2025 is looking to be the year of the Samurai & Ninjas with titles like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ninja Gaiden 4, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, Ninja Gaiden 2: Black, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and today’s topic – Shadow of the Road.
This game, developed by Another Angle Games and published by Owlcat Games, is an upcoming CRPG set in an alternate-fantasy vision of 1800s Japan. In Shadow of the Road, players will take control of a band of intriguing characters traveling the land to decide Japan’s future while battling dangerous ninjas, samurai, steampunk mecha, and horrifying Yōkai along the way.
This game caught my eye in recent weeks for its setting and gameplay. It felt like someone took the feudal-era Japan, Samurai power fantasy of Capcom’s Onimusha series and turned it into a turn-based CRPG like Baldur’s Gate 3.
Not to mention, it’s being published by the same studio behind the awesome Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, so I was curious to see if Shadow of the Road can live up to that game’s high level of quality.
Fortunately, I got a chance to see an Alpha build preview of the game courtesy of Another Angle Games and Owlcat Games, and what I’ve played has sold me on it so far. So, sit back as I regale you with my time playing Shadow of the Road and why I feel you should put this game on your wishlist.
A country filled with chaos and strife
My preview began with an opening cinematic setting up the world of Shadow of the Road. This game takes place in an alternate version of 1868 Japan that’s currently engulfed in a civil war between two major factions.
These factions are the traditionalist forces of Shōgun Tokugawa and the technologically advanced armies of Emperor Mutsuhito, whose soldiers are being aided by the British East Nippon Company (or ENC for short).
Emperor Mutsuhito wants to bring change to Japan, while Shōgun Tokugawa wants to uphold its ancient traditions without being corrupted by foreign influences and technology, and both sides are willing to spill the blood of many and do whatever it takes to fulfill their goals.
However, unlike the real-life version of this war (known as the Boshin War), Shadow of the Road’s take on it introduces fantastical elements to the story. These range from Emperor Mutsuhito’s forces employing steampunk weaponry and robots in battle, to supernatural beings both benign and malevolent drawn to the conflict.
A CRPG where all party members get dialogue choices, not just the main protagonist
After the intro cinematic, we then cut to the game’s first playable characters, Akira and Satoru. These men were samurai in service of Shōgun Tokugawa but were forced to flee from battle after their teacher, Master Mochitsugu, was slain by Emperor Mutsuhito’s forces, becoming disgraced ronin in the process.
While Akira and Satoru are conversing and mourning the loss of their master, we get an introduction to the game’s dialogue system, and this is the first gameplay feature that really impressed me about Shadow of the Road.
In most RPGs, only the main character gets dialogue options that determine their personality and the course of the story. In Shadow of the Road, however, every playable character gets dialogue options instead of only one, as it has an ensemble cast rather than a singular protagonist.
For example, Satoru’s dialogue options can steer him toward being a stoic traditional samurai or a rebellious ronin, and Akira’s dialogue options can develop him into a kind-hearted warrior or a cold-blooded killer.
I’ve never seen this done before in a game, and it’s quite a fun, unique take on dialogue choices. It allows the player to more freely determine each party member’s personality and story arc without having a main character invested in persuasion skills to convince them to follow desired paths, ala Mass Effect.
Not only that, Shadow of the Road’s dialogue options can also build or degrade the relationships between party members. These decisions can have major consequences both in the story and in combat, as party members with strong bonds can unlock unique team-up attacks.
Learning to wage turn-based war
Speaking of combat, I was quickly ambushed by Emperor Mutsuhito’s soldiers and some ENC soldiers after Akira and Satoru’s conversation ended, and was then introduced to a tutorial on the game’s combat system.
The combat system of the Shadow of the Road is a tactical turn-based affair like Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. You take turns positioning your party members on a grid, using the environment to take cover from ranged attacks, and using their special attacks and skills to dispatch enemies.
Shadow of the Road also has some unique combat mechanics in play to spice up the excitement. The first of these mechanics is the ‘Timeline’, which shows at the top of the screen when a party member or an enemy will have their turns.
Characters can use special abilities to make their turns happen faster on the Timeline or use special attacks to delay their opponent’s turns so they will act less often. The same applies to enemies, so make sure to take out enemies that can delay your party’s turns first if you can.
Another mechanic is the special skills that take a turn to prepare and unleash a powerful attack on the user’s next turn. These special ‘charged’ attacks can be interrupted if a party member or an enemy hits a character while they’re charging, but only if an attack can break through a charging character’s Focus stat (which acts as a shield to prevent their charged attacks from being interrupted).
To break through a character’s Focus, the attacker’s attack must inflict enough Distraction points to overtake the defender’s Focus points. During the initial portions of the game, Distraction points are one-to-one with how much a regular attack does.
Later, however, you will unlock special skills that will inflict a ton of Distraction points at the cost of lowered damage, which will come in handy against enemies that will have tons of Focus to protect their ultimate attacks from being interrupted.
Finally, another cool and unique feature I enjoyed in Shadow of the Road’s combat is the special cooldowns for abilities. While some skills require waiting a few turns, others will require you to kill enemies before they can be used again.
This creates an incentive to aggressively take down your enemies quickly so can fire off your cool attacks but at the same time a cautionary one. If you kill the enemies too fast, you won’t have the means to recharge certain skills, so you will need to make careful strategic decisions of what skills to use at the right time so you can still use them again later.
