Kamiwaza: Way Of The Thief – a game out of time (pic: Acquire)

The makers of Tenchu remaster a previously Japanese only spin-off that casts you, not as a ninja or samurai, but a Robin Hood style thief.

It was fascinating speaking to Tenchu director Takuma Endo earlier in the year, about his work on what was the first proper 3D stealth game, and the evolution of the genre since. Although we tried to cover multiple topics in our interview, he was primarily there to promote Kamiwaza: Way Of The Thief, a PlayStation 2 game from 2006 that despite being an unofficial spin-off of Tenchu was never released outside of Japan.

According to Endo there was never any plan for a Western release at the time and yet it’s remembered with such fondness by developer Acquire that they wanted to see it remastered and made more accessible for gamers all around the world. That’s a noble goal, and this is a surprisingly good remaster, but the fact remains that that the original is a 16-year-old, low budget stealth game and that’s not necessarily the most accessible prospect for a modern audience.

By the time of the early 2000s, stealth games were already falling out of fashion and so while Kamiwaza does have many similarities with Tenchu it’s less focused purely on stealth, moving away from the ninjas of Tenchu, and Acquire’s Way Of The Samurai series, to give the limelight to a different archetype of Japanese, and indeed world, culture: the thief with a heart of gold.

Kamiwaza means divine work a nod to Tenchu’s name, which translates as divine retribution. Kamiwaza casts you as a neophyte thief named Ebizo, who in the opening level is introduced to the art of robbery by his brother. The pair think that they, and the rest of their gang of thieves, are out on an ordinary burglarious mission, at a posh mansion on New Year’s Eve, but things quickly go awry when the occupants are all murdered.

Ebizo is forced to escape with a young child – the only survivor – and the game proper opens 10 years later, after he’s abandoned the criminal life in favour of becoming a carpenter and raising his young ward. Unfortunately, she becomes sick and he is forced to return to thievery in order to obtain medicines for her, which in turns sees him becoming a sort of Robin Hood figure for the whole village – stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

You might not be playing as an actual ninja, but sneaking around, trying not to make any noise, is still a large part of the game – even if it’s not quite as important as it first seems. The missions are set up so that simply running past someone is often the best way out of a situation. Not only that, but time a button press for just as you’re spotted and you have the chance to trigger a special move, equivalent to a dodge or parry, that essentially makes you invisible for a split second.

It’s a weird mechanic, that has no real world explanation, but it’s part of a combo system that encourages you to zip past multiple guards at once and nab items as you go. As a thief you’re rewarded for stealing anything that’s not nailed down, but while smaller objects require just a single button press to pick up, others require you to button mash for ages. What this is supposed to represent is never made clear but when invisible you can just pick anything up instantly, so in gameplay terms it all makes some sort of sense.

There’s no real combat as such, beyond dropping the swag bag you always carry and kicking it at guards (which works like a free kick in a football game and can also be used to dislodge out of reach items), which increases the reliance on running way. Luckily, guards have even shorter attention spans than normal for the genre, so waiting till they give up and forget you takes mere seconds.

The whole game takes place in a single town and its environs, so as your notoriety increases wanted posters of increasing accuracy start to appear, that you’re advised to tear down if you don’t want to be stopped by every passer-by. You do have the option to wear a disguise too, although more effective ones are acquired at a special bathhouse, where you can also acquire new stealth moves – such as the unlikely ability to lay on a step and have people walk over you.

Nothing in Kamiwaza makes much logical sense but while it does all mesh together in terms of gameplay, it never stops feels peculiarly abstract. It’s purposefully silly but it’s never actively funny, or at least not to our minds. The translation seems solid, so we don’t think that’s the problem, so perhaps it’s just as Endo himself said, that the game is ‘extremely Japanese’.

Kamiwaza: Way Of The Thief – stealth is not always an option (pic: Acquire)

As a remaster, Acquire has done a great job here, with the PlayStation 2 graphics brushing up surprisingly well – although the game was originally released just months before the launch of the PlayStation 3, so it’s a very late era game. It was never exactly Metal Gear Solid 2 though and the characters and level design are still very reminiscent of Tenchu on the original PlayStation. That’s not a problem but the frustratingly imprecise controls are.

Despite having relatively few moves for a stealth game everything seems fiddly and awkward, as you get caught shimmying along walls when you didn’t mean to or mess up the weird double jump mechanic that even the game’s tutorial doesn’t seem to fully understand.

It’s always fascinating to play a retro game you’ve never seen, or even heard of, and since Kamiwaza doesn’t even seem to be well known in Japan there’s a novel sense of undiscovered treasure. It’s not exactly the crown jewels though and while it’s always interesting to play a game that was never intended for release in the West the experience as a whole is rarely all that entertaining.

We’re glad we got to play it but given the high asking price we’re not sure how many other people are going to make the effort. It is a shame that the stealth genre had such a short half-life, and we’d love to see it return, but we’re not sure that Kamiwaza offers any real clue as to how that might be achieved.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, and PC
Price: £35.99
Publisher: NIS America
Developer: Acquire
Release Date: 14th October 2022
Age Rating: 12

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The makers of Tenchu remaster a previously Japanese only spin-off that casts you, not as a ninja or samurai, but a Robin Hood style thief.