Aragami 2 (PlayStation 5) review: A stealthy power fantasy weighed down by repetition

Out of the shadows. 

Pure stealth games are fairly difficult to come by lately, and good ones are a tad rarer. Modern blockbuster games like Far Cry 6 tend to emphasise stealth as just another option for players to deal with enemies - while handing them a rocket launcher to prove it. Aragami 2 tries to draw a cleaner compromise between combat and stealth, giving players the ability to fight only as a last resort. Make no mistake, this is a stealth game through and through, but it’s a flawed one nonetheless.

Supernatural ninjas

Play

Aragami 2 is set a century after the events of the first game, but newcomers can rest assured that this is a standalone story. The game introduces players to the Aragami, people touched by a supernatural curse that gives them powers at the cost of their humanity. Their foes are the Akatsuchi Empire, who are hellbent on conquering Rashomon Valley at any means necessary. You play as one of the Aragami, fighting to save their clan Kurotsuba and free them from their curse. 

Though the story delves into the goings-on of a violent land and dips its toes into heavier themes like the player's not-quite-human identity, it really just serves to set the stage for your adventures in Rashomon Valley. Other games like Ghost of Tsushima deal with many of the same themes, but with more likable characters and higher personal stakes. By contrast, Aragami 2 fails to compel the player with a thin story that never builds up to something more meaningful than, “Go there, kill the evil people because they’re evil, repeat.” It’s serviceable, but it certainly isn’t enough to keep you playing on its own. 

The story flows through Aragami 2’s central hub, Kakurega Village. Here, you can choose missions, check out the shop, talk to interesting folks and tinker with your skillset. Much like Metal Gear Solid V, your missions are graded up to an S score depending on how well they’re executed. There’s some element of replayability there, depending on how much you enjoy the gameplay loop, but we’ll get to that later. Unfortunately, these missions aren’t very interesting and going through them can feel repetitive. You’re either doing fetch quests, rescuing people or assassinating enemies - there isn't much variety to work with. Visually, the game has a cel-shaded indie look that seems appealing enough for a game of this budget, but levels otherwise have a rather plain aesthetic padded out with same-y textures.

Be the Batman

Stealth gameplay is all about patience and observation. This genre often throws the player into rooms full of patrolling enemies, where hand-to-hand combat would be unwise. The first Aragami was arguably more of a stealth game than its sequel turned out to be, as being spotted by enemies resulted in immediate death. This time, the player has more options - which might irk fans who preferred the first game’s more true-blue approach to stealth. 

The biggest thing Aragami 2 adds is face-to-face combat. If stealth doesn’t work out as expected and you get spotted, you can now fight off enemies with a handy sword using parries and combos. While I appreciated not being greeted by an instant death screen the second I was spotted, these new combat mechanics don’t feel as fleshed out as they should be. Parries inexplicably fail very often and enemies can kill you in two-to-four hits, so combat is generally something you want to avoid at all costs. It’s repetitive and unfun - and that’s when it actually works. It’s far better to just run away and try to re-enter stealth than try to kill an enemy in combat. 

Enemy AI is also pretty terrible for a game so focused on its stealth gameplay. You can easily re-enter stealth after enemies spot you or watch you brutally murder their friends, and they don’t notice their numbers dwindling so you can skitter about the shadows in peace. On the bright side, levels are refreshingly open in their design. There’s a lot of verticality that allows you to scale ledges and rooftops, letting you jump around the environment and carry out your assassinations fluidly. Aragami 2 takes the Dishonored approach to stealth - where waiting for a window of opportunity takes a backseat to forcing it open at your leisure. You can even shadow-dash to move around areas quickly.

The player is given a bunch of skills and abilities to distract enemies and eliminate them, which functionally feels somewhat like the Aragami have their own Bat-belt of magical shadow gadgets. You can tick off abilities in your skill tree as you gain experience, and then use these new tools in older levels to earn higher scores. Alternatively, you’ll find that operating from the shadows to take out an entire town’s worth of enemies becomes way more interesting as you gain more abilities. 

Verdict

Aragami 2 is a solid stealth game, even if some of the sequel’s new elements don’t feel as fine tuned as they should be. Wide open levels are fun to navigate as you platform from one building to another, watching enemy patrols and scouting out multiple assassination routes unseen. Unfortunately, the story just isn’t compelling enough to keep you going through the tedious combat, poor enemy AI and limited mission design. If you’re a huge stealth fan though, you’ll probably still have a lot of fun with this. 

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