The last of them features the titular choice, which is a small but personally meaningful moment for Aiko, as well as a heartwarming and slightly tragic send-off for our small band of blademasters. They're not particularly difficult, and only took me 15 to 20 minutes to finish, which is a big contrast to the three hours or so each of the big infiltrations lasted. The shorter, interlude missions that sit in between are nice little breaks that give the story and characters more time to breathe. There are even a few small new mechanics to learn, like characters leaving footprints in the sand that can either give away your position or lure enemies into a trap. All of the new missions could stand up alongside the best ones from the main campaign, and I was downright impressed they managed to find so many new ways to make me think about these characters and their various tools again, all these years later. The fifth, and most exciting, is out of rifle range and doesn't have a bridge, so you have to tackle it with only three characters. Two others are in range of Takuma's powerful sniper rifle, allowing you to pick off particularly annoying enemies you can't easily sneak up on. Only two of them are reachable by the heavily armored Mugen, who can't swim and relies on bridges to get around. My favorite of the new missions involves a series of five islands that force you to use different combinations of party members for each. But it strikes me as a little odd that Daedalic would release Aiko’s Choice as a standalone game if that’s the expectation.
You can pick up some scrolls that remind you how certain character abilities work, and there is fair warning given that you should play at least the first few levels of the base game before jumping in to get familiar with the fundamentals. Whether I was rescuing a captured party member or sneaking into a secluded temple, the difficulty level felt about on par with some of the maps in the original game's third act. While none of the new areas in Aiko's Choice feel obnoxious, they definitely don't hesitate to throw you into the deep end. This definitely is not a walk in the sakura garden. It's worth cautioning against anyone considering coming in without having played Blades of the Shogun before, though.
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