Aragami 2 is the ninja-inspired follow-up to 2016’s Aragami, both developed and published by Barcelona-based Lince Works. The newest entry in the series expands on the original’s stealth-focused gameplay with new mechanics/supernatural abilities that remain fun to use throughout, but is bogged down by repetitive missions and buggy performance.
The story of Aragami 2 takes place in the war-torn land of Rashomon 100 years after the events of the original game, following the tale of an Aragami warrior dealing with the humanity-robbing curse that allows them to control the shadows. Players set out on a quest to save their Kurotsuba clan from the curse afflicting them and the Akatsuchi clan that are enslaving them. The story never quite hits the heights of the personal tale of Ryo in the first Aragami, but it’s a serviceable tale that sets the stage for defeating enemy forces in ninja-like fashion.
Skulking around Aragami 2’s open maps is incredibly fun, with multiple pathways to approach and complete objectives. Players can move through missions like a ghost, using non-lethal takedowns and a combination of Shadow Vision (think Detective Vision in the Batman: Arkham series) and Shadow Leap to instantly transport to hard-to-reach vantage points to avoid enemy interactions altogether. Or, if violence is a player’s prerogative, enemies can be lethally killed with the blade in stealth or direct combat. It’s satisfying to scope out an environment, formulate a plan and enact it without a hitch in Aragami 2, and the large-scale environments encourage experimentation.
Completing missions allots a player experience points based on their performance, which can be used to upgrade their Aragami protagonist with new shadow skills to aid in their stealthy endeavors. Some of these skills, like the invisibility-tailored Wraith and the decoy-creating Silhouette, are holdovers from the original game and remain as great as ever. The new additions to the series are fantastic as well, with a Shadow Pull that drags nearby enemies towards the player and triggers a non-lethal takedown and a Warp Strike that teleports players into an Assassination after throwing their weapon among the highlights. The significant number of skills allows players to harness the Aragami’s Shadow Essence to its truest extent, making for creative expressions of supernatural power that further elevates the gameplay.
Lince Works has tried to alleviate the frustration of being caught by enemy forces by introducing a new Ghost of Tsushima-like combat system in the game, but it’s not a very enjoyable experience. The timings on hits and misses are slightly off, meaning that players can dodge an incoming attack and still somehow get hit. The parry maneuver doesn’t always work properly either, with an incredibly short window of opportunity to actually achieve an effective parry causing frustration when it fails. Once it fails, it leaves the protagonist defenseless and death ensues after only a couple hits. It’s almost better just to run away and hide to reset the guards’ patrol routes or avoid fighting altogether if possible, which completely defeats the entire point of including a combat system in the first place. It was a great addition in theory, as the original Aragami didn’t have such a way to defend oneself outside escaping, but the execution is definitely lacking.
Aragami 2’s gameplay loop involves visiting a mission board to receive quests to take on the Akatsuchi clan. Essentially, every objective type boils down to Assassin’s Creed-style fetch quests (information or food typically), a rescue mission or an assassination attempt on an important member of the rival clan. Additionally, players are going to revisit the same levels repeatedly throughout the game’s nine chapters, albeit with different objectives thrown into the mix. While the environments/levels are well-designed and visually pleasing the first time around, it gets pretty annoying having to return to the same venues repeatedly. It presents a lack of variety for a game with a 15 hour runtime, and the game would have benefitted from a much shorter length to overcome the bloat the game suffers from.
The proceedings aren’t helped by the buggy performance of Aragami 2 as well. Clipping through textures is common, enemy AI behaves in odd fashion on occasion, and there was even one occurrence where the Aragami protagonist started floating in mid-air after vaulting over a structure with an NPC on their back. It doesn’t make the game unplayable by any means, and some of Aragami 2’s bugs can be funny, but it can get frustrating when things don’t behave the way they should while trying to sneak through a level. Thankfully, Lince Works is aware of the bugs and has already released a patch to mitigate them, so there’s potential for the experience to be smoother in the future.
Aragami 2 ends up being a bit of a mixed bag as a gaming experience. On one hand, the stealth mechanics, outstanding skill tree and playground-esque level designs means that the core gameplay is a blast. On the other hand, the new combat system isn’t great, repetitive mission objectives and map reuse is maddening, and the bugs certainly don’t help matters. The new addition of co-op has potential to make missions more fun by working with a friend, but this is purely speculation as Screen Rant was not able to test the feature as of writing this review. Stealth fans should find enough to enjoy about Aragami 2, but be prepared for a few stumbles along the way.
Aragami 2 is available now on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, PS4 and PS5. Screen Rant was provided with a PS5 code for the purpose of this review.
