Commandos-Like Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - ghost pirates stealth strategy from Mimimi Games

[Lemming42]

Still playing this and I'm gonna rate it as comfortably better than Shadow Tactics and worse than Desperados 3. Definitely another good entry for Mimimi, though I do hope they ditch some of the nonlinear stuff in their next game because it's not quite paid off IMO. Being able to select your own party sort of backfires a bit too given that levels can't be designed with every possible combination in mind, so sometimes you can accidentally pick a party who make the level absolutely trivial, where the devs clearly haven't planned for you having a particular combination of characters.

The characters' abilities are unbelievably fun to use and let you get far more creative than previous Mimimi games, but the tradeoff is that you're so powerful and have such a range of options available to you that the challenge melts away pretty quick, even on the highest difficulties. In Depserados 3, Isabelle was the obviously cheap character who would get you out of tight spots with her magic, which worked great since the game was balanced around you having her or not having her on certain maps. In Shadow Gambit, basically everyone is Isabelle (barring the treasure hunter skeleton, who is totally shit), and you can just carve straight through every map. Desperados 3 would sometimes pin you down with a devilishly tough challenge that required cunning use of your skills to proceed, but Shadow Gambit's maps are made up of very small isolated mini-challenges which are all easy in isolation and, when cleared, allow you to approach the next challenge from multiple angles, making it even more straightforward.

The game encourages you to constantly mix and match party members to get around this, and also to make it easier to stomach the fact that you're revisiting the same maps with the same enemy placement numerous times, but once you've got a basic familiarity with each character then you'll know exactly how to consistently make dream teams who can just streamroll shit.

The story's interesting so far, it pretty much relies on you being scandalised that the antagonist gains the ability to do to you the same sadistic shit you've been casually doing to her and her people for the entire game, lol. The player characters are okay, they're the usual smug amoral killers you get in Mimimi games and some of them have very fun and distinct personalities, especially the old dude who's writing his memoirs and the cannon lady. The ship is funny too, she's an absolute arsehole. I think I slightly prefer Cooper's gang but that's mostly because McCoy's emo shit is fucking hilarious.

Playing this game really makes me want to replay Desperados 3, but that's no insult to Shadow Gambit, I just really love D3 to an absurd degree. I'm ragging on Shadow Gambit a bit here but that's only because it's far easier to write at length about things that don't work than it is to write about the many things that do work. Shadow Gambit is another good Mimimi game overall. Buy it.

 

[HansDampf]

Well, that seals the deal for me. I'll pass.

 

[El Presidente]

I won't play this so soon but I bought it to support Mimimi. I'm just so glad these fuckers are keeping the Commandos-like genre alive in all its glory I really love this genre and I like how despite it barely reaching two dozen games it manages to provide us with lots of different settings. WWII, old west, medieval england, feudal japan, 30s Chicago, Star Trek, and now a pirate themed one. It has more setting variety than many big genres.

I hope Mimimi will make a sci-fi one eventually, or something like ancient Egypt, or Rome.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Lemming42 So the main criticism is that it's too easy given the large combinations of team members and options you can have at any time. Hm....oh well. Can you play solo, with one character or you have to choose 3? Or 2?
Edit 1: In Robin Hood you could also choose team members as well as in Partisans 1941 but each of them usually had 1 or 2 abilities you needed for a mission without becoming too OP.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I'm just so glad these fuckers are keeping the Commandos-like genre alive

Yeah I love this genre as well.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Still playing this and I'm gonna rate it as comfortably better than Shadow Tactics and worse than Desperados 3. Definitely another good entry for Mimimi, though I do hope they ditch some of the nonlinear stuff in their next game because it's not quite paid off IMO. Being able to select your own party sort of backfires a bit too given that levels can't be designed with every possible combination in mind, so sometimes you can accidentally pick a party who make the level absolutely trivial, where the devs clearly haven't planned for you having a particular combination of characters.

The characters' abilities are unbelievably fun to use and let you get far more creative than previous Mimimi games, but the tradeoff is that you're so powerful and have such a range of options available to you that the challenge melts away pretty quick, even on the highest difficulties. In Depserados 3, Isabelle was the obviously cheap character who would get you out of tight spots with her magic, which worked great since the game was balanced around you having her or not having her on certain maps. In Shadow Gambit, basically everyone is Isabelle (barring the treasure hunter skeleton, who is totally shit), and you can just carve straight through every map. Desperados 3 would sometimes pin you down with a devilishly tough challenge that required cunning use of your skills to proceed, but Shadow Gambit's maps are made up of very small isolated mini-challenges which are all easy in isolation and, when cleared, allow you to approach the next challenge from multiple angles, making it even more straightforward.

