I’ve recently come across a video game called Aragami by Lince Works which I was able to buy pretty cheap on Steam. It’s a 3rd person stealth game which lets you play as an assassin operating solely in the shadows.

Note: The spoiler warning refers to spoilers of the story and other detailed reviews of the gameplay and mechanics that might give away a little too much. The spoiler-free part of this review will include basic information about the gameplay, the overall style, design and quality of the game as well as encountered bugs.  -Spoiler-free-

Gameplay/Mechanics:  The gameplay was very fun. I love stealth games and figuring out the best ways to kill my enemies without alerting anyone - When I played the game, I felt like the developer team must have consisted of people who love the stealth parts in other games and wanted to come up with something that’s just that; stealthing all the f**king time. You do have skills that you can upgrade by finding collectibles in the areas. That was fun and kept the game interesting because you had new ways to deal with your victims. And it made up for a pretty simple objective: Proceed to gather talismans and either kill everyone, noone or some of the guards on your way. The controls were easy and intuitive, although I would have liked to exit the menu with esc, not only with the space bar. But that’s a ridiculously small thing to complain about. Also, there are actually boss fights! The characters looked cool, the animations looked cool. To me, the game appeared like one of those very cheap and often dull but fun games that you get for a few bucks or less. But this game is surprisingly qualitative, and I see it as a little gem. I never heard of it before which I think is a shame.

Design/Environments/Interface: I loved the simple design of the interface. It fit the atmosphere of the game and everything worked absolutely smoothly.  The game looks like someone drew everything in Japanese style, it reminds of an anime. I liked that - and there’s only Japanese voice acting as well. All other languages are only available as subtitles. Dialogue is relatively rare.  The environments are diverse enough to offer a lot of variety which is definitely refreshing throughout the 13 chapter setup of the game, and they are generally very beautiful and they’re in many cases underlined and accentuated with chapter-specific soundtracks as well. 

Bugs: I have only encountered one potential bug: When you scroll through the skills wheel to pick a different skill, I often couldn’t move the pointer to the one I wanted. This only happened when I was running while accessing the skills wheel though, and to be fair, I only noticed it during one session. After I restarted my PC the other day, I did not encounter it anymore, so that might have been a local issue, not one of the game.  Other than that, there was one thing I assume the developers are aware of that still bothered me a little. You can use a skill to make enemies in the area visible; they get marked with a white little flame. That flame doesn’t disappear when you kill them, it continues floating in the air. That can make figuring out which enemies are still alive and which ones you’ve already killed pretty difficult and confusing. I’d advise the developers to fix that.  I did encounter a lot more minor bugs in the DLC however, but none that would have spoiled the gameplay experience much. I attached a screenshot.

DLC “Nightfall”: I’d recommend this DLC to anyone who enjoyed the base game. It’s a lot of fun - you have a different although similar skill set and a companion who can help you out. The DLC adds a lot of background information to the story established in the base game. It also includes pretty new environments and new soundtracks which I really enjoyed. 

-Spoiler-

The story was very simple but well made - But I admit that I often confused the names of the characters. If you carefully watch the flashbacks when the Aragami - that’s you, the summoned assassin - finds a talisman, you can quite easily understand that it’s not at all like Yamiko, the Shadow Empress, the one who summoned you to free her, says and that something is very awry with her version of the story. 

I loved the twist at the end of the game although I had expected it after the first few chapters already. The lady who summons you isn’t as innocent as she pretends to be, she’s actually the villain, and you’ve killed the wrong - your - people all the time. It’s a simple, yet interesting concept.  When I met the raven Kurosu (btw, I love that name), I was expecting it to play a much bigger role in the future. But Kurosu is only a “tool” that technically scouts the area to tell you where enemies are - and marks them, which is one of the skills you can become proficient with. So, Kurosu is mostly there for the world-building and an explanation, but it also plays a little role at the end of the story.  I used all of the skills that were available. I definitely had my favorites, like Shinen and Kunai - placing traps or killing people with a shadow dagger from a distance - but I used all of them at some point, and they really helped killing guards easily. 

The scrolls were very well hidden and I admit that I had to look up their locations sometimes, which I did because I didn’t want to miss out on the skills (I didn’t plan to replay the game). 

TLDR;  I had a lot of fun with this game and it took me several hours to complete. It’s not super sophisticated or anything, but it’s fun and interesting, and it’s definitely qualitative and worth the few bucks it costs. I think it should be much more known. 

It’s no secret that a majority of Kickstarter games have been inspired by the classics of old. We have backed games like Mighty No. 9 and Shovel Knight, both throwbacks to Mega Man, and Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics. Well, if the big publishers are not going to be supporting older, and primarily Japanese, gaming habits, then we will lookout for those who can. Preferably, those with similar backgrounds to my own and a lot more talent at game development. That’s just what we have here. Two promising Kickstarter campaigns have launched following E3, luckily for them at about the same time most of us are realizing that this will be a pretty empty year, and both are a look back into two classic gaming series.

Twin Souls stands itself up as a successor to the lost ninja assassination gaming series, Tenchu. Those who never got a chance to play this sweet franchise before it went to the dumps in the previous console generation should know that this game is all about the beauty of violence. Sneaking up behind enemies and killing them silently is fun in and of itself, but if pulled off correctly, you’ll get a special animation which might make every nerve in your spine cringe. Twitter - @linceworks —    Facebook - TwinSoulsGame Twin Soul‘s developer LinceWorks is promising all this and more with an original animation style and ancient Japan-inspired setting. The company is looking for $70,000 to develop for a PC, Mac, Linux via Steam and DRM free version, and it has just over $12,000 to its name with 26 days to go. LinceWorks are looking into possible console ports and will address the issue in an update.

The other game, Midora, takes more than its fair share of cues from The Legend of Zelda, with the Game Boy Advance entry, The Minish Cap, being the obvious main source of inspiration. You control a white haired young female on a grand quest of humble origins, and to get through puzzles and dungeons, having to uncover different tools, magic, and alchemy recipes to make progress. Sound like a familiar formula? Well, it doesn’t attempt to hide its inspiration in the slightest, but Midora is worth checking out for the sprite work and art direction alone. Fans of classically animated and brightly colored sprites should have no problem being sucked into the game’s presentation almost immediately. Twitter - @MidoraGame —    Facebook - MidoraGame Developer Epic Mounds will be needing $60,000 to make this game a reality on PCs, and he already has $16,500 accounted for.