Kamiwaza is difficult to recommend for much the same reason most of Acquire's games are: They are piles of good, interesting ideas and heart attached to gameplay that is often only sometimes fun. Kamiwaza is no different. It comes to us as a fresh port from the PS2 and feels every inch the PS2 era game it is. Specifically, it feels like a lost sequel to Way of the Samurai 2 cast as a sort of stealth game that feels absolutely no need to hew to stealth game genre conventions; especially peculiar because the Tenchu guy does the extremely groovy music (blending bass guitars and traditional Japanesey music) and I know Acquire has experience with Tenchu and Shinobido, but grant me a bit to step you through the game. This one is a little bit zany.
In Kamiwaza you play as the master thief Ebizo taking jobs to steal things in a Way of the Samurai style sandbox Japanese town. A sick daughter drives the opening of the story and serves as the game over state should you be unable to keep the cash coming in, but the story quickly goes beyond her. The jobs are randomly generated and task you to collect your loot and deliver it either to the Thieves' Guild to sell or to the people to raise their affection for you. You really need the money to buy medicine, but having the people's help is immensely useful. Practically speaking, there is more than enough cash to go around. You will never have a hard choice, nor is there ever any reason to not get the people to like you.
The stealth itself is full of very interesting ideas. Ebizo carries a knapsack around which is where his loot goes. At any point, he can drop the sack and charge up a kick to punt it somewhere (Of course you cannot simply throw it. Get real!). This serves as your audio and visual distraction. Guards will stare at the sack; they will not touch it, but it will hold their attention. If you bean a guard in the head with it, they will be knocked out briefly too. But without the sack, you cannot steal. You can call the sack back to you via an invisible magic cord, so losing it is impossible. If the sack is too full of loot, it will draw attention on the city streets as you try to cash it in. In addition, stealing is treated like attacking. Bear with me here, Ebizo gracefully attacks items to steal them. Once their health bars deplete, he successfully steals the item. Depending on his level, some items are easier than others. This carries over to combat too: Ebizo cannot actually hurt anyone. He pick-pockets them (Only from the front. Why would he be able to steal from behind?) and anyone who has all of their items stolen will be temporarily rendered unconscious by the shock (Do note this can only be done once. You cannot pickpocket a broke man and thus you cannot knock him out again.). So not only does the game turn distractions into this very tactile, very elaborate tradeoff, you also cannot knock people out by walking behind them and hitting X. So far we are not dealing with a typical stealth game.
But I have not even hit on every crazy thing Kamiwaza does. If Ebizo is about to be seen, you can actually perform a dodge to just "dodge" being seen. This triggers a chain combo score mode where you can instantly steal anything in one hit and so long as you can keep chain stealing things, you can keep a combo going. Your loot will be worth more because the Thieves' Guild appreciates style, of course. (Barely related: The game is subtitled Way of the Thief but Kamiwaza translates to something closer to "Divine Act," another sort of Japanese pun off your stylish stealing and your Robin Hood inclinations.) With certain attacks, you can even use this dodge mode to rob a guard blind, almost taking you back to the instant knockouts of classic stealth games, only getting there via action game dodging and frontal attacks. I told you this game is crazy.
The story itself is fairly short and straightforward, and tonally all over the place in Acquire's traditional style but typically staying heavily toward the gritty. It even which manages to even include a couple of fun forced boss fights where Ebizo can use his dodge and steal against an enemy with proper attack patterns. But most of your time is in the random missions, grinding cash for medicine and other cool toys and skill points for extra moves. As with many Acquire games, the grind is part of the fun.
The result is something quite a bit unlike any stealth game you have played before, but the problems go back to the game structure. All the missions are randomly generated in the sandbox town, but the town only has about 6 maps separated by loading zones, and only a couple of small interiors into which these randomly generated missions can be placed. The core gameplay is fun, but you are just walking through cramped town alleys and somersaulting through two room houses. The game only has a couple maps that can be considered full length levels and you will really only hit those once per play going through the story. And even if the levels were big, this still is not Tenchu. While there are four endings and a burglardex to fill of stealing one of every item in the game, a lot of your unlocked abilities do not carry over on replays. Without the meta-game grind of Way of the Samurai or Akiba's Trip, I am not sure why Acquire decided to focus so much on NG+ style play except out of stubborn habit.
As a result, I have to cheat and say Kamiwaza is recommended only conditionally. I really enjoyed it as a period piece, for the usual Acquire heart and charm, and as a showcase of a lot of interesting gaming ideas that never made it beyond this title. But at the same time, it feels like the first attempt at a series that needed a few sequels to refine the gameplay concepts. There are a great many fun and worthwhile moments to be had, but looking at the game as a whole, I have trouble saying it is good. A lot of Acquire's games turn out like this, though, so if you have had some experience with Akiba's Trip, Way of the Samurai, Katanakami, and the like you know what you can expect and should have the same brand of fun here.
