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Rarely do I play a video game that forces me to switch the difficulty level from the default medium setting to an easier one, Aragami is such a game. Aragami is an action-adventure stealth video game developed and published by Lince Works. Aragami was released October 2016 for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X & PlayStation 4. The game includes a multi-player mode as well as a level editor, but this review will focus on the main single-player story mode.
As far as stealth games go, Aragami is the true definition of stealth. I’ve played other stealth games in the past but none compare to Aragami when it comes down to playing stealth and progressing through its 13 levels unnoticed. Staying in the shadows is the name of the game. Moving about completely unnoticed is essential to beating this game. Even the slightest movement that might lead to your discovery will eventually also lead to your death. Aragami is available through Steam, HumbleBundle & GOG for $19.99 regular price. All you have to do is buy it and install it, that simple.
As the game begins, you find out that you’re a ninja by the name of Aragami who has just been created by a girl named Yamiko, or rather by an astral projection of Yamiko. Yamiko’s astral projection explains to you (Aragami) that you can use shadows to hide yourself and to move around the environment. Your main purpose is to find Yamiko who is being held captive in a prison by the Kaiho. The storyline is very confusing at first, but, as you progress through the levels, things begin to make sense, and in the end the game actually has a pretty good story to tell.
So, shortly after finding out that you will cease to exist as soon as the sun comes up, and therefore you have only one night to find Yamiko and set her free, her astral projection begins to teach you skills that will help you as you infiltrate the enemy’s territory. One of the first things she teaches you (and your main tool in your toolbox) is how to use shadows to move around. The basic premise is that you belong in the shadows and the light is your enemy. If your “Shadow Essence” is fully replenished, you can move from one shadow to another nearby shadow simply by aiming at it and pressing the correct button. Your “Shadow Essence” is drained if you stand near light sources, and it is replenished by standing in the shadows. Later on, another skill you learn is how to create a temporary shadow to which you can tele-transport as if it were a regular shadow, so you can move into hard-to-reach places. So, as you move through shadows, you’re able to beat the levels by going unnoticed. If, on the other hand, you’re spotted, there is really no time for you to survive a samurai sword or a flying dagger, and, instead, you face a most certain death. You also learn how to execute stealth kills, but, from personal experience, you’re better off not killing anyone. Once you get the hang of it, this is a pretty fun game to play.
The anime-inspired graphics, although not cutting-edge, are pretty interesting and at times very unique due to the constant battle between shadow and light that is essential to the game. Likewise, the sound is nothing extraordinary, but, at times, certain sound effects did make me jolt out of my seat. The playability, especially the shadow-traveling part of it, is what makes this game stand out from the rest. The use of lights & shadows in the game-play, as well as the storyline, take this game to another level. Once you get accustomed to the dynamics between light & shadows, Aragami becomes a game you don’t want to put down.
I didn’t encounter any glitches in the game, but I’m forced to take a half star off because of the default control options that seem incomplete. When I first began playing the game, I found that there were a couple of actions that were awkward with the default button layout (both with a gamepad as well as with mouse/keyboard). I had to go into the “Options” menu to tweak a couple of buttons and make the game easier to play. For example, when using mouse/keyboard, there was an action that could only be executed with the gamepad’s left trigger – which is just weird. Likewise, when using a gamepad, there was an action that could only be executed by pressing the left-shift key on the keyboard. After I made the necessary changes, the game was much more enjoyable but this is something that shouldn’t need to be changed.
Minimum System Requirements Ubuntu or equivalent 64-bit CPU: 2GHz 64-bit CPU Memory: 4GB RAM Graphics: OpenGL 3 Compatible GPU with 1 GB Video RAM Storage: 6 GB available space
My gaming box AMD FX-6100 3.3GHz CPU (over-clocked to 3.5GHz) Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 graphics card with Nvidia 381 driver 16GB of Kingston Hyper X RAM Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (64-bit) with Unity desktop