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April 2nd, 2009 | 
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Gamers love ninjas. These silent assassins could just about sell anything on sheer awesomeness alone. Game developers have known this since the primordial dawn of gaming. Old school NES lovers probably have found memories of playing the original Ninja Gaiden. I mean face it Ninjas just make things better. I mean, that word alone managed to make nature’s “D” student, the turtle, into a longstanding franchise.
So, I was taken by surprise when I was less than enthralled with From Software’s Ninja Blade. Yeah, the name does kind of suck but From Software has proven their pedigree as a skilled developer with the critically acclaimed Otogi series on the original Xbox. However, Ninja Blade had a hard time of trying to convince me to like it. The cinematic set pieces are all based on modern day skyline of Tokyo and the game has a charming sense of Japanese aesthetics. In one spectacular sequence, your character runs down the sides of these very buildings. It is smooth, and although you don’t have full camera control, it is done with care. It was by far the best part of the demo.
In Ninja Blade, you play as the skillful ninja Ken. You are part of a ninja team charged with taking out the ‘Alpha Worms,’ space parasites that take over human hosts and generally mess things about. Ken and his team are well designed but it seems like someone over at the development studio stole a copy of the design documents of Ninja Gaiden and taped on a new title.
This game looks embarrassingly like Ninja Gaiden but the similarities end there. Whereas Ninja Gaiden had a fluid and an arguably deep combat system; Ninja Blade plays out like one of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Only, there is only ever one choice: hit the right colored button at the right time. In effort to increase the cinematic feel From Software has relied heavily quick time events as a game play and turned a movie into a veritable Simon Says game.
You do eventually take control of Ken. He’s got 3 swords and a strange shuriken. Of course, you get different attacks and effects from using a particular sword, such as armor breaking, radial damage and you can alter some environment as well. You also have a cool ninja dash that doesn’t take up any power, but without a locking on feature it only really serves to either get you out of trouble, or closer to a stunned enemy. It’s all very flashy.
Literally 60% of this demo is fighting a giant spider in Tokyo. The game designers probably could have done worse than this throwback from the classical Godzilla era of filmmaking. To make matters worse, the Spider can throw Sonic Booms. Seriously. It’s like Guile found it while looking for Charlie in some remote Polynesian rainforest and he could think of nothing better to do than to teach it how to make Sonic Booms. That’s like giving a kid with Downs Syndrome a car, a gun, and a bottle of vodka. The potential is epic; but in application it can only end in tears.
Check out the Ninja Blade demo if you are craving some hot cinematic action. Otherwise, you’re better off playing Peggle or something.
Posted in Off the Wall
Definitely looks like fun, hopefully the storyline won’t be a flop, because the potential is there it seems.