Our journey to reclaim our lost honor begins
After dispatching the enemy soldiers, I was given a choice to execute the last surviving officer. This decision had to be made quickly because it had a time limit, much like in a Telltale Games title like The Wolf Among Us, which made the scene more tense and immersive.
In this case, I had Satoru spare the officer because I felt he was being set up to fail, so I wanted to give him a chance to atone for his sins. This caused some minor tension between him and Akira, which may have some lasting consequences in the full game.
Also, this won’t be the only time-based decision you will have to make, as there will be plenty more of them in the future.
Once I decided my enemy’s fate, I was approached by Tayasu, one of Shōgun Tokugawa’s spymasters. Tayasu tells Satoru and Akira that they can reclaim their lost honor as samurai by meeting up with Shōgun Tokugawa and completing a secret mission for him.
Our heroes are then tasked to travel to the Sugiyama Estate and escort a mysterious boy who lives back to the Shōgun because he believes this boy could be the key to turning the tide of the war in their favor.
While traveling to the estate, we then get a glimpse of Shadow of the Road’s exploration gameplay. In between battles and conversations, you will travel from level to level, exploring each locale’s environment for items to loot, NPCs to converse to learn about the world, and discovering interesting side quests to complete.
These side quests will offer lucrative rewards for your party, like healing items, money, dialogue decisions to a character’s alignment, and skill points which can be used to upgrade your party’s abilities and unlock new ones in their skill trees.
Some side quests may even contain special items that could affect the main storyline if you decide to keep them, but I won’t spoil the surprise on that intriguing nugget of info.
New allies join the party just in time to fend off another ambush
After traveling the road and being treated like dirt by rude residents of the Sugiyama estate, I’ve found our target – a young man named Toshiro guarded by a massive, heavily armored samurai named Ishida.
As I attempted to get to know Toshiro in order to find out why the Shōgun would be interested in him, we were then attacked again by Emperor Mutsuhito’s forces.
This time, however, we were confronted by a small army of ninjas and ENC soldiers carrying flamethrowers, torching the estate to the ground.
This second battle was tougher than the first, as this introduces a new mechanic where enemies would summon reinforcements after a certain amount of time had passed, or after enough enemies had been killed.
By taking into account what I had learned from the first battle, I used Ishida’s stun abilities to prevent enemies from getting their turns on the Timeline and focused on interrupting enemies’ charging ranged attacks aimed at Toshiro to save him from getting his head blown off.
I also had to position my party carefully so they were within running distance of defending Toshiro from incoming reinforcements, while staying on the offensive and taking cover from ranged attacks.
It took some work with close calls, but it worked and was so satisfying to see my strategy pay off.
After that grueling fight, we had to escape with the boy in tow as more soldiers were coming in. As Toshiro was about to be backstabbed by a ninja, I was caught off guard by a large strand of hair piercing the ninja in midair.
This was the work of Toshiro’s mother, Asuke, who possessed mystical powers that allowed her to extend her hair and use it like a deadly weapon. She quickly joined our party to help us escape with her son.
Dark forces seek to prevent our escape with hellfire and brimstone
Just as I was starting to understand why the Shōgun would be interested in Toshiro based on his mother’s abilities, we were ambushed by more ENC soldiers, so I got ready for another fight.
Then all of a sudden, all hell broke loose as we had an unexpected guest in the form of Sōgenbi, a monstrous Yōkai that had been attracted by the ongoing battle and is thirsting for blood.
This fight was nothing short of epic. I had to constantly keep my party members moving as the Sōgenbi left fire pits at their feet that would explode in a turn if they didn’t move, and I had to use Satoru’s and Asuke’s utility abilities to speed up my party’s turns to take out enemies quickly.
On top of that, I had to slowly pick off the normal human enemies without killing them all immediately, as they proved to be valuable meat shields for fighting the Sōgenbi as the monster was busy killing them first instead of me. This allowed me to safely attack the Yōkai without bearing its wrath for the initial portion of the battle.
It was a good thing I kept them around as the Sōgenbi’s regular attacks dealt a ton of damage and delayed its victim’s turn by such a massive degree that it went all the way to the back of the Timeline.
After a long, hellacious battle, I was able to slay Sōgenbi and conclude the Alpha preview.
This is only just the beginning of a long, dark, epic road that I can’t wait to tread more of
Overall, I was very impressed by Shadow of the Road so far. I like the alternate 1800s Japan setting that mixes magic with technology, as it opens the possibility for all kinds of steampunk enemies and mythical Japanese creatures to fight, the story and characters are interesting, and it has a fresh, original take on RPG dialogue options.
The combat system was also a major highlight. Enemies were dangerously challenging if you didn’t take advantage of your party’s abilities, and it’s incredibly in-depth with plenty of character skills and mechanics to experiment with.
The game even allows you to employ creative strategies that utilize the environment and the enemy, which are so satisfying to pull off when done correctly.
If this is just the Alpha build, then I can’t wait to see what the full game will look like when it eventually releases. If you’re a fan of turn-based CRPGs, then I highly recommend you keep an eye on this title because if Shadow of the Road can keep up this momentum, it could end up being one of the best PC games in the genre.
If you’re interested in checking out Shadow of the Road’s Alpha preview for yourself, head over to its Steam page and sign up for its Alpha Playtest.