The game encourages you to constantly mix and match party members to get around this, and also to make it easier to stomach the fact that you're revisiting the same maps with the same enemy placement numerous times, but once you've got a basic familiarity with each character then you'll know exactly how to consistently make dream teams who can just streamroll shit.

The story's interesting so far, it pretty much relies on you being scandalised that the antagonist gains the ability to do to you the same sadistic shit you've been casually doing to her and her people for the entire game, lol. The player characters are okay, they're the usual smug amoral killers you get in Mimimi games and some of them have very fun and distinct personalities, especially the old dude who's writing his memoirs and the cannon lady. The ship is funny too, she's an absolute arsehole. I think I slightly prefer Cooper's gang but that's mostly because McCoy's emo shit is fucking hilarious.

Playing this game really makes me want to replay Desperados 3, but that's no insult to Shadow Gambit, I just really love D3 to an absurd degree. I'm ragging on Shadow Gambit a bit here but that's only because it's far easier to write at length about things that don't work than it is to write about the many things that do work. Shadow Gambit is another good Mimimi game overall. Buy it.

Thanks for the insights! Although to be perfectly honest it sounds more damning that you probably intended. Taking the challenge out of this kind of games kind of undermines their whole basic concept, so you got me a bit worried there. Can you elobarate on why you rank it higher than Shadow Tactics? I'd be curious.

 

[Lemming42]

@Lemming42 So the main criticism is that it's too easy given the large combinations of team members and options you can have at any time. Hm....oh well. Can you play solo, with one character or you have to choose 3? Or 2?

You can choose to go solo. Most missions have an upper limit of three, and you can choose any number up to that.

Thanks for the insights! Although to be perfectly honest it sounds more damning that you probably intended. Taking the challenge out of this kind of games undermines the whole basic concept, so you got me a bit worried there. Can you elobarate on why you rank it higher than Shadow Tactics, I'd be curious.

I like Shadow Tactics a lot, for me it's just a couple of mostly subjective things - the roster of player abilities felt a bit underwhelming to me in Shadow Tactics, where I felt the synergy between team members' skills was a bit weaker than in D3 or this. I also think the level design in D3 and Shadow Gambit is generally a small step up from most of Shadow Tactics (with Gambit's slightly hobbled by the somewhat compartmentalised nature of the maps).

The main thing I'd give Shadow Gambit over Shadow Tactics is the character abilities, which are fantastic on their own and also interplay brilliantly with each other. You basically can't create a useless team here - any combination of three characters will be effective and gel with each other's skills, though obviously some combos are better than others. I often found myself leaving team members behind in Shadow Tactics because it made more sense to proceed with one or two characters who were best suited for the task at hand, whereas in Shadow Gambit I'm constantly bringing all three team members into action for pretty much every challenge, and combining all their abilities together.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Lemming42 And I assume that if you go solo it will be more difficult right? Or are there story required team members to be present? Can any of the characters solo the game?

 

[Lemming42]

I've not tried solo myself yet but I imagine you could make the game pretty difficult that way. When you select only one character on the selection screen, you get this popup:

There's not been any levels with story-required characters so far, except for one level where the protagonist had to be left behind. Otherwise, they get around it with the supernatural stuff - the main character can use the ship's weird ghost abilities to see what's going on and narrate even if you don't actually bring her on a mission, so you're left to choose whichever party you like.

There's also individual side-missions for each character which require you to take them along, though I've not done any of those yet.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Lemming42 And who's the main character?

 

[Lemming42]

Afia, the Jamaican lady with the purple glowing sword stuck through her chest. I bring her on missions because she's crazy useful but I'm pretty sure her in-mission dialogue will be the same whether she's there in person or watching from the ship.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Lemming42 Ah ok, thanks. Gonna play it soon but I haven't finished Baldur's Gay 3. In act 3 now, hopefully not much more to go.

 

[negator2vc]

I won't play this so soon but I bought it to support Mimimi. I'm just so glad these fuckers are keeping the Commandos-like genre alive in all its glory I really love this genre and I like how despite it barely reaching two dozen games it manages to provide us with lots of different settings. WWII, old west, medieval england, feudal japan, 30s Chicago, Star Trek, and now a pirate themed one. It has more setting variety than many big genres.

