

Missions have a nasty habit of returning to the earlier levels ad nauseam, upwards of five times in the most egregious instances. There were more scraps in my future, sadly, especially as I steadily lost patience with Aragami 2's excruciatingly slow pacing. I came to avoid combat at all costs for these reasons alone, even forgoing lethal takedowns when possible out of the fear that they might somehow trigger more tussles later on. Considering guy-with-sword is the only enemy type to encounter for the vast, overwhelming majority of playtime, you'll likely grow tired of fights, regardless of the outcome. Only two or three hits will send you belly-up, so it's best to sprint, hide, and wait for the guards to get back to patrolling, particularly if two or more are on your tail. Frustration sets in quickly when parrying fails, and then enemies wail on your defenseless carcass.

I'm relatively confident the parry maneuver is partially to blame as it often doesn't, well, actually parry incoming sword-swipes. Combat in Aragami 2 is bizarrely swampy and awkward for a game about ninjas, where the timing of both hits and misses feels off, as if the animations aren't keeping up with the fights themselves.
#Aragami 2 gameplay full
Of course, there are times when a plan goes awry, and things devolve into duels that are about as enjoyable as pushing a wheelbarrow full of rocks in knee-deep mud. Which there often is! Few moments in Aragami 2 are quite as satisfying as witnessing your wild schemes come to fruition in a fell swoop. If you're lucky, though, there'll be a lamp post close by that's eager to send them off counting sheep. It comes in handy when there's a posse of baddies hanging around a choke point, where individually taking them down is nearly out of the question. My favorite is Dark Flame, a skill that, on command, will turn lamp posts into explosive clouds of sleep-inducing gas. That fabulous self-expression only amplifies once shadow skills come into the fold and wildly expand on how you can approach levels.
