It pains me to have to rate an Aragami sequel negatively. For starters this isn't an Aragami game. It's called Aragami, you play as an Aragami, but this isn't Aragami. They basically gutted what made Aragami unique. I'm a big fan of the first one and could look past some of it's quirks as it was Lince's first game. I was hoping to see some major improvements in terms of game play, animation, and the addition of cut content from the previous game such as multiple endings depending on play style. In that 5 year gap however it seems like things never really progressed such as animations and the core game play got worse.

The whole concept of light vs shadow is completely obliterated from both a story and game play perspective. You no longer have the cape which served as a unique display similar to denote your power. It lessened the need for a UI and made the game more immersive. It refilled in the shadows and depleted in the light or when using powers. Instead it is replaced by generic stamina bar that refills regardless of the situation. Light has no effect on it at all anymore just making light something to avoid because it makes you easier to see just like literally every other stealth game on the market.

This concept has been so completely butchered that even the shadow village is just filled to the brim with lanterns and they aren't even some special kind of laterns with a blue flame or something to make it more shadowy or something. Just a whole bunch of normal lanterns that would have drained Aragami's power completely in the previous game. This also extends to missions as well where the sun is literally still in the sky in some levels something well established in the previous game would completely wipe out Aragami. It's actually astonishing how it isn't intentional when they go this far to entirely go against every established concept of the previous game.

Next is the graphics. I'll keep this one relatively short. They certainly look nice, but I wouldn't call them an improvement. For a game so centered around shadows, cel-shading was a a perfect style to go with. The last game's graphics fit a lot better. The one thing the new game did improve upon was the character faces. If they kept the cell shading and just went with higher poly-counts and more detailed character models/environments that would've been perfect.

The animations were a true travesty. After 5 years I was hoping for some improvements, but it really is hard to tell the difference between the 2 games. The cutscenes have terrible model clipping, the sword fights are clunky when knocking out from above, there is no special animation, your character just lands and performs the normal knockout animation.

The movement system changes are easily the worst things to be changed alongside the light vs shadow elements. You no longer have the same freedom of movement you had in the first game which is incredibly odd when they seem to be encouraging more freedom in terms of the story, approach to enemies, and level design. You no longer have the freedom of the shadow leap. It is exclusively relegated to ledge climbing now. Instead you have a short dash which you cannot see or control the distance. This has lead to a bunch of times where there are 2 patches of tall grass far apart and I will dash from one to the other and fall short right in front of an enemy. In the previous game this wasn't an issue as you knew the exact range of your dash and even if it wasn't close enough, you knew that and could work with that information.

The grass patches were an interesting concept lost with the core game play of Aragami. In the previous game bushes served a similar purpose and refilled your shadow essence, but were more sparse. If they kept the core gameplay, then the grass could act similar to bushes, but wouldn't refill your essence giving you temporary cover, but limiting you on your ways out if you were low on essence going in.

The knock-out system is again a mixed bag. In the previous game pacifist runs were more challenging and the ending even prodded you to play a pacifist run. It wasn't really a necessity in the first game, but with how limited you are in terms of movement in 2 it is a requirement as you are no longer able to slink by many enemies.

The combat system was completely not needed. I play stealth games to be stealthy. Not play a "stealth is optional for this mission" type of game. Whenever I was spotted in Aragami 2 I would just find myself restarting anyways because the game actively punishes you for engaging in any kind of combat by lowering your rank at the end of levels. The few times I did get spotted and just decided to try and fight, it never resulted in a duel as other enemies in the area would get alerted to and immediately run over making it 2,3, or 4 on 1 fights. It's a completely and utterly pointless system. In Aragami getting spotted was usually an immediate death sentence, but with enough skill you could warp behind the enemy and kill the enemy before he could raise an alarm. That skill reward system is just gone now.

I really wish this game was just a buggy mess because that would mean that it would be patched down the line, but Aragami 2 is so fundamentally flawed to the core that no amount of patches can turn this into a proper Aragami sequel. If you are new to Aragami and are thinking about getting into the series, just buy Aragami 1.

For being 5 years older it has:
-better and more stylized graphics
-much more unique and enjoyable game play to set it apart from other games of this genre
-it's biggest flaw is the cutscene animations, but Aragami 2 did nothing much to improve on this anyways.
All that and you save $10.

