Shadow of the Road Alpha Impression

Despite the alpha being quite limited in scope, Shadow of the Road is shaping up to be one of the most promising titles within the indie cRPG-sphere.

To many people, samurai are cool. They have all the things that speak to the eight-year-old who likes knights, while mixing in a code of honor, mysticism, and alchemy with katanas and swift strikes. They fought for truth, justice, and the honor of both themselves and their people. At least, that’s what movies like The Last Samurai and Seven Samurai seemed to imply. Shadow of the Road instead portrays a dark world where the age of samurai is coming to an end. The depiction of samurai is less heroic and majestic, instead portrayed as a dying breed fighting against a technologically advanced future that includes colonization, cultural degradation and criticism, and giant remote-piloted robot spiders.

Taking place in an alternate history at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, Shadow of the Road follows a group of characters working for the Shogunate against the forces of the new Emperor and the foreigner-led East Nippon Company. Its open alpha introduces players to Akira and Satoru, a deadly archer-assassin and a newly made ronin, who are hiding in a bar after the death of their master. Lost and without much to do, they get a mission from the Shogun’s top spy master: to find a young boy named Toshiro, who has a power that could change the war. Shadow of the Road features a cast of characters and no singular main character; instead the characters have their own individual narratives that intersect with and diverge from the main quest as necessary.

They must become something else…

The alpha covers about one hour of content, featuring two very linear gameplay missions. After the introduction, the game gives players a foray into Akira and Satoru’s lives post-expulsion. The missions allow players to get a hang of the combat, which uses a round robin-style turn order similar to other games such as Capes and Divinity Original Sin II. During battles, damage dealt can delay enemy turns or advance ally turns, and vice versa. This potentially prevents characters from being able to act, by pushing their turns back multiple times and may seem appealing to the player as long as they take advantage of it, but is also positively frustrating when one of their party members sees their turn delayed up to five times due to enemies’ basic attacks. The party in the alpha didn’t have much way to deal with that, and cooldowns are a bit too long to allow for the player to have proper counterplay.

One thing that strikes interest is the game’s morality system. Two of the characters have different moral compasses they move towards based on dialogue choices. The ranged assassin, Akira, can be either more empathetic or ruthless, while the samurai, Satoru, has their morality based on being more of a ronin, or a traditional samurai. The alpha didn’t allow for too many chances to see how the morality of the other two playable characters, Isshida and Asuke, may shift through dialogue choices. It’ll be interesting to see if dialogue or choices change to match the characters’ dispositions; for example, if a more ronin-leaning Satoru may automatically refuse to work with a local samurai sect.

The indoor battle can be dynamic with enemies and allies ducking in and out of cover to avoid gunfire.

With the alpha being so limited, it remains to see whether a future beta gives an expanded view of how the game works outside of these initial missions. The two missions that players are given are quite linear, with no real or grand permutations, the second even ending in a way that implies another linear mission is to follow.

One key element the alpha doesn’t get to is the robots. In much of the promotional material, Shadow of the Road seems to be a game that has a theme of magic vs. technology, similar to another cRPG in development, New Arc Line. However, the current alpha lacks much of any technology or mech combat. It’ll be interesting to see how the current cast will be capable of taking down giant spider-bots with normal swords and bows. There were also no interactions with any of the Empire’s forces, the player characters only dealing with Shogunate forces. As such, there isn’t much to glean for how the conflict between the Empire and the Shogunate story will unfold. However, the alpha ends in a way that implies a much grander tale where the cast will be integral to the end of the war.

Turn order and combat can look a bit messy at the top of the screen, with environmental effects taking up certain spots.

The music is nice, but there aren’t any standout tracks between the battle or general ambient sounds. It was difficult to determine the quality of the voice acting, which was mostly in Japanese. Curiously, the narrator’s voice was in English, but it had a whisper filter that added to its creepiness and lessened understandability. The game’s art style is excellent. It evokes a bit of lovecraftian horror in the yokai, demons, and witchcraft, and the aesthetic fits the “shadow” theme. The background and environments evoke the Meiji period well, showing the world as both old and potentially filled with danger around every corner. Animations are also nice, but quite repetitive.

Despite the alpha being quite limited in scope, Shadow of the Road is shaping up to be one of the most promising titles within the indie cRPG-sphere. As the game develops its combat and expands its exploration, I look forward to finding out just how deep the shadows go.

Disclosure: This article is based on a build of the game provided by the publisher.