I've always been a fan of the Deception series.  While the first one was ok, this second game in the series was there the series of games started to become something truly special. 

Deception II: Kagero, is not your typical action/adventure game.  Instead of fighting your way though hordes of enemies in your quest for glory, you instead find yourself fighting off would-be heroes and enemies while defending yourself and your inner sanctum. 

Having no real weapons of your own, you try to out maneuver your opponents and stay one step a head of them while setting a wide range of traps that you collect and upgrade through the course of the game, and using your environment to your advantage.  If done right, you can set your traps up to push or hurl your enemies into natural hazards in a room, or to create brutal combos to destroy your foes, . . . All while using yourself as bait for your own traps.

Over all, the game is one part adventure, two parts strategy.

While Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness (The first game in the series) is a fun game to play, the real gems in this series are Deception II: Kagero, Deception III: Dark Delusion (And Trapt on the PS2)  This series is easily among my favorite game series ever. 

I had no problem playing through the original game,  Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness, but I openly admit that I only ever played through it once.  Deception II: Kagero, and Deception III: Dark Delusion on the other hand, I played through them many times each, perfecting my strategies and finding new ways to overcome the challenges in this game.

I highly recommend the series to anyone who enjoys strategy or tower defense style games!

GateKeeper_A : I played the first Deception, and it was pretty good, but found it rough enough I didn't look into the sequel. Nontheless, I was hoping you could tell me why I'd want to try it Kagero. I wouldn't really say this is much of a review, it makes comparisons of the first or third game only in replay factor, but does not really tell us much about this trap-based game. I would mention some of the story, what kind of traps one might see, etc. Give a little spice to this.

endings :

Sorry about the shortcomings.  This was my first attempt at a review, . . . I'll try to do better in the future.

The reason for comparing this game to others in the series is simply because I've yet to find any other games that easily compare to it.

Nearly every room has one or more environmental hazards, from fireplaces to iron maidens.  In addition to each room's hazards, you can also set up three traps per room, one ceiling trap (Anything from boulders to boiling oil.), one wall trap (from spiked walls, to push walls, to arrow traps.) and one floor trap (from bear traps, to lightning rods, to spring boards.)

To give some idea of the kinds of things you can do:  One of my staple setups was to set up my traps in a the room what includes a large fireplace, and a chunk of wall that carries an electric charge.  My ceiling trap was a boulder at the top of the stairs.  My wall trap was a high powered push wall just a little bit a head of me, positioned directly across the room from the fireplace.  And my floor trap was a spring board directly at my feet, aimed towards the electric wall.  When the enemies would come for me, I'd wait at the top of the stairs, just a little bit behind my traps.  I would let the enemy reach the springboard first, triggering it and hurling the enemy into the electric wall, before the enemy could stand, I'd trigger the boulder to roll down the stairs and smash the enemy against the electric wall again before they can recover enough to dodge.  If my springboard has had time to reset before the enemy can reach the top of the stairs again, then I repeat the combo.  If not, I have the wall trap set up as a safeguard; I could trigger it, hitting the enemy hard enough to throw them across the room into the fireplace where they are set on fire, buying me plenty of time for my other traps to reset, . . . should my victims survive that long.

GateKeeper_A : No worries. Deception is one of those sleeper hits, I'm glad you took the time to talk about this unique title and educate others on its existence.