It pains me to have to rate an Aragami sequel negatively. For starters this isn't an Aragami game. It's called Aragami, you play as an Aragami, but this isn't Aragami. They basically gutted what made Aragami unique. I'm a big fan of the first one and could look past some of it's quirks as it was Lince's first game. I was hoping to see some major improvements in terms of game play, animation, and the addition of cut content from the previous game such as multiple endings depending on play style. In that 5 year gap however it seems like things never really progressed such as animations and the core game play got worse. The whole concept of light vs shadow is completely obliterated from both a story and game play perspective. You no longer have the cape which served as a unique display similar to denote your power. It lessened the need for a UI and made the game more immersive. It refilled in the shadows and depleted in the light or when using powers. Instead it is replaced by generic stamina bar that refills regardless of the situation. Light has no effect on it at all anymore just making light something to avoid because it makes you easier to see just like literally every other stealth game on the market. This concept has been so completely butchered that even the shadow village is just filled to the brim with lanterns and they aren't even some special kind of laterns with a blue flame or something to make it more shadowy or something. Just a whole bunch of normal lanterns that would have drained Aragami's power completely in the previous game. This also extends to missions as well where the sun is literally still in the sky in some levels something well established in the previous game would completely wipe out Aragami. It's actually astonishing how it isn't intentional when they go this far to entirely go against every established concept of the previous game. Next is the graphics. I'll keep this one relatively short. They certainly look nice, but I wouldn't call them an improvement. For a game so centered around shadows, cel-shading was a a perfect style to go with. The last game's graphics fit a lot better. The one thing the new game did improve upon was the character faces. If they kept the cell shading and just went with higher poly-counts and more detailed character models/environments that would've been perfect. The animations were a true travesty. After 5 years I was hoping for some improvements, but it really is hard to tell the difference between the 2 games. The cutscenes have terrible model clipping, the sword fights are clunky when knocking out from above, there is no special animation, your character just lands and performs the normal knockout animation. The movement system changes are easily the worst things to be changed alongside the light vs shadow elements. You no longer have the same freedom of movement you had in the first game which is incredibly odd when they seem to be encouraging more freedom in terms of the story, approach to enemies, and level design. You no longer have the freedom of the shadow leap. It is exclusively relegated to ledge climbing now. Instead you have a short dash which you cannot see or control the distance. This has lead to a bunch of times where there are 2 patches of tall grass far apart and I will dash from one to the other and fall short right in front of an enemy. In the previous game this wasn't an issue as you knew the exact range of your dash and even if it wasn't close enough, you knew that and could work with that information. The grass patches were an interesting concept lost with the core game play of Aragami. In the previous game bushes served a similar purpose and refilled your shadow essence, but were more sparse. If they kept the core gameplay, then the grass could act similar to bushes, but wouldn't refill your essence giving you temporary cover, but limiting you on your ways out if you were low on essence going in. The knock-out system is again a mixed bag. In the previous game pacifist runs were more challenging and the ending even prodded you to play a pacifist run. It wasn't really a necessity in the first game, but with how limited you are in terms of movement in 2 it is a requirement as you are no longer able to slink by many enemies. The combat system was completely not needed. I play stealth games to be stealthy. Not play a "stealth is optional for this mission" type of game. Whenever I was spotted in Aragami 2 I would just find myself restarting anyways because the game actively punishes you for engaging in any kind of combat by lowering your rank at the end of levels. The few times I did get spotted and just decided to try and fight, it never resulted in a duel as other enemies in the area would get alerted to and immediately run over making it 2,3, or 4 on 1 fights. It's a completely and utterly pointless system. In Aragami getting spotted was usually an immediate death sentence, but with enough skill you could warp behind the enemy and kill the enemy before he could raise an alarm. That skill reward system is just gone now. I really wish this game was just a buggy mess because that would mean that it would be patched down the line, but Aragami 2 is so fundamentally flawed to the core that no amount of patches can turn this into a proper Aragami sequel. If you are new to Aragami and are thinking about getting into the series, just buy Aragami 1. For being 5 years older it has: -better and more stylized graphics -much more unique and enjoyable game play to set it apart from other games of this genre -it's biggest flaw is the cutscene animations, but Aragami 2 did nothing much to improve on this anyways. All that and you save $10.