The revenge premise is a simple but serviceable frame: a child spends eight years training after their father is killed, then hunts the responsible parties through a compact campaign. What matters is everything layered around that spine, from a detective board threading a conspiracy through environmental finds (a second tomb under a false name, a family photograph explaining a betrayal) to the club level, whose pulsing soundtrack makes it the standout stage in a run of consistently strong ones. The Vengeance route makes narrative sense in a way the mercy route never does, and the story is best served by playing it straight.
The combat is the game, carrying roughly ninety percent of the experience: parries, duck and avoid timing, structure-break punishing and weapon disarms stack into a system with real depth. Every death ages the protagonist, trading years of the counter for the hit points and grey hair to match, a reward-punishment loop that plays brilliantly. Shrines grant run-only upgrades or permanent skill unlocks, and shortcut unlocking carries across attempts, so a beaten level opens faster on the next pass. This is the same structure-and-parry language as Sekiro compressed into a level-based brawler, smaller and more focused, with a hard death budget standing in for that game’s infinite retries.
Boss patterns reward dissection: Fajar’s machete mix-ups teach dodging, Sean’s high-heavy kit demands discipline, Jin Fang’s long-range staff controls space, and the final duel is a pure parry test. Kuroki is the wall, an unreadable, six-pattern attack set that resists learning longer than everything else combined. The bamboo pole is the weapon of choice purely for the sound it makes on impact, brutal finishers add flavour throughout, and a post-game modifier menu turns mastery into replay value, up to and including a power-fantasy pass through the hardest route.
Grapples are the sharpest mechanical complaint: unavoidable-feeling, poorly telegraphed grabs that rank as the most hated thing in the game. The camera actively sabotages fights, worst in crowded rooms and during the Kuroki duel, where the enemy is as likely to be lost behind scenery as behind a guard. Sweeps stay opaque throughout, with high-versus-low dodging never taught cleanly. Shrine upgrades are a mixed bag, several picks regretted instantly, and focus a waste of a slot compared to structure.
The mercy (Wude) route is the design’s biggest structural misfire: it demands structure damage on bosses whose health bars punish exactly that approach, culminating in a final spare fight so joyless that even committed players reached for the modifier menu to get through it. The lead-up gauntlets to bosses, especially the Tower and the final approach, are frequently harder than the bosses themselves, wearing down patience before the real test arrives. The ten to fifteen hour span is compact, but the back half’s difficulty spikes test that brevity’s welcome.
The detective board drives exploration and full completion, with every item logged and every conspiracy thread resolved for a satisfying 100% sweep. The roguelite-style permanent skill consolidation across runs turns repeated deaths into a visible mastery arc, and the finishers, from throat punches to weapon-specific takedowns, keep every encounter feeling weighty. The club’s ambience deserves the specific praise it earns, and the levels’ distinct sound design carries the whole campaign.
Overall, a superb, demanding martial-arts brawler whose parry-and-structure combat and age-as-death-counter design make failure feel like progress rather than punishment, best experienced through the straightforward revenge route. Grapples, camera trouble in crowds, an unreadable penultimate boss and a punishingly obscure mercy ending are honest costs, and the core system is worth every one of them.
