Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of: Ninja Edition!

Russ Boswell on Thursday, November 26, 2009 11:00AM

Welcome back to another exciting installment of Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. This week (in honor of the release of Ninja Assassin) we take a look at some horrible ninja, assassin, and samurai games, from the world of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

$Let\'s play Find the Babe in the Bloodsplatters.$

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (Xbox 360)

Let me start out first by saying that the title of this game is a hook, a deceiving hook, but still. This is the first game to really showcase cute little Asian girls in bikini’s since the release of Dead Or Alive: Volleyball. Unfortunately, like DOA: Volleyball, the game in itself is a horrible mess of storyline flaws and awkward gameplay. Once again proving that a game has to have more than bikini clad Anime goddesses with swords to be successful. Onechanbara is a pretty visually appealing game (for obvious reasons) and has a lot of good graphical elements to it. In fact, there are many scenes in the story that gamers raved about (some of them raving that there were too many clothes left on the girls) and in my personal opinion I think they did a good job with the eye candy. The main complaints with the game were the story, the gameplay, the camera, the dialogue, the…well okay, everything but the graphics were pretty much a complaint. There were some reviews that seemed to praise the game for its awful behavior. Players loved being able to hack and slash their way through an endless sea of enemies and once they got used to the horrid camera they were excited by the premise of the arcade style of play. A lot of people even raved about the many body parts that jiggled when each character jumped or moved even the slightest (they like the jiggle in Japan). I’m up in the air about this one and looking to give it a try myself. It seems to be a matter of personal taste and my only advice to you is to be careful when renting and wash your disc before you play it. Lord only knows where it’s been.

Ninja Reflex (Nintendo Wii)

If Mario Party decided to turn to the ninja side it would certainly do it in better fashion than Nintendo Wii’s Ninja Reflex. Consisting of many different “mini-games” and no such thing as a storyline, Ninja Reflex promises you many “minutes” of fun “ninja tests.” This game won’t really make you a ninja, but what it will make you is a master of the ninja cliches we saw in old eighties movies and make you a master at stereotyping the ancient assassins. Enjoy doing things like “catching flies with chopsticks” or “throwing ‘ninja stars’ at wooden dummies?” Enjoy them over and over until they become second nature and the game becomes no longer challenging or fun. The issue with Ninja Reflex is not it’s premise but rather its length of content. Many reviewers and critics complained that the game only had six mini “ninja tests” and the multiplayer only allowed to you play in nine different events. Needless to say, this game is full of master and pupil cliches, not many mini-games, and will leave you wanting a lot more. Look on the bright side though, if a ninja ever breaks into your house at least you’ll be able to defend yourself with your Wiimote.

Genji: Days of the Blade (Playstation 3)

Genji: Days of the Blade manages to remind us of the old adage “beauty is only skin deep.” When this game was unveiled at E3, it was a true work of art. Using the graphics from the Playstation 3 to make it appear as it ascended from heaven just to feed our eyeballs it’s delicious nirvana. What could be better than samurai’s and ninja’s thrashing enemies with their mighty weapons and creating seas of bloodshed all across your flat-screen? Unfortunately the creators of Genji: Days of the Blade focused pretty much all on the look of the game and paid no attention to the actual gameplay. A lot of reviewers complained that the gameplay was sluggish, unrealistic, difficult, and just plain lacking. This game seemed to be a good choice, specifically because the older Genji titles were pretty fun, at least I thought they were. But this was a pretty bad dud according to the 5.0/10 (some lower) scores and the bad reviews that most gamers gave it. Let’s hope the next Genji game isn’t as vain as the last and they pay a little more attention to substance instead of flaunting their samurai good looks.

Categories :