Tenchu: Fatal Shadows

"Ninja games just can't be cool, can they...?"

Eh...what do we have here? Another game that has the potential to be awesome, but no, the creators find every way possible way to mess it up. I, for some strange reason, spent money on this trash. That was back at a time when I still had faith in video games, and thought of them as being something more than just shiny graphics and high tech BS to see how can make the most people drool over pointless effects. Then again...maybe at that time that WAS how games were. Who knows, the gaming industry sucks now, and this game is a pretty good example why(though this doesn't have some of the worst aspects I've seen). Enough of that....

I'll be honest. Tenchu 2 I did kinda like. The stealth kills are awesome, and the story was pretty good(well, not really GOOD, just more acceptable then what I'd expect from an action game). Now, Wrath of Heaven(the third Tenchu game) was also pretty cool, but the creators were running out of ideas and it showed. Now, we get to Fatal Shadows. This isn't cool. This isn't ok. This isn't mediocre. This is just pointless.

How is the plot? Who cares. It was so boring I couldn't really pay attention. We have two lead characters, both of which are about as thin and worthless as they come. Ayame acts the same as she did 10 years ago in the first Tenchu; emotionless, rather quiet, and attempting to act tough, but it fails...miserably. As for the other one? I don't even remember her name, because I sold the game, and I really don't want to know her name. She's just as pathetic as Ayame, except worse. She basically just wants revenge. That's it. She's the type who will "let nothing stop her". Oh my. How enthralling. Not only that, all the scenes in which this dung is brought to you in is presented in the most sleep-inducing way possible. I've seen better plots from newspaper comics.

Oh, I have yet to cover the worst aspect of this game. That's right. The gameplay. Dear God, OH DEAR GOD, THIS IS HIDEOUS. How they managed to make this so broken and clumsy is beyond me. It's almost like they did this on purpose, as a guideline on how to NOT make games(and, if it was, developers haven't learned their lessons....). The idea here is to be stealthy, which is pretty obvious, considering this is a ninja game. I really wish the makers of this would've played Metal Gear Solid to at least have some idea of how to make good stealth gameplay. This is some of the most ridiculous dung I've ever seen.

All you really do in the game is go from Point A to Point B in some of the most linear stages imaginable, and attempt to stealth kill people along the way. Does it work? Not at all. Pulling off stealth kills is way more difficult than it should be. No, I don't suck at the game. That's definetely not the case here, kids(just thought I'd clear that up). You can hardly ever do a stealth kill because the camera basically tries to get you killed. It gets stuck on walls, never shows angles you need to see, pans out randomly...all that good stuff. Let's say you do get a good angle. You see your victim, you creep on him to slit his neck...but you realize you're, somehow, too far away to perform the kill, when you're three inches away from him. You try to get closer, when you accidently bump into him, thus causing an (slight) alarm. Sound like fun yet? I'm just getting started.

You have two options from here, you can either try and kill them head on with, most likely, the worst fighting engine ever, or you can run away until the commotion has died out. Let's discuss the fighting, shall we? You have like....two whole combos you can use to fight with. How intriguing. Not only does doing this take forever to do, because the enemies block constantly and have too much health, there's no other way to go about it. Yeah, it's appaling.

Oh yes, running away. I don't know whether to consider this pathetic or funny. You can hide in the most obvious places, and the guards will never catch on. Not only that, they'll literally stop caring after about...five seconds. It just makes everything feel utterly pointless, and painfully repetitive. Either option both offer the same amount of torture. Choose whatever your heart so desires.

Remember how I said the story is presented in a sleep-inducing way? Well, it has something to do with the voice acting. Again, it's about as dull and uninspired as it gets. Luckily, there isn't too much of it to endure. The music? It's just.....there. Nothing interesting in the slightest. Again, it's the same thing we've seen in past games, just worse.

Ok, I must say, the graphics don't completely suck. Character models are fairly detailed, and there's a steady frame rate through out the game. The enviornments are pretty plain though, the run of the mill stages we always see, with textures that are very one-dimensional.

Please, for the love of Mother Earth, if you need a stealth game that's good, play Metal Gear Solid. Then again, if you're the type of person who'd play an unknown game like Tenchu, you've probably already played MGS....

THAT'S NOT THE POINT. Don't play this game. Ever. There's no point whatsoever. If you want to play a bad game...well, at least play one that's bad in a way that's funny, not in a way that makes you want take your own life.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/07

Game Release: Tenchu: Fatal Shadows (US, 02/15/05)