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Almost 13 years ago, Mimimi Games came to exist and took the world by storm with a bold move in the mid-2010s after announcing Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, which was a bold move as the stealth strategy genre had been dormant for about a decade at that point.
The game proved that there are still gamers who desire the old difficulty of the likes of Commandos, which spurred the devs into developing Desperados 3 as well as a standalone expansion to Shadow Tactics, with all of them bringing universal acclaim.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew continued the trend in 2023 by achieving critical acclaim and was loved by those who played it, but unfortunately, it also turned out to be the studio's swan song as it didn't generate enough revenue to keep the ship afloat. It is for this reason that the release of two fantastic pieces of DLC are such a bittersweet moment - I loved the content but at the same time the thought of Mimimi closing down kept holding the happy sensations back.
Yuki and Zagan join the crew
After starting on a sombre note, I was really happy to see a Shadow Tactics crossover as Yuki joined the crew in the search of an elusive island. Even in undeath, she is innocently naive, for the lack of a better description and her adorable tanuki faithfully follows her around.
The animal is not just there for the cuteness factor alone as Kuma is now incorporated in her ability set. Kuma can lure enemies towards it, regardless of whether the animal is on Yuki or placed on the ground. With her tripwire trap, Yuki makes the most of this as you can easily lure an enemy into getting hit by a million arrows. Regardless of whether you use the trap or katana to down an enemy, Yuki's victims turn into wood, meaning you don't need to dispose of the bodies later on.
With this particular set of skills, she is an extremely powerful member of the crew and might even be seen as overpowered. Then again, with such a wide variety of characters to choose from, you can always experiment with others.
Meanwhile, Zagan is the polar opposite. Instead of patiently luring enemies into traps, he is all about the direct approach. In fact, he can walk straight through an enemy's sight line and at the moment he gets spotted, the enemy gets distracted, meaning you can literally walk up to someone and eliminate them. However, Zagan's powers are high-risk and high-reward as he can leave them comatose from a distance but depending on which ability you choose to do it with, he will either take one damage or be immobilized until the enemy is dealt with in a more lethal way.
Sacrificing health is a surefire way to die but his melee option can also heal him when necessary. Overall, he is another highly powerful character who can break lines in the moments you get tired of all the sneaking around.
One thing that you will probably like about both characters is that neither of them requires a black pearl as they join the crew fully conscious and you can start using them immediately.
Of the two, it appears that Zagan's development lasted longer since even though both of them have stories of their own, Zagan has a whole map and an intro mission before getting recruited while Yuki is found inside Red Marley and simply goes through a regular training session to familiarise the players with her abilities.
New missions
Both Zagan and Yuki DLC packs offer six new missions each, set across two distinct islands, one with an eldritch castle on it and one sharing Japanese themes for the good ol' nostalgia injection. While the characters themselves are powerful, they will be counteracted by the potentially more difficult adventures of each.
If you are trying to weigh just how much new content this is, the base game has 32 missions in total but five of them are optional. In short, each DLC will increase the base game's size by around 19 per cent.
Pricing
So with the game becoming larger by almost a half and adding two new crew members, you will probably wonder how much it will set you back.
The default price for each DLC is $15 / €15, meaning that if you want the complete experience with the base game and the DLCs, you will need to shell out around $70 / €70. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
Base Shadow Gambit is a bombshell on its own and with the free update that brings a bunch more content at no extra cost, it is only fair to tip the fedora to the devs.
Free update
Treasure hunts are new missions with extra challenge for those who just didn't get enough of Shadow Gambit. There is a total of 14 missions, bringing the total up to 26 with the DLC.
With dozens of hours of enjoying one of the best games of the year, one would normally feel tremendous joy but don't hate me for feeling sad as well. After all, this is Mimimi's grand finale. Enjoy it as we are not getting any more. As for Mimi folks themselves - good luck and happy trails everyone. You have made countless people happy with your creations.
