Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief

クリアしたのでレビュー 天誅、侍道、忍道、最近でいうとオクトパストラベラーでHD2Dを開発。 それがこの、神業を作ったアクワイアという所で、とにかく尖ったゲームしか作らず故にコアなファンも多い。 自分もそのうちの一人だ。というかはっきり言って信者だ。天誅に侍道なんて通過したらそりゃ信者にもなるよ。 という所。身の上話はさておき、今回発売されたこの神業というゲーム。 実は信者を自称するものの、地雷臭を嗅ぎ取り[b]やっていない[/b]。 なので、アクワイアへの入れ込み具合には反して、全くの初見プレイであった。 総括すると、単純にこのゲームは最高。 まず目を引くのは、主人公が風呂敷を背負い、攻撃することにより盗んだ獲物がポンポンと風呂敷に入ってくる様子。 ある種のバカゲーのような、どこか抜けている感じがする。 しかしながら、ユーモラスだけではなく、そういった演出が気持よく爽快なテンポで、盗める者は取るだけ取っちまおうという気にさせてくれる。誰にバレようが逃げながら盗ることもでき、それはそれは自由度の高い義賊稼業になっている。 と思ってたら、帰宅した際に、大勢の岡っ引きに待ち伏せされてゲームオーバーになったり。人生いろいろだ。 じゃあ、どうすれば泥棒稼業をバレずに行うかということになる。ここで登場するのが、手ぬぐいだ。 顔を隠し、身バレ防止に役立つが、変装していてもいずれ顔ばれして手配書がどんどん主人公の顔に似てくる。 人相がどんどん似てきたら、看板ごとぶんどってやればある程度低下する。 最初に一度、チュートリアルステージをクリアしたら、あとは自由。 さっき言ったような指名手配されて自宅で待ち伏せされるプレイもよし、義賊として勤めを果たすもよし、義理の娘であるすずなに薬を・・・主人公には病弱な義理の娘がいる。健気な子で救ってあげたくなるような性格をしていて、故に、何度も薬を買い与える羽目になる。義賊ロールプレイでは欠かせないところで、悪党になるためであれば、ある程度は無視をしても平気だ。当然、無視しすぎると・・・。 メインストーリーとは別に宝のありか、そのネタを提供してくれる、斡旋屋がいる。 つまり、ネタを受諾した時点で盗み入る気まんまん、財布拾いから、屋敷に潜入して金品を奪う、などバラエティに富んだ盗人業を味わえる。そして、手に入れた宝は、民に届けるか、自分の金にするため換金箱に届けるか、選択することができる。 民に分配する場合は人気度が上がり、場合によっては手配書を破いて、大幅に人相書の精細さを下げてくれる。 換金する場合には金が手にはいる。金だ。 肝心なところである、アクションのパート。 最初に書いた通り、表現も相まって視覚効果だけではなくアクションそのものが気持ちいい。 ステルスも面白い。敵の視界に入り、見つかっても制限時間内にボタンを押せば無かった事に出来る。普通のステルスゲームなら、チートじゃない？これ。なんて事になりそうではある。しかしそれが神業、盗人の生き様なのだ。 多分、盗人の上級者は全て無かったことに出来るのだと思う。 そして何よりマップ！すごい！侍道1以降超えられなかった壁を見事に超えて見せたかのような、街を歩き回ってるだけで楽しいデザイン！時間帯により、町人などが別の行動を取ったりするのも魅力的（とはいえ、居る場所が変わるだけ）。 歩いてるだけで楽しい、盗むだけで楽しい、見つかっても楽しい。いやー楽しい。 悪いところ。 ボス戦がクソ。 自分の文章力では表し切れないほかの魅力も一杯で、大変楽しめた。 4時間程度で指名手配で強制ゲームオーバー、20時間程やってバグで詰む、7時間くらいで初クリアと二度やり直しをさせられたが、こんなに心折れずにずっと楽しみ続けたゲームって初めてかもしれない。 アクワイア信者なら定価で買え！お布施だ！ 面白そうだけど食指が・・・なんて人も買え！ セールまで待とうと思っている人はよく注意して買え！ 以上！ 冗談です。 ボリュームの無さ故に、セールまで待ったほうがいいです。

