how does it compare in general? does it reach the phase of shadow tactic when late missions are more like peeling the onion, spending hours slowly removing guards around to finally get into the target in the center?
Well, peeling the onion is pretty much the point of this genre, no?
Shadow Tactics ignoring the earliest missions were hard. In Shadow Gambit I don't remember ever being stuck. The games balance is just shit due to lazy map design without taking character strengths into account which gives this shallow sandbox feeling.
Yea, they needed to balance the missions so that they're doable with any lineup (perhaps even solo? I think I've seen some of those on yewtube).
Since you said it, triggering alarms is not even an issue, in fact sometimes even desirable to cause distraction. Compare that with Shadow Tactics, extra guards make everything more unpredictable and hard to solve puzzle.
Looking forward to playing the DLC, and that's saying something considering the somewhat more repetitive mission nature compared to Desperados 3. 
Gonna try if you can do a couple more things with Pinkus, considering that he also gets the enemy ability when possessing them. Haven't much toyed with that yet. Oh, and Quentin and Gaelle are still underused by me also. There's two new characters in the DLC too..The game just shows handcrafted and special design for respective missions is just way better than the sandbox approach. By the way, the reason missions have several docking points is because of lazy design. By keeping the same island (same patrol and everything) and putting the objective somewhere else is supposed to pass as a new, different mission. Even though pretty much everyone complains about the repetitiveness.Finished the main story, just bought the DLC as well. Didn't beat Desperados 3 for me, but it was a fun time. The more sandboxy approach had potential to be just as amazing in its own ways(and arguably would have seen Mimimi eventually hitting it bigger in the long haul). In particular considering that they've outed themselves as actually pretty systems driven / Imm Sim-ish fans before already, and see how that fared out for Zelda and BG3.
I don't think it was quite there yet. Reasons:
- The islands are open -- but just "reset" every time you re-visit them, including all guard patrols
- Same -- but in particular early on there is a surprising lack of mission variety. E.g. "find the black pearl, soul energy" (played in German, so don't know the translation).
- Every island may have multiple entry paths -- but you'll mostly just dock on the spot nearest to your objective, unless you are artificially trying to make the mission longer/harder or are hunting for achievements.
But the open crew selection allows for some hilarious combos. One of which quite over-powered. Such as: Upgraded Teresa (anybody can pick up her bolts to return) + Pinkus (possession of enemies) = sniper infiltration squad of death. Possess an enemy with Pinkus, walk into enemy camp, let Teresa snipe, let Pinkus return her bolts. Sure, every time she downs an enemy, the alarm is being triggered. But even that is to your advantage. Pinkus when possessing only has a limited range he can move the possessed guard. However, when an alarm rings, he has to follow inquisition order. E.g. he joins the alarmed state and starts searching. In doing so, he moves beyond his limited possession range, thus being able to pick up bolts not within his range and return them to Teresa...
Mimimi Mo had also talked about about how they'd like to make the environment more interactive. But alas, this is the end, my friend.
Yeah, they never bothered to "fix" this one, it seems. Would be super easy, just add another guard which raises the alarm every time.
I think the game hired tasteless idiots to advise them just to get “BMVI” (German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure) support. I don't know if their previous games supported by German government, but if they're not that would explain so many things. Including shutting down the company despite not going bankrupt, maybe they were horrified due to political aspect of funding and lost their passion. Or maybe I'm just overthinking.
But that's not always the case. In Robin Hood The legend of Sherwood you can choose your team members before a mission and even if you take the best people with you it's still not a walk in the park. And I think it's because each member can do 1 or at most 2 unique things (passive abilities). If you want to play non lethally you have to pick a guy that can knock out, one who can carry the bodies and one who can tie people up. That's already 3 slots filled out of possible 5. Plus they all have pros and cons. Whether they fight with lethal or non lethal weapons, what other abilities they have, whether they are athletic enough to perform actions like jumping and climbing, how fast they run etc.
Yes, once you really think about it, it's unbelievable how many things each character can do.
I disagree with this. I gave the example of Robin Hood that allows you to choose how many and what team members you take with you on a mission. Even if you take the best characters in the game, the game still maintains a level of difficulty mainly from the fact that each character can only do 1 or at most 2 passive abilities. On top of all the other pros and cons of various kinds that they have.
You're both right; it's the combination of overpowered+no limits that makes the game unchallenging. However I agree w NJClaw that freeform party building would be better to lose, because with fixed parties, level design can be much more interesting. With "anything goes" parties, levels have to be a big slurry of the same obstacles to challenge in the same ways every time. There are reasons that Desperados and Commandos are classics and Robin Hood was forgotten.
Any idea what kind of game "stealth strategy" would be?
