Aragami
You get to play as a ninja. Anything else?
Ninjas.
Ninjas are everywhere.
I don’t mean that in a paranoid “THAT ROCK JUST MOVED” way, more that they, along with their zombie and pirate cousins, have carved out quite the chunk of real estate in the pop-culture space over the last couple of decades. Just look at the Steam store: you can’t scroll more than a couple of centimetres without being shurikened by a god damn ninja game. A day will come when the internet is sick of them (and their undead brethren), but it is most definitely not this day.
In Aragami, third-person stealther from developers Lince Works, you are a ninja. A resurrected ninja with rad shadow powers, to be precise, dragged from the afterlife against your will to exact revenge in the name of an imprisoned woman by freeing her and slaying her enemies (not in that order). There’s a story in here, of course, but it’s at the more predictable end of the literary scale, and if you even care enough to guess, you’ll have worked out what’s happening long before the Big Reveal presents itself.
Aragami gets some things very, very right, which is to say it gets an awful lot wrong. I can’t remember the last time I so desperately willed a game to be better, to wrench itself free of its obviously humble beginnings and modest budget; it wears them like an anchor around its neck. It doesn’t help one bit that it owes so much to one of the best series’ of the last few years: Arkane Studios’ Dishonored. It may be unfair given the pedigree, but the comparison is unavoidable and it falls short of its big brother in almost every way.
Light and shadow play a major part, both narratively and mechanically. Much like your man Corvo Attano and his synonymous Blink ability, your ninja protagonist wields the Shadow Leap ability to instantly teleport himself, though he’s restricted to moving into shadow (and without the same satisfying *thwoop*). This feels great as you pick up momentum, quickly chaining teleports together to cunningly bypass enemies or dive through the narrowest of gaps (given how swiftly I have to fling my pasty, white body between patches of shade during the summer months, I can relate). Unlike Dishonored or Arkham Asylum, there’s rarely high ground to disappear into; you’re mostly in the grass and dirt alongside the villainous Light Adepts. It makes travel between points A and B tense and perilous; with one-hit kills for all, their light-based weaponry becomes all the more dangerous.
This traversal system is smartly expanded upon with the provision of the Shadow Creation power, allowing you to temporarily ‘paint’ patches of shadow into otherwise well-lit areas; the idea being to encourage creative route-planning and risk-taking. These bright areas aren’t directly harmful, it should be noted, though your shadow essence (the resource affording use of your powers) won’t regenerate, and can actually diminish if you stand too close to a light-source (naturally, you’re more visible to the otherwise myopic enemies too).
You can tell this mechanic was in the first pitch-meeting for Aragami, given how much the game relies on it. And it (mostly) works. Which is why it’s so frustrating that so many other belligerent systems seem intent on messing with it.
Take the camera. Sweet Jesus, it’s 2017 and somehow the games industry hasn’t ironed out the quirks in third-person camera systems. It’ll get stuck on scenery, smashed up against walls, spontaneously provide you with an EXTREME CLOSE-UP of the aragami’s head/arse…it’s incredibly irritating. Given how little time you have to react to a situation turning south, its unforgiveable that, more often than not, the camera’s to blame for your disintegration at the hands of some light-wielding bastard. Oh, and it’d be remiss of me not to mention how it’ll occasionally drag your view towards a far-flung landmark. “What’s that? Oh, you actually want to be able to see the five bad guys that’re three feet from you and getting more suspicious by the second? Not my problem mate.” *takes long draw from cigarette*
In case I haven’t mentioned it, you’re supposed to be an aragami: technically malevolent spirit of Japanese folklore, but essentially a ninja. Y’know, nimble stalkers of the night? Yet, spry as you might be, you’ll struggle with basic movement. You can mantle onto ledges via your teleportation power, but are entirely incapable of dealing with knee-high obstacles. There’s no jump, which would be far less of a problem if aragami (aragamis?) simply weren’t capable, but you are, because you can leap from a ledge via the attack prompt if an enemy’s in the right place below you. And that ledge you think you can teleport to? Nah mate. There are invisible ceilings everywhere, even if you know fine well they’re within reach and you eventually end up making your way up to them using an alternative route. I understand that limitations have to be put in place when you have an abusable power such as this, but we also need clarity: why can’t I teleport up there? Why am I restricted so? EXPLAIN. And don’t even get me started on the boss fights…
OK I’LL START. Here we have yet another stealth game that thinks it can break up the action (fine) by introducing a boss fight (also fine, I suppose) where the game blatantly shirks from its own ruleset (NOT FINE). Boss fights in a stealth game have to be done really, really well…they are not done well here. The bosses, of which there are (thankfully only) two, have the ability to sense your location. Yup, in this stealth game, there are characters who preternaturally know where you are at all times. This is hastily written into the bumf story, of course, and is clearly there to keep you moving, but it results in constant frustration and inevitable restarts. I get the idea, yes, but there are better ways to do it (if they want you to stay on your toes, give the boss the ability to temporarily de-shadow chunks of the arena, surely?). Breaking your own rules rarely works, and certainly doesn’t here.
It’s a bizarre state of affairs, and utterly exasperating. Imagine putting on a pair of trousers with an extra leg: yes, you could technically wear them, but it wouldn’t feel right. That’s Aragami: uncomfortable in its own ill-fitting skin.
I’m glad to say it’s not all doom and gloom, though. Other than the teleportation fun, Lince Works have made some smart decisions, ones that even bigger players in the industry have fallen victim to. Many games which afford you the opportunity to either ghost their levels or commit NPC genocide often reward you too heavily for the sneaky stuff, giving the impression there’s a ‘correct’ way to play. Aragami wisely rewards you with an identical 100 points for both a kill and leaving an enemy completely undisturbed. And while killing everyone outright might make things easier, this is offset by a 150 point drop for every discovered corpse (though they can be…disappeared, if you’ve got the skills). It results in wonderfully dynamic runs, removing the temptation to constantly restart because you had no choice but to stick a sword in someone’s gut. There are rewards for remaining undetected, killing no-one, and killing EVERYONE, but they offer nothing but cosmetics.
Speaking of which, the cel-shaded aesthetic works well, too, being nicely complimentary to the setting. It’s all stereotypical picture postcard Japan, yes, but when your blossoms, water features and elegant temples are rendered in such a delightfully painterly style, it makes it a real joy to look at (as well as ensuring the more fantastical flourishes look like they belong). It’s a canny choice, especially on a more practical level, as it also disguises many of the engine’s limitations. The levels themselves open up nicely (after some understandably constrained opening chapters) without being overwhelming. The Phantom Pain, this is not, so they’re still fairly linear in the grand scheme of things, but you’re given just enough freedom to feel like you’re not being shepherded in one direction. Each segment is a puzzle comprised of guards and objectives, and you can generally approach them as you’d like.
It’s a game at war with itself, and it shows, making it impossible to unequivocally recommend. I’m genuinely conflicted, as I had a decent time with it. My job would be easier it if it had more respect for your time, but with horrendous checkpointing and a lack of forgiveness for mistakes, you’ll waste so much time treading the same ground, often losing fifteen, twenty minutes of progress in what should be a breezy 8–9 hour playthrough.
It’d be wonderful to say that you’ll love it in spite of itself, but it’s more likely you’ll feel a bit robbed despite the good times you’d experience with it. Certainly not without merit, and not devoid of good ideas, but Aragami is weighed down by too much unnecessary baggage. Less a ninja, and more a guy black pyjamas.
