A Ninja's Guilty Pleasure

As much as I hate to admit it, I've always been into the idea of Naruto. After years of DBZ, the show's trite format bothered me a little bit, but the action is so good! Surprisingly, it wasn't playing an action game based in the Naruto world that sucked me in. I imported a couple of the Gamecube fighters and played their cheap 3d action, with their 1-button supers, so I've gotten the "OMG! IM PLAYIGN AS ROCK LEE!" out of my system. This game (Naruto: Rise of a Ninja) is a legit platformer. It's frustrating at first. I said aloud "It doesn't make any sense to not have a double jump." I was rewarded with a double jump minutes later.

SIDE NOTE: I don't understand why, in some games, you can double jump freely, then in other games your window to double jump is so small. This game is a good example, you can only activate your double jump while going up or during hangtime (the hangtime, by the way, looks forced and feels funny). If you've started falling, you missed your chance. I don't understand why a developer would choose to do that. If you're going to bend physics to your will, you might as well do it big.

I asked the game "Where's the sprint ability? This isn't how ninja run." After a couple missions you get the ability to sprint. Holding the Right Trigger you throw your arms back to your side and start sprinting. You can pull the Left Trigger to DRIFT and take sharp corners.

The game does do a few things that piss me off:

1. You can't swim. Whenever you fall in the water you lose a little health and Naruto says something hilarious (/sarcasm).
2. You're only allowed to punch/fight in the fight sequences.
3. When you get too close to an edge Naruto just falls. No balancing animation. No quick grab back on to the ledge. He just falls. A ninja would never make this mistake. Even Link saves from an accidental ledge fall.
4. The missions are super-simplistic. Coin collecting around town and the overdone "Go get that guy! (and fight all his henchmen that show up every x steps and get a little harder as you go)" mission are getting to the point of being unacceptable in any game.
   

I haven't gotten too far into it (only like 25% through the story that I followed), but I'm saying it's worth renting right now. At its core it's a well-made ninjaish platformer with semisweet 3d fighting action and fun to do jutsu techniques. You might not appreciate it as much if you have no investment in the Naruto world. Don't get me wrong, I hate Shonen Jump as much as the next semi-elitist, but teenager ninja-training action is a force that I simply cannot deny.

Continuous Failure

Why can't anyone develop a good traditional ninja game or a quality samurai game? I'm not talking about Ninja Gaiden, Samurai Warriors, Onimusha or any other game that happens to star a samurai or ninja. I'm talking about someone making a good stealth game where you have to ninja around or a samurai game with an elegant sword-fighting system that doesn't frustrate to death or bore players to the point of quitting. People, this is possible. It's just not being done. Why? I don't know. Probably money.

What about Tenchu? Tenchu sucks. The controls are over-complicated and the guards are of two classes: they're either deaf, dumb, and blind or they're just retarded. Tenchu games do a great disservice to ninjas and stealth games alike. I don't understand why anyone throws money at a Tenchu game, I will not advocate anything with those two syllables ever again. Ninja Gaiden? Doesn't count. It's fighting system is well-done, easy to use, and smooth. The only reason Gaiden doesn't count is it's not a true ninja game. It's a fighting game. The game I'm looking for is the core of a Tenchu game with everything that feels like a Tenchu game jerked out of it.

Come on now Matt, what about Kengo? What about Bushido Blade? Fuck Kengo. That game is utter crap. I played it, not expecting much, and still got disappointed! There are too many problems to get into and none of them really need to be mentioned. Bushido Blade? Awesome. Why can't someone translate that fighting system into an action-adventure/story mode game? Where you have to calculate your slices and consider your enemy's next move instead of mashing X and holding A while they attack you. Maybe even a game where you get to choose your style and upgrade certain parts of your technique. None of these concepts are new to games, they're just not being used effectively in samurai games.

With these 2 subjects, (ninja and samurai) you'd you think that you couldn't lose. That said, time and time again developers continue to create games based on these ideas that are lacking in most every department. I guess they continue to sell based on the subjects themselves. A ninja game? Awesome. A samurai game?? It must be good.

Kind of like movie games. You can make a horribly shitty game and it will sell because it has Jack Sparrow on the cover.

I don't know what needs to happen to remedy the situation, maybe a new developer needs to step in and push a quality game in. It probably won't sell and will remain under the radar but maybe other developers will play it and pull some helpful ideas from it.