Gonna be real, $40 is definitely an insane asking price for an Unreal port of a PS2 game, (especially one with what seems like a couple graphics issues during extended play sessions like the fog/steam not loading, but that could be a funny linux gaming moment.) But I really don't regret it. I've loved Acquire's catalog since I was in high school with things like Way of The Samurai and Shinobido. This is just another great entry from them in the stealth genre with a wacky action twist. Should it be $20? Yeah, probably. Should you get it if you love old Acquire games? Yeah, probably.

Personally, the game isn't for me. I'm not a fan of stealth titles. So then, why the positive review? Because this game is made by the same developers [idk if its exactly the exact same developers but the company. You know what I mean.] who made Way of the Samurai. My childhood favorites. I bought this game to support them and their future endeavors. This is also my way of telling them to port over Way of the Samurai 1 & 2 to PC. Not even a remaster, just port it, Please! As much as I enjoy emulation, I prefer having the real deal in my library to show off to my friends and chosen family so that way they can get it themselves and experience it without having to go through the hoops of emulation. Plus, you're a corporation... You like money, right? If you do port over Way of the Samurai 1, it'll be a pre-order from me. Which is something I do not take lightly. I'll do it for Way of the Samurai 2 as well. If I have to get on my knees and beg, I'll ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beg. Not that I'd want to, but they are classics that deserves to live on forever on Steam. Hell, you already have 3 and 4 on here, why not 1 & 2 as well?

Pretty fun game about a noble thief from feudal Japan (or not so noble). Depending on your actions, your main character Ebizo can become either a petty thief, hero of the poor or just a desperate father who turned into thief to gain money to save his dying daughter. The story is pretty short, which is to be expected from a game made in 2006, but it's replayable to the extent of getting 4 different endings depending on who you side with. The only one ending is true. Kamiwaza is not to be mistaken for a realistic game; there are a lot of shenanigans most Japanese games have; for example, if you level up your skills enough, you can steal women's dresses or start blasting stolen goods on your enemies.  It's a shame this game was kept Japan exclusive for so many years, and because of it, it lost its positive reception. It's still a pretty pricey game, but the fun is worth it. Grab it on sale and enjoy this hidden gem.

　天誅、忍道、侍道シリーズのアクワイアによる作品。 　神業はシリーズ化されていないが、忍道、侍道に通じるところも多い。 　当時、忍道をしゃぶり尽くすほど遊び倒し、神業も発売日に買ったが、一回クリアしただけで飽きてしまった。 　他シリーズ同様マルチエンドなので、別エンド見てみるかくらいの気持ちで購入。 　神業がそこそこ売れれば忍道もsteamで出してくれるかもという下心もあった。 　本作の雰囲気は非常にアクワイアなのだが、R1押したら見つからなかったことに出来るシステムが強すぎてR1押しゲーとなってしまうのは問題です。 　過去にイマイチハマらなかった理由もそこにある。 　ワークショップ対応や忍道のクリエイトシステムがあればもっと遊べたかもしれない。 　マジで忍道steamで出してもらえませんか？ 　できれば匠と一緒に。

