First off, the graphics in this game are quite poor compared to the other Vita launch titles; this isn't the game you pick up to show off your Vita. Environments are boring, nothing really makes you go "wow," and the majority of character models are quite ugly. Framerate also seems to be a problem, which is weird since the game doesn't even look very good. Too many things on the map make the game slow to a crawl, and certain maps feel like they have a consistent drop in FPS.
The game seems focused around assassinating enemies rather than fighting them in direct combat. An "eye" system tells you which enemies are in range and their status; suspicious, alert, and chasing. You can return them to neutral just by breaking line of sight and waiting a few seconds, even on boss characters. The game seems to dissuade direct combat; your most effective tool is a counter-attack ability, but that its efficiency is reduced about 2/3rds into the game when enemies attack much faster and can survive more than one counter-attack. These enemies usually have high health, high damage, and often have allies around them so assassination is always the preferred route. Oddly enough, at times the game seems to dissuade you from using assassinations too.
An example would be the Guard quests, where you're tasked to protect an ally, who comes with quite a few other allied soldiers. The friendly AI likes to chase enemies falling off of cliffs which leads to them getting ambushed by enemy ninjas. Also, no health bars means you have to rely on the arbitrary "Your Ally is in need of help!" message that appears way too late. The worst though, is that your allies can break your assassination animations. You can be in the middle of an assassination, and an ally can come by and whack them (and you) out of it. That, plus the ridiculous knockback from your allies makes killing guys really frustrating.
The game is also very repetitive. The story appears to advance after a certain number of days has passed. Each day is passed by completing a mission. Missions range from assassinating a single target, to protecting a cart from attackers. The further away it gets from the objective of "kill everyone," the more frustrating the missions become. The story missions aren't much better, which usually have the main goal of assassinating a boss who you must engage in direct combat.
Sense of progression is weird. In the game, leveling up gets you points with which you use to level up a limited number of your character's attributes: stamina, offense, defense) and also your grappling hook length as well as the level of your zankoku, which is your special ability to instantly kill any enemies in range. The gain I received from investing points into different areas never became apparent, so after awhile I didn't care much for leveling up. On the other hand, there's a definite sense of progression over time as you get better at the game. Whereas a mission you took in your first hour took 10 minutes to complete, finishing the same type of mission on the same map 3 hours into the game in 2 minutes feels pretty rewarding, which is nice since the game itself hardly rewards you for SSing missions.
Once you've completed the game, you'll be able to play through it again on a different difficulty with all of your stats carried over from the previous save. You're also rewarded with the ability to use different character models of things like NPCs and story characters. It's neat but not really enough to start up a new game, at least not right now. Regardless, you can play as a bear so that's cool.
