Aragami Review

 Go Ninja Go

Aragami is brought to us by the now sadly defunct Lince Works. While I cannot speak to the sequels quality as I doubt I will play it, it is a shame because Aragami is exactly the kind of game you see from soon to be major indie groups.

Which is sadly the backhanded compliment I somewhat intended it to be. Aragami is a good game, make no mistake. It has a solid grasp of stealth fundamentals, with fun map design, delightful Dishonored Esque powerup and skill system, good theming around shadows with said abilities and a nice straightforward single hit kill system for player and enemies alike. It's a breezy playthrough clocking in at about 3-4 hours for me, with plenty of replay value for those who like to squeeze every inch out of their stealth game maps. Only the 2nd of 3 boss fights and somewhat easily broken challenge curve could be considered true flaws of the game. That and the story just being okay.

The thing is, Aragami also has nothing that I can glowingly recommend. Not the hyper detailed level design you'd see from the Thief series, no huge variety in approaches you'd find in the average Arkane Studios immersive sim, no cinematic narrative like a Metal Gear. The core stealth gameplay has basically one gear. A good gear, this is absolutely a gear worth selling a bike over, but one gear nonetheless. Go from shadow to shadow at relatively high speed, using your wits and various skills to take down or slip past every guard in your path. The only question is to go nonlethal or murder everyone for a post level point bonus.

It's a game I could see being more fun as a speedrun, hyper optimizing the movement and abilities to charge to the finale at record pace was honestly how I ended up playing the latter half of the game anyway, and it was a good time. But it makes it hard to recommend in modern day. If you're itching for a cute ninja stealth game, or have it in your steam library already from some bundle. It's absolutely worth the 2-5 bucks it usually goes for nowadays for a fun little jaunt of a playthrough. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Which, is why I said it's a shame Aragami 2 seemed to flop and kill the studio. Because the timeline where 2 was to this game was Thief 2 was to Thief would've been an absolutely wonderful one. But that's just the way these things go sometimes.

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