Red Ninja: End of Honor

"I love this game, and no, I-m not being sarcastic..."

Actually, I got this game after seeing so many awful reviews. Just take a look around, and you'll see some nasty reviews about this game. I played it from beginning to end, and yes, the game IS great.

Red Ninja is an odd game, good, but still a really odd game. It mixes genres that normally aren't imagined together. Stealth action has almost always been associated with ninjas in my mind, (Tenchu comes flying) and Solid Snake (I haven't played many other competing games to tell you the truth), and in these games, you had to make use of said style of movement to get to your objective or wipe the whole area clean of enemies.

Platforming, on the other hand makes me think of Sonic, Mario, AND 2D graphics, which is why this game ended up so high in my ranking. It's a platforming game IN 3D! Weird, huh?

The story is also very good. Not excellent, but very good. I'll get on it a little later, while making sure I don't spoil anything.

The music is good, it's not to keep you with a fighting mindset, it's more ambient, except for a few particular cases.

The gameplay, as I said, is a mixture. It's stealth action AND platform action. Some of the stages are focused solely on stealth, others focused on platforming, and others make use of both aspects. Perhaps this is what threw people off, but with a little patience AND curiosity, people could see what kind of rewarding experience this game actually is. The level design is actually one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. The stages are very, very varied, as well as the six different missions. Still, while there are six missions, the game IS actually quite long, unless you know your way through. In short, the level design is excellent. The boss battles are worthy of special attention, as they are REALLY difficult AND creative. Almost all bosses are completely different, except for the one before the last, which is the same boss you face in stage three, although this time, he has new attacks.

Graphically, this game is quite good. It's not on a par with some games like Tenchu Fatal Shadows, but the character design, AND the levels do look very, very good. Something I liked is that the face animation for the main characters is quite nice. Kind of anime inspired it seems to me.

The character design is very nice and varied. Every character is unique, except of course for the regular enemies, although there is some variety.

The story is set in sixteenth century Japan, when Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen, the heads of the two strongest clans fought for power. The heroine, a kunoichi, or female ninja named Kurenai works for the Takeda side, which historically loses was trained by a kunoichi close to Takeda Shingen, after she saved her.

Kurenai's father and his assistant Ginbei developed a machine gun (laugh, I did), and tested it in front of Takeda Shingen and his son Katsuyori. Shingen didn't like it, so he ordered the weapon to be destroyed. Later, Kurenai's father and an angry Ginbei talk, until Kurenai makes her entrance. Ginbei leaves, and later a group of ninja attack, steal the blueprints, kill Kurenai's father and leave Kurenai hanging from a tree with a metal wire until she is saved by a woman.

In true videogame fashion, Kurenai wants revenge... But well, even while a little cliché, it's still nice.

So, after this review, you may be thinking... "Is this game good?" or "Is this game for me?" well, that depends. If you want lots of extras in a game, this game doesn't offer that. The camera is good when in open spaces, but in narrow areas it turns really bad, although you can get used to it, the don't bother. However, if what you really prefer is a great challenge, and when I say great, I really mean it. This game is difficult as hell, a nice story AND a game that differs from the rest in many aspects of its gameplay, then at the very least rent it. If you like difficult games that end up being different not on their premise, but on the substance, then by all means, get this one.

Reviews are okay to be read, but they don't necessarily represent what you may like. Trying this game should be the best. Hey, it worked for me, and I ended up loving it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/06