Tactical RPG Shadow of the Road opens with a disclaimer: "This is not the Nippon you know." Later, I cut down a Flamethrower Ninja with locks of cursed hair before realizing he was the only thing standing between my dying ronin and the fleshy knot of eyeballs killing friend and foe alike. No, this is not the Nippon I know.
Still, there are kernels of truth to Shadow of the Road's setting. The game takes place in 1868 – when Japan returned to Imperial rule in the real world – but here, history has taken a different course. The premise of tracing steampunk fiction back to reality drew me to Shadow of the Road, and Dante Pragier, who handles the narrative at developer Another Angle Games, tells me that premise has remained at the game's core since inception.
