r/PSVR • u/zanderoli • 22h ago

Opinion I finished Arashi: Castles of Sin 'Final Cut' (Overall Thoughts)

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Arashi and it's a shame that this game is being slept on so hard. The combat was fun and satisfying, there is great variety with how you can go about levels. The boss fights are fun and some are relatively challenging. The difficulty in general felt great, not too easy, not too hard. It's balanced incredibly well.

The game really impressed me with sound design and how it blends into the UI. The UI itself is essentially hidden, you have to look down to see your health and stamina. If you're running or jumping and your stamina is depleted, the game makes a noise, like two claves being struck together. Same when you crouch and blend in with grass. It's kind of hard to describe but it's just super seamless and allowed me to become one with this Tenchu-style world. Super fun to roleplay as a ninja assassin. This UI style really stood out to me though because Skydance ported/published Arashi on PSVR2 and they also developed Behemoth. Arashi and Behemoth are similar in many ways but Arashi completely trumps Behemoth in terms of UI. In Behemoth it's nearly right in your face and even with the dynamic UI option, it still hangs around for far too long and muddies up the screen. It's not like that at all in Arashi, brilliant UI design IMO.

Upon completion, the game has NG+ in the form of Mission Select. There are 9 different things to find in each level. 3 cursed trees, 3 scrolls, 3 bags of gold. The platinum is easy to get and I plan on getting it. Just need to find the remaining collectables.

Haru, the dog, is useful and endearing/entertaining. Her role in a particular boss fight was quite cool.

The game really surprised me with how good it was. Everything simply worked, I was never fighting against the mechanics or experiencing weird jank. Yes, the combat is weightless and some people interpret that as janky but it's not in the slightest. It's just weightless combat.

I could go on and on really, that's how much I enjoyed this game.

12 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

4

u/Technical-Title-5416 22h ago

It's great. It's basically Tenchu in VR

2

u/zanderoli 22h ago

It really is.

1

u/Ok_Chemistry_7537 3h ago

Imma wishlist it then. Haven't bought any melee brawlers yet, looked into this but reviews and impressions here weren't great

1

u/Sylsomnia 17h ago

That's why 1st impression matters. On release apparently it was a mess, even after quick updates the community wasn't happy, and by now it's under the carpit. They'd need a massive great update to get people interested in it, which probably won't happen, hence the negative feedback.