God I miss mid-2000's Japanese video games. There were no rules back then.

Put Mr. Mosquito on steam you cowards.

Please.. I've bought this and I'll buy whatever else you put onto the market.. just make Way of the Samurai 5!!! I'm begging!!!

Buy this and fund the next Shinobido/Tenchu/Way of the Samurai you cowards. Amazing Acquire game, nothing more to say. (Can we get Shinobido in similar form please?)

video games peaked on the playstation 2 and it's just been downhill since.

During my first couple of hours with Kamiwaza, I had a blast. Stealing everything in sight while taking on missions in feudal Japan alongside the game's inventive, addicting stealth combos is insanely enjoyable at first. You have a cartwheel move that allows you to escape from an enemy as long as you use it in the allotted window. Stealing anything immediately after using this cartwheel gives you skill points and lets you chain together acts of theft. It's kind of brilliant. The world is well-designed and fun enough to get around as well. But the maps are also tiny. Within a few hours you'll have been everywhere and done most everything. After that, you'll mostly be going to the same few places and stealing the same few things.

Kamiwaza was originally a PS2 game but, in a lot of ways, it looks more like it was a PSP game. Shinobido by the same developer had much better character models and art direction. Still, unlike Shinobido, Kamiwaza controls pretty well. Your steal move functions a lot like an attack, only it doesn't damage anything. Instead, the more you hit it, the closer you get to stealing it, as a bar appears above larger items. You'll level up your stealing ability the more you take too, which is fun. You can also pickpocket enemies. NPCs tend to have money on them and, if you pickpocket all of it, they faint from the shock. It's pretty amusing. Unfortunately, you can only pickpocket them from the front. Why? There's no reason given. It's just to force the player to use the cartwheel or fight off enemies desperately after getting spotted because I guess it'd be too easy if you could knock enemies out just by sneaking up behind them and pressing a button. You know, that thing that almost EVERY STEALTH GAME DOES.

The problems don't stop there. There's no lock-on, so the pickpocket combat can be wonky (even though Shinobido had a lock-on.) Granted, the combat in Shinobido was some of the worst in the medium and Kamiwaza handles it much better aside from the lock-on. But the MC here isn't as mobile as in that game on account of not being a ninja. Your wanted level rises as you get spotted, resulting in wanted signs with your face on them going up around town. You can also donate things you steal to the people instead of exchanging for cash, which will result in people being friendly to you, destroying wanted signs to help you, and leaving items for you outside of your door. The main story beat has you buying medicine to give to your daughter and she'll get better the more medicine you give her.

The game has multiple endings but I got a bad ending even though I mostly healed the daughter, had maximum affinity with the people, and had my wanted level down to nothing, I got the worst possible ending. When you beat the game, you can do a new game plus, but you lose all of moves you purchased with skill points, which is moronic. You can also buy licenses to unlock passives, but if you remove a license from your inventory, it's gone for good for that playthrough, which is another terrible decision. There just doesn't feel like there's a full game here, nor were a lot of the decisions well thought out. On top of that, it's 16 years old and $40. There is literally no good reason for this game to be more than $20 aside from pure greed. I like things about Kamiwaza and wish I could give a mixed rating, but between the price tag, the design oversights, and all the frustration, I can't recommend it, at least not at a AA price point.

Please port every Aquire game.

40€ for a ps2 game

NIS is out of their minds.

Really fun game. Not exactly pure stealth, more like action packed thief experience in some Japanese town. Port is pretty basic, but game doesn't look bad. A bit similar to Way of the Samurai series gameplay wise. Give the game a chance.

Acquire is one of the best developers that the industry has seen. This one has never before been released in the West and I am glad it finally has been. It is a gem! For anyone familiar with Way of The Samurai, KatanaKami and Shinobido, you should like this one too!

If this game can get ported to steam, there might be hope for Tenchu yet, please let there be hope.