I hope Mimimi will make a sci-fi one eventually, or something like ancient Egypt, or Rome.

About the star trek setting are you referring to Star Trek: Away Team
or is there another commandos like Star trek game?

 

[Zombra]

Lemming42 Couple questions. I haven't picked up the game yet but plan to soon.

• What do you think of the idea of playing this with a randomized team every level? Not crafting dream teams, just rolling the dice and using whoever comes up? (Maybe randomizing only between people I didn't use on the previous mission to keep things fresher?)
  
  
• Desperados 3 famously had the absolute best conclusion of any game of this type to date, an incredibly challenging "final exam" which forced the player to analyze and implement a wide and deep combination of tactics learned along the way with all five characters, in perfect coordination. It sounds like you haven't finished this new game yet but I'm curious whether Shadow Gambit has a finale anywhere near close to as good as D3's. I'd love to hear (without spoilers, obviously) your opinion of the climax when you get there.

 

[DemonKing]

Played a bit on the weekend and have to say while it's fun it's probably the weakest of the Mimimi games for me so far:

* You have to replay the same maps multiple times.
* I preferred having a locked roster that forced you to work with what you have rather than being allowed to pick and choose your team (which also made it easier for the designer to craft levels to suit the set character groupings).
* Lame "Crew Tales" storyline on the ship where you basically run around clicking on various NPC crew members in between missions to advance each character's "Story"
* Bizarre Undead Pirates of the Caribbean meets Spanish Inquisition setting.

The enemy variety hasn't changed much from the standard Mimimi fare but there are a few variations. Voiced acting is decent and some of the powers are fun, but have to admit I think they need to stretch themselves a bit and try a different genre of game for their next project (or at least do Desperados 4).

So far for me D3 > ST > SG (will reassess when I finish the game).

 

[Lemming42]

What do you think of the idea of playing this with a randomized team every level? Not crafting dream teams, just rolling the dice and using whoever comes up? (Maybe randomizing only between people I didn't use on the previous mission to keep things fresher?)

You could definitely have fun by randomising your team. There's actually a part where the devs cleverly trick you into using characters you might otherwise choose not to - you're told to make a "main team" and a "backup team" (or words to that effect), and then the main team gets captured, forcing you to complete the mission using the group you'd intended to be the inferior secondary team.

You're also encouraged to use people you didn't use last time, they start building up upgrade tokens which you claim by sending them on missions. The upgrades are all pretty useful too though I've mostly forgotten to check them.

 

[Zombra]

Spoiler alert

 

[Axel_am]

All I'm getting from this thread is - buy when it goes on sale, if you want to play it now - get Shadow Tactics for 4EUR.

 

[spectre]

All I'm getting from this thread is - buy when it goes on sale, if you want to play it now - get Shadow Tactics for 4EUR.

If you haven't, why not. It's basically down to what flavor of the game you'd rather play: do you want kinky nippon, cowboys or pirates of the carribean.
You gotta hand it to mimimi, they really nailed the formula. The flow from kill to kill, from encounter to encounter is really smooth and satisfying.
The interface, feedback and the way information is presented on screen is really solid. I think this has really come to its peak in SG, even if it was already good
in their earlier games.

Now, I've only just started Shadow Gambit, while I'm not exactly keen on this more freeform approach to the formula, I get what they were going for.
As for now, the doctor character feels very OP, especially with portable, inconspicuous and 100% effective on-demand cover, and I'm looking
forward to some sort of a difficulty spike once I'm past the early game. The special enemies keep the formula fresh and I hope they'll be using more of them.

I must agree that the stuff happening on the ship between missions seems to be the weakest part of the game.
Getting to know the crew and showcasing the vessel isn't bad, but there's quite a lot of tedious clicking involved
because you need to select the right guy (and they're scattered all over the place), then they need to get to the right location... etc.

 

[Axel_am]

Sure, it just sounds that the release is average. Which bugs me a little as I was excited for the Pirate aesthetic.

 

[spectre]

I suppose "average" in this case means: solid quality you'd expect from mimimi.
Perhaps it's also because Desperados 3 is still fresh on people's minds, being "only" like three years,
with a bunch of solid offerings, people have gotten difficult to please.

For what it's worth, I'm enjoying Shadow Gambit more than many other recent releases (this includes JA3 and BG3).

