Aragami

Essence Of The Shadows

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Ending my zen weekend with a zen game. Finished a mission in Aragami 2 without any detection or murders whatsoever, plus grabbing additional in world booty (not what you’re seeing in the photo). Only had time for one mission tonight, but I made it count! I’m one achievement richer.We’re still having nice warm summer days, so when the evening hit it felt nice to feel the cool wind drift through the window as I drank some cherry blossom green tea. Needless to say it helped with the atmosphere a bit.

Meanwhile, on Steam Deck last night I started Aragami in NG+ to set myself up to gather more achievements. On my first playthrough I did a mix of stealth with a bit of killing here and there. This time around I’m going to go for the murder medal. Surprisingly killing all the enemies is harder than you might think, especially when you’re trying not to get detected. There’s also an achievement for killing 100 enemies, all in due time.

Ascension and Awakening

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I was greeted to the sound of rain pitter pattering down when waking up today, and finding that the rain also helped me sleep in even further… Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the green tea I drank while listening to the raindrops and contemplating how to spend this rainy day, but I ended up not only settling on Aragami, but I finally beat it!

It felt satisfying to finally finish it after all this time, and now I can look forward to a bit of replay value! There are still multiple achievements for me to claim, but those can wait another day. I’m on vacation, and I crave more adventure! I’ll save the achievement hunting for another night where I only have time to mess around with it.

Since I enjoyed the first one so much – I figured I would spoil myself a bit and pick up the sequel/final installment in the series. It tells the tale of a completely different Aragami, who frees himself and discovers an entire community of fellow Aragami. I’ve only made it through the tutorial, but it does change quite a bit from the previous game. The game mechanics are a little more athletic, you can sword fight with enemies, whereas the original relied entirely on stealth. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this one compares with the original.

You Can Almost Taste The Cherry Blossoms

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Aragami’s viewing of the Cherry Blossoms.

There wasn’t much April Foolin’ for me to do today. It’s still my weekend, did a little more reorganizing and then spent some time on the couch enjoying some Aragami – seems like a perfect game to kick the month off with. Finished Chapter 10, only three more chapters remain before I can declare this one finished. Then I’ll return to it whenever I feel like plinking away at Achievements. I tried to start this off as a pacifist, but ended up getting bloodthirsty on a few levels. There are also some scrolls I missed earlier on, so this will definitely have some replay value for me.

Saturday In The Shadows

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Had a very zen evening tonight. Made a large pot of Japanese Curry and some rice, drank some green tea and played Aragami in the living room while getting intoxicated on the epic aromas wafting from my cauldron. Made it through Chapters 8 and 9, survived a boss battle and earned four achievements!

It took me awhile, but I did nail the captain after about 100 retries. In order to defeat him you need to destroy a light barrier switch that protects the Captain, then you have to backstab him and repeat the procedure two more times. You are then treated to an epic battle cutscene. I went from gritting my teeth to being proud af to just get through the damned boss fight. It was so intense that I almost thought I would beat the game tonight! But alas, three more chapters will have to wait for another time. My eyes feel waaaay too shot for me to continue. Time to finish off the rest of my tea and call it a night.

Silent As The Night

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Made it out of the Mausoleum tonight! Also have one foot through the graveyard already taken care of for next time. I enjoyed playing this while enjoying a cherry blossom field candle and cherry blossom tea. I need a little bit of those spring vibes to help counter the darkness. I’m thinking I’ll shift back to playing some more Kena tomorrow; maybe conquer more of the new area I discovered, also Photo Mode. 😛 Speaking of Photos…

I AM THE NIGHT

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After spending a good part of the evening working on my next disasterpiece – I escaped into the world of Aragami for awhile and advanced the plot juuuuuuuuuuust a little. Got a couple scrolls and a talisman! Enjoying a little bit of tea and mochi before bed. It’s getting time to order some more soon, it’s a nice accompaniment to green tea! Kinda like black tea and cookies.

This was the final frame I left off in for tonight in SFM. I’m almost done animating the first scene! I’ll probably take a break from it tomorrow. No sense in rushing on this one – I already know it’s gonna take awhile. I’m thinking after work tomorrow of advancing the plot in DOOM Eternal, reeeeeaaalllly kick off the weekend. I just need to find one more Celestial Ring and then I can inch closer to finishing the base game and move onto the DLC!

Until then… it’s shut eye but for real, yo.

Evening of Zen: Aragami Edition

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It was a bit too warm for me to work on much today, aside from work, work anyway. So I relaxed with some of my fave aesthetics; The eyecandy of Aragami while eating some Pocky and drinking some cherry blossom tea. I’ve been playing it in between Steam Deck and Desktop, and so far I’m the furthest I’ve ever been! I have a couple other pix on Masto.

Aragami, the true Shadow Warrior

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The Steam Winter Sale is in full swing, and I’ve already been playing one of the games I’ve purchased from it so far.

Aragami is a stealth indie game developed on the Unity Engine. You’re an Aragami, a being made of shadows. You have been summoned to save a girl named Yamiko. She is being held prisoner by the army of light or the “Kaiho”. She talks to you via projected hologram.

Yamiko guides you through the game and teaches you how to traverse the shadows, you can leap from shadow to shadow using Shadow Essence, as well as unlock other skills by finding and spending scrolls on them, which I haven’t done yet (but I have TWO SCROLLS). Light makes you weaker, the shadows keep you strong. Don’t go towards the light! Offhandedly, Yamiko tells you that when the sun rises it will kill you. Fortunately this game doesn’t have a day/night cycle. 😛

Aragami runs on Windows, Linux, PS4 and Mac. This is probably one of the more smooth Unity Engine games I’ve played, though the graphics are rather simple but work well with the art style. Reviews for the game on Steam are “Very Positive”, Metacritic gives it an overall average rating of 70/100 on PC, and 71/100 on PS4. I’ve only played an hour of it thus far, and so far it’s been really nice. 🙂 I might install this on my laptop and put together a Steam Controller config (unless someone else has already, which is highly possible).