enough that you can tell at a glance which enemies you're up against. The bosses are nicely detailed, the weapons are fine (and I appreciate that adding enchantments to your weapons changes the color of the attacks)... pretty much all of the pixel art is very well done, in my opinion.
Then we have the environments. You'll travel through up to seven different levels on your quest to slay the Shogun, and they're all very distinct in appearance. From the lush greenness of the Bamboo Groves to the spooky vibes of a graveyard, from a steaming area full of hot springs to a nighttime port city, all the way to the Shogun's castle - the levels are nicely detailed. Sadly, as they exist solely as background dressing, they're fairly repetitive in appearance, but they do their job of creating a setting very well.
Everything about the art style for this game just works. It's hard to envision this game in anything else, like 3D rendering. I think they nailed it. Score: 4/5
Sound/Music
The music in Shogun Showdown is, in my opinion, really well done. Each of the areas has its own theme, and they all fit nicely with the environment to create a great ambiance. Inside of a theater, you'll hear a song that could easily be playing in the background of a performance. Wandering through ominous levels, the music will turn haunting and hostile. I'm a fan, in particular, of this theme: the Spirit Gateway. The sound effects in the game are relatively simple, but they do their jobs - the weapons make satisfying swooshes and thunks. The "picked up an item sound" is a simple ding that gets relatively repetitive, but it doesn't pull you out of the immersion too much.
The music is the real highlight of this category, though. Score: 4/5
Gameplay
As previously mentioned, gameplay is is one of the most important categories for me. A game can look and sound beautiful, but if I don't enjoy playing it... that's the end of it. Fortunately, the gameplay in Shogun Showdown is, in my opinion, its strongest point. Although you're going through the same locales over and over, the randomness of the enemy formations (and their placements), as well as what items and upgrades you're offered, makes it so that this game doesn't get boring quickly. It helps even more that all five of the characters, though sharing weapons, have unique skills, demanding different strategies for their optimal play.
The upgrades that you can get for your items range from the simple (damage increase, cooldown reduction) to the more complex enchantments (ice, lightning, etc.), and finding ways to chain your moves together to maximize your damage output and manuverability is incredibly fun. I was having an awful time with one of the bosses... and then I got to them with an ice-enchanted katana with almost no cooldown. I was able to simply keep them frozen for the entire fight, trivializing it. (Fortunately(?), the last 2-3 bosses you fight are immune to freezing so that the end of the game isn't a complete pushover.
There are definitely some scenarios of enemy distribution and placement where, based on your current loadout, it feels unfair and you're going to HAVE to take a hit, and maybe lose the game. Sometimes you can figure out a way out of a sticky situation, but sometimes there's just no solution. But that's how roguelites go! Score: 5/5
Replayability
This category is a bit of a tough one for the game. Initially, the replayability factor for this game is really high, because each run will net you skulls, the currency that you'll use to unlock new weapons/skills. These start out pretty cheap, but as you work on unlocking them all, they'll get considerably more expensive. Sadly, once you unlock all of the items, skulls cease to be terribly important - they can still be used to purchase some things in the shops each run, but that's it. You'll very likely quickly accumulate a stockpile of them.
Each of the five characters has their own progress through seven "days" (think of these like Slay The Spire's Ascension levels - each new day unlocks a new challenge that you'll face throughout the run). Day one is very basic - I had no trouble completing it the first time I ever played the game (and I wondered at that point if I had overpaid for it). But the modifiers quickly add up, until on the seventh day, you're fighting enhanced versions of all the bosses, dealing with special enemies that don't appear in any of the earlier days, and generally having a rough time of it. Unfortunately, aside from in-game achievements, there's no real reward for clearing the days outside of the aforementioned story cutscenes - and they really don't add much to the game. Still, the different difficulty levels do provide a nice challenge for future playthroughs.
The heart of any good roguelite is the question How often will I play this once the main story is complete?, and Shogun Showdown answers it with a solid Some... but not as much as some others. Score: 3/5
Zeph's Verdict
Shogun Showdown is a solid game, well worth playing. Retail price on it is about $15 - if you can get it for under $10, I say go for it. Even at full price, I got more than my money's worth out of it.
Final Score: 18/25 - Recommended
Want to see the game in action? Check out my Zeph Plays playlist for it by clicking this link! Zeph Plays Shogun Showdown