Playing as an Aragami, one of many fragmented souls thriving to be whole again, you’re tasked with discovering the secret behind the Aragami spirits’ solemn curse of immortality and constant decay. You’ll sneak through over 50 missions consisting of eavesdropping, sabotage, assassination contracts, and every other kind of stealth objective you can imagine. Each mission rewards you with a new skill or cosmetic item to craft a style of ninja that is entirely your own. On paper, and even sometimes in practice, Aragami 2 has a pretty solid concept for what the best kind of ninja game should be. Its problem lies in the execution (pun intended). Presentation is a large hurdle to overcome in Aragami 2. Cutscenes are janky, stilted, and poorly acted with little to no thought given to drama, camera work, or even action in most cases. The few characters that don’t wear masks have no lip synching to speak of and clipping issues are abundant. The charming but low-budget cel shaded art style of the original game has been swapped out for a more sterile appearance, featuring low detail textures making up the environments and an abundance of reused assets. That’s not to say the game can’t look great, especially in motion. Despite the poor cutscene animations, gameplay animations are stellar in Aragami 2. Takedowns are visceral and satisfying, enemies broadcast their movements with believable weight, and the trail of smoke each time you dash makes deftly navigating through Aragami 2’s increasingly complex sandboxes feel particularly ninja-esque. Rather than carry on with the linear nature of the first game, Aragami 2 opts for an open-ended mission-based design with a hub level connected to 10 sizable environments, ranging from small villages to a large town surrounding a massive castle. Learning the intricacies of each level and finding each risky but rewarding route to your objective is a welcome change of pace from the original game’s very puzzle-like stealth gameplay. There’s a certain language to the level design that just makes sense the more you explore each corner of its expansive levels. Every facet of gameplay has seen a massive overhaul from the first. The controls provide a deep and fast paced moveset as you learn to navigate from rooftops to tall grass to the ever-present waist high cover.
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