I hate leaving people alive in stealth games. I don’t know why but I just don’t deal well with the idea of leaving armed guards slumbering on the ground until their friends can come over and wake them up. No, when I stealth my way through a heavily guarded area I like to make sure that nobody in the vicinity will be waking up ever again. And that’s why I’m left dissatisfied by some of the bigger stealth games of late. Mankind Divided makes sure to give you an angry talking head chastizing you for dicing people into bits with your cool robot blade arms, and Dishonored will actively make the game harder the more you use the same creative kills they demo in their marketing material.
Aragami tells the story of a vengeful spirit (the titular Aragami) who is summoned from the grave by a young girl who is being held captive by an enemy force. The game doses out its story quickly and effeciently, never trapping you in a cutscene for any longer than necessary. The tale itself is serviceable if not somewhat forgettable. There are a few surprises and turns to be found in the narrative but I had pretty much figured out the game’s big twist within the first few chapters. Really though it’s incidental, the story doesn’t take up much of your time, and the core gameplay of Aragami more than makes up for whatever thrills it may lack on the plot front.
Chief among Aragami’s arsenal of abilities is a shadow step or teleportation move that will carry you between the shadows in the environment instantaneously. If you find your environment lacking in shadow you can also summon a temporary pool with a quick pull of your right trigger. It won’t take long before you’re dashing around levels tearing enemies into pieces (or avoiding them if you’re one of those people). There’s plenty of other moves to acquire as well through the game’s skill trees. My favorite character build included the Kunai, a ranged dagger that came in particularly handy when dealing with archers; the decoy, which summons a replica Aragami that will distract enemies in a very large radius; and the trap ability which will suck enemies into a deadly vortex when you trigger it. There’s plenty more abilities which you can unlock by finding the plethora of scrolls hidden throughout the game’s thirteen stages.
As I mentioned earlier, the way by which you clear stages is entirely up to you. After each stage the game will present you with a score summary that shows you how many collectibles you found, how many enemies you killed, and how many times you set the guards on alert. You’ll also receive a letter rank that can be bolstered by getting through the level completely undetected, killing everyone in the level, or killing no one in the level. At first I was concerned that I’d have to commit to killing everyone or no one in order to get myself a top tier S rank, but I was actually able to score that high on most levels with a mixed selection of kills.
I was routinely impressed with how polished Aragami felt but I did still notice some bugs along the way. First I noticed that after killing some enemies I wasn’t able to make their corpses disappear like normal. Originally I assumed this had something to do with killing them in areas that were too well lit but as the game progressed I would occasionally find bodies that I couldn’t clear even in pitch dark. This affected my gameplay a small bit and made me have to change strategies in a couple sections, but it was a sparing enough issue that it never caused me any major grief during play.
I also feel like the game’s checkpoint system was a little inconsistent or unclear. Often I would close the game and return to find that my progress in the level had reset back to the beginning when loading it up. Other levels (particularly long ones) would drop me right back in where I left off. I’m not sure if that’s by design or not, but it didn’t feel like it was working as intended.
I found myself particularly irritated by the game’s first boss. It’s a simple setup, the boss is engulfed in a shield that can be disabled by smashing one of three orbs hidden around the environment. After disabling the shield you launch a quick attack at him directly at which point his shield will regenerate and you’ll have to go hunt down and smash another orb. It’s all fine and dandy except after smashing the second orb I found that I couldn’t attack the boss. I tried coming at him from every angle and was never able to hit him. I was close to just regarding it as bugged and giving up entirely before I thought to try a ledge kill, and sure enough, that’s what the game somehow expected me to do. It’s obtuse, and remarkably frustrating when you consider that it only takes one hit to force you to completely start the battle over again.
Even with these small problems I really enjoyed the ten or so hours I spent with Aragami. The game draws a large amount of inspiration from the Tenchu series, and in some ways I’d even say it manages to surpass it. If you’re a fan of stealth games I really don’t see how you could go wrong taking this vengeful ghost out for a spin.