I'm a big fan of the Way of the Samurai games and their short stories with branching paths for replayability, so I figured I'd give Kamiwaza a shot since more of that style of game is something I'd really like to see more of and play. The game was fun, and if you're not really interested in doing more than a single playthrough, you can definitely have a good time with Kamiwaza. But if you're a completionist, or even a "minor" completionist that just wants to see all the games' branching story paths, I can't recommend Kamiwaza at all due to a mix of lacking technical polish and very low documentation for this game (at least in English, I wouldn't know where to begin searching in Japanese about this game). [h2][u]The Gameplay[/u][/h2] Kamiwaza has a sort of stealth-lite gameplay style, where the focus is on timing moves to render yourself temporarily invisible to combo steal mass amounts of items for Style Points, and then dodge back out of sight or risk keeping the train going. The consequences for being seen are fairly minimal in most cases, and it's more of an action/stealth hybrid than a pure stealth game. Your goal in stealing loot, besides stealing for the thrill of it, is to earn enough money to pay for medicine for the protagonist's sick daughter, giving you a mix of money, style points, and her health you manage all while trying to buy upgrades for moves and your gear. It's a good loop, I had a good time running through the game with it on my first playthrough especially. And the premise for the story is fun to watch play out. The excitement, unfortunately, begins to die down when you arrive at subsequent playthroughs. Subsequent playthroughs launched through NG+ carry over your banked Style Points and money, as well as unlocked bag and mask styles. Your inventory is likewise saved. What is not saved is your pool of moves you've actually spent Style Points on to unlock, nor is your progress with a certain shop which requires you donate to it to upgrade your selection of things available to you (and the final upgrade is 100,000 money - best save that for one playthrough, if you do get the game), and most painfully of all, your level of upgrade on your lockpicks. You begin to lose some of the excitement to do subsequent runs once you realize you're going to have to slog through about a third of the mandatory missions which exist only to toss you an upgrade to your lockpicks and set up feature plot beats - beats which do not vary at all, since the only variation in your story path comes in the final segment of the game. To put it in better perspective, I'd say a run of the game's story is probably going to land around 4-6 hours if you're rushing through the main missions and don't have interest in doing the side missions for upgrades and money - and if you're good at the boss fights. Yes, the stealth game does have boss fights. And they're rather annoying at first, with some bosses containing movesets which can stunlock you into death, but they become manageable and more fun when you get a better handle of their movesets and your own moveset. Bring healing items. Especially for the final boss - if you're on Suzuna's route, you are desperately going to want healing items for that final boss to make your life less miserable. The last segment which has variation in the story will probably run you about 30 minutes to 1 hour in length. Everything up to that point plays out almost entirely identically, with the potential exception of encountering one optional character who opens up another "route"/ending. As it happens, that optional meeting is what caused me to give up on my third run and to write this review. [h2][u]Breaking Point[/u][/h2] I did not encounter a great deal of technical issues, but the few I did were severe enough to put me off from finishing seeing every route of the game. The first major issue was a crash at the final boss which lost me an hour of progress, due to no fault of my own. Kamiwaza uses an autosave and save-point-only system, there is no saving from the menu. And in the finale segment of the game, you get one autosave at the [b][u]start[/u][/b] of the finale, with no mid-point saves. Upon reaching the final cutscene, I was given a Unreal Engine 4 crash error and sent back to desktop. My most recent save was that autosave. I was frustrated, but I gave it another shot and skipped all the cutscenes I had previously seen to try and avoid another crash, and thankfully, managed to see the ending without issue. The second major issue I had can most likely be attributed to lacking documentation on the game, but I can't rule out the possibility of a bug being the cause of it. The endings/routes of the game are tied directly to the "health levels" of Suzuna, the protagonist's daughter, and one route, Byakumon's route, is tied both to a very precise health level (which cannot be directly seen and needs to be interpreted from context clues) according to GameFAQs, and also a meeting with Byakumon herself. The problem is - there is no precisely documented way to encounter her. I assume it is tied to moving through certain areas, walking through trigger zones for the cutscenes to play out. But something I learned on the run I hoped to do her route on - it seems that if you progress through the story too fast you're unable to meet with her. On my first playthrough of the game, I encountered Byakumon in her second encounter, unintentionally having skipped the first, meeting her in Nakasu Town. In a funny parallel of that, I ended up doing the opposite on playthrough two, encountering her for the first time, while failing to meet her for the second time. And on playthrough three - the playthrough I specifically was trying for her route - she refused to show up. I did missions for 3 hours, specifically taking routes through both the village where I encountered her the first time, and on the same routes in Nakasu Town, and she would not appear. I assume this was because of where I was at in the story, having reached the point where you're sent a letter by Ainosuke to have him meet you at the shrine. At that point, I'd already put about 8 hours into a playthrough I evidently was not going to be able to get the ending I was hoping for because I played the game too quickly. I tried to pivot to the Suzuna True route, but was unable to because despite feeding Suzuna twenty different packs of panacea, her illness could not be cured no matter how often I left and re-entered the house to update the stage her health was at. I'm assuming there's probably also a secondary requirement not documented anywhere that requires you to see all endings before getting the Suzuna True end. But I can't be bothered to try and go through this game two to three more times when there's so little changed story content to warrant the effort it would take to get everything to line up just right and not bug out. [h2][u]Not Worth The Price of Admission[/u][/h2] So ultimately, despite Kamiwaza being a fun game for the first playthrough, it falls drastically short of my expectations in seeing meaningful story changes and fell apart heavily in subsequent playthroughs. And if you ask me if this was worth $40, I would say not at all. If I felt generous, I'd say $20 is about what it's worth, but honestly, my issues with the ending drag this down enough that I'd hesitate to say it's worth more than $10. If you want more Way of the Samurai, I'm afraid this isn't a very good game to fulfill that fix.

