Parents' Guide to Aragami

Fans of the straightforward stealth games of years past should enjoy themselves with this one. Aside from a light role-playing element in the form of simple skill improvements, the whole point here is to sneak around like a ghost and either stealth-kill everyone you encounter or avoid them completely.

Each chapter involves navigating an area patrolled by guards who can and will kill you on sight. Gameplay is somewhat unforgiving -- one hit is all you can take before you're dust -- but patience and dexterity are rewarded with some fairly cool ninja-like moments. On the surface, the story nvolves the revenge of a young girl on the savages who murdered her people. Dig a little deeper, and it's also about the identity of her spectral avenger. Though violence is the heart of the game and there's blood, the anime-style graphics keep it from being too realistic. The skill tree also offers some interesting upgrades, including the ability to summon a shadow dragon to take out enemies and see all the hidden scrolls in an area. Better still, the mystery at the center of the story pulls you through. Unfortunately, a number of issues plague the game. Sometimes, mission-objective markers fail to appear correctly, the targeting reticule is hard to see, and the controls can be less than responsive. Still, it's hard to deny the romance of gliding around a moonlit graveyard or bamboo forest like some kind of lethal apparition.