Not sure what else to tell you. I'm also a sucker for pirate games, but in this "subgenre" you kinda take what's on the table.
This one's a commandos game first and foremost, so if you want your ship sailing fix... dunno, maybe have another go at whatever the recent Sea Dogs is called,
or rewatch Black Sails, maybe?

 

[Zombra]

All I'm getting from this thread is - buy when it goes on sale, if you want to play it now - get Shadow Tactics for 4EUR.

If you're at all interested in this kind of game and you haven't bothered to play Shadow Tactics - what the fuck are you doing? Yes, go play Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3. If you ONLY like pirates, then yes, play the pirate one. It's just math.

 

[0wca]

I've not tried solo myself yet but I imagine you could make the game pretty difficult that way. When you select only one character on the selection screen, you get this popup:

There's not been any levels with story-required characters so far, except for one level where the protagonist had to be left behind. Otherwise, they get around it with the supernatural stuff - the main character can use the ship's weird ghost abilities to see what's going on and narrate even if you don't actually bring her on a mission, so you're left to choose whichever party you like.

There's also individual side-missions for each character which require you to take them along, though I've not done any of those yet.

Haven't tried solo either, but I soloed certain areas with Toya alone. His lure/teleport kill is insanely OP, so I guess you could solo with him pretty easily.

 

[spectre]

I've actually been avoiding Toya, cause I had my fill of kinky nippon in the first Shadow Tictacs.
Soleidy is equally OP and should have decent potential for soloing, although some missions seem to require getting Kindred and Prognosticars out of the way,
which is going to be tough with just one char.

In contrast to these two, they really fine-tuned the fuck out of the spy character. Disguise being limited to a certain radius, then the distract ability only lasting for a few seconds.
I think I preferred the way it was done in commandos, with disguise tiers and officers being able to see through the disguise.

On the whole, three last crew revives didn't seem to bring that much new to the table, the roster's gotten too big for its own good, imo.
It's still pretty much up to the player to make their own fun (pairing cannoness with treasure hunter is silly).

Mechanically speaking, while I like it how they "fixed" distractions and the shmucks will not move if they're within interaction range of a higher-up,
still the "tied up enemies are the ultimate lure" thing is still there and feels as cheap as ever.

So far, my biggest complaint from a design standpoint is that an open-ended game needs to have some sense of progression.
This genre typically does this by unlocking characters, but you basically have all the bases covered with just three chars
and since the maps are designed to be solvable regardless of roster... well this gets a bit counter-productive.
There are upgrades, but they seem meh. I'm sitting on three vigor points and nothing seems like a must have.
OP stuff becomes more OP, characters that feel crappy stay crappy, it's as though some intermediate step is missing.

Also, damn, these crew stories are fucking bland. Gives you some excuse to appreciate the design of the Marley, but feels like treading water.
To those who missed it: right click advances to the next line of dialogue.

 

[spectre]

"Finished" the game, quite a romp, with quotation marks because:

spoily

after you finish the Grand Design mission, in itself quite lengthy, the actual endgame actually unlocks,
where you will be hunting all the achievements (some are quite bullshit, like no shadow mode in last mission),
unlocking the final character (which requires a certain completion %).

Think I need to give it a well deserved break before getting back to it. I'm never a 100% completionist with these kind of games.
If there's one thing, I'd like to complete all the mirror missions for each character, these were pretty good and an actual highlight of the game.

That said, didn't like the last mission that much, it was sufficiently "epic", though I wasn't that much of a fun of this whole
explaining savegames as a thing in the game shtick, which then turned into a major plot point of its own.

Compared to Shadow Tactics, I thought the ending would be snappier (you could technically cheese the last one in ST and finish it in under 20 minutes,
no such luck this time). Though I have to give them that the puzzles really required using the full extent of the squad roster, if only to dogpile
all the interlinked guards and prognosticars. Biggest problem with it was that the environments felt sanitized. Not looking forward
to replaying it anytime soon because of that. The smaller islands are much more charming with their nooks and crannies.

The game had its ups and downs. Felt a bit of wear somewhere in the middle of the playthrough, then it got gud again with the captain's challenges in the mirror
(for one, they really fleshed the characters out, much better than the stuff you do on the ship in between missions).
The setting wore me down a bit. Especially the inquisition aesthetics is something I've already seen here and there
(I think it was somewhat influenced by Darkest Dungeon). I still think it's a solid offering, but I wouldn't play it over the earlier games,
unless the setting is a deal breaker for you.