Core gameplay is fun and quirky, but boss battles are obnoxious. Make sure that you carry at least 2 healing items with you every time you progressing through the plot.

A cornucopia of Kanto-creativity from the halcyon days of The Greatest Software Library in the History of Video Games. With no shortage of era-appropriate rough edges, [i] Kamiwaza [/i] shines as a gleaming testament to the bygone days of creativity in the gaming sphere. A stealth game that asks you to hurl yourself into the sightlines of the suspicious only to [b] Just Stealth [/b] into a thievish state of imperceptible ecstasy, all while lifting the contents of the pockets of the Edo-era constabulary that wish you harm. An action game that asks you to gently steal from your opponents until they’re so shocked by their newfound poverty they pass out. The cartwheeling and [b] Just Stealthing [/b] didn’t click with me instantly until I realized “Oh, this is like a sneaky play on bullet-dodging from [i] Samurai Western [/i] *,” at which point I began deliberately flinging Ebizo in front of every pair of eyes that might see him, for a good deal of mischief and loot-accrual. God bless Acquire. Is [i] Kamiwaza Katamari Damacy [/i] ? In many ways, yes. Slithering along the surfaces of a small village and its surrounding institutions, filling up my thief’s bag to dung beetle-dung-to-beetle proportions, cataloguing knick-knacks and tchotchkes alongside genuine artifacts and valuables with little distinction between them. Gleefully disrupting normalcy while grooving along to an anachronistic score that has little right being as funky as it is, [i] Kamiwaza’s [/i] handsy gameplay loop and oeuvre of objects quickly reminded me of that classic clump spirit. A grab-bag of goofballery in a digestible little open world. Buy on sale or consider the steep price tribute for all of the games you run off of PCSX2. *I would in a heartbeat buy a barebones port of [i] Samurai Western [/i] on here.

アクワイア全盛期を彩る傑作盗人ステルスアクション。 ファストトラベルの仕様とか依頼のロケーションの少なさとかその他諸々細かい不満は数あれど、それらを補って余りある面白さです。 「クセになる楽しさで数々の粗さや不満点も霞む」という全盛期のアクワイアを体現する作品のひとつですね。 ステルスアクションとして特筆すべき点は、ジャストステルスによるステルスのカジュアルさ・テンポの良さ。慎重になり過ぎずに気楽に楽しめますね（慣れれば）。それでいてしっかり爽快感もあります。 唯一許容出来ない点はボス戦があまりにもクソなこと。割り切ってゴリ押しプレイしましょう。 今作や忍道や初期の天誅など、アクワイアの真骨頂はステルスアクションにあると思っています。名作。

Pretty good game but an underwhelming and barebones port, as is typical of these ACQUIRE games. Debatably worth it at $20, absolutely not worth it at $40. I appreciate localizing a game that's been left in Japan for as long as this one has, but NISA's pricing is way out of line with their quality. This is hard capped at 30 FPS and is basically a straight port of a game from 20 years ago.