It's tempting to refer to any bird's-eye-stealth-real-time-strategy-esque game as a Commandos title, as that series introduced and defined this peculiar genre. In any case, Blades of the Shogun tries its hardest to make this style of game playable and I can't help but admire it (a decent story with genuine emotional turns helps). Nevertheless, it admits the shortcomings of its genre by pinging the player every sixty seconds with the reminder, “Did You Save?” As with its predecessors, BotS is more about save-scumming and brute-force replay than real strategy.