Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

"The media lies once again."

After writing a review for the game Way of the Samurai 2, I decided to give another chance to a game with the theme of Ancient Japan. For Tenchu, I saw many more advertisements in magazines and on television. Since there were so many of these, I thought this game could probably be good. But, of course, since I am a person devoted to gaming, I love watching G4TechTV. I saw bad reviews on both “X-Play” and “Judgment Day”, but I tried not to mind them and picked up this game over the weekend. Is this game as bad as professional gamers say it is or is the game completely and totally misunderstood? Let's find out...

Gameplay: Lacking, 4
Ninja is this game's keyword and the game tries to remind you of this as many times as possible. Before I talk anymore, let me remind you what a ninja is... A ninja has a stealth ability that is unrecognizable to the naked human eye and if he or she is found, they are an expert at close combat. Now that this has been said, let me tell you the sad truth: your ninja character is neither of these. The camera can get ugly in both of those situations. When hugging a wall, you can make your character look either to their left or to their right, but the camera is very disobedient and you can be spotted by guards because of this. As for close combat, if you are in a fight with more than one guard, you can only keep the camera concentrated on one at a time, so you can lose major amounts of health because of bad camera angles which is very frustrating. The inventory system can also be a major pain in the neck If you pick a certain item, you should remember you picked it, right? Well, this isn't a question that is very easy to answer. If you are panicking in a fight and you need a smoke bomb, you may end up drinking the last bit of medicine you have. One cool thing that is available in this game, is the ability to make very violent stealth kills. This adds little bit to gameplay. Oh, don't worry. I have other major beefs with this game. I just couldn't mention them in this category. But as far as all the bad things I mentioned, gameplay is alright.

Story: Awful, 2
You are a ninja who takes orders from somebody to kill people. If you're wondering why I am not elaborating, it's because the story is very vague. You start at the character screen with one of two choices: a male ninja or a female ninja. If you start as the male ninja, your character must walk along a stream of water, then jump off a cliff and into a waterfall (mind you, the jump is just a cinematic). This is followed by an extremely vague (and thus confusing) level. The female ninja starts with a level that is easier to figure out, but after this you get the same vague and confusing level that was given to the male ninja. Also, the story itself isn't really that involving. Basically, you are given these characters who have boring storylines and you are supposed to care about them. The overall story category is enough to make you hate the game. Maybe this is because there are no other modes besides multiplayer.

Graphics: Very Good, 8
The graphics in this game are one of the more redeemable aspects. Surroundings and character models are done beautifully, but like most games, the outlines on both characters and objects appear to have small lines that are easily seen. One thing I didn't like about the graphics was that the characters looked too much like anime characters. The only reason I didn't like this is because the subject material is so violent and characters that look like they were taken out of a manga don't look like they should have been placed in this game. Besides that, I have no problem with the graphics.
Sound: Mediocre, 5
Music in this game can get a bit repetitive, but the right track can make the game sound beautiful. As for voice acting, the production company could have found way better actors than the ones in the game. Actors sound worse than usual. One problem that the voice actors have is that they sound like they were either one of the two: they tried way to hard or didn't try at all. Individual object sounds aren't that in-depth or unique either.

Control: Good, 7
One of the reasons that the in-game camera was unresponsive, is because of the control. The control should have been upgraded to a far greater level than where it's at. Fighting is very hard work, instead of being fun like a game should be. That's about it though, there are no other problems, so the control is actually pretty good.

Replayability: Bad, 3
Just when you thought the game couldn't get any worse than it is, it somehow manages to. The only thing that even adds replayability is that you get a character for beating the game, which is boring in the first place! I'm just going to say this before I get to the “Overall” category, don't play this game. I'm trying to help you by saying you should never play this game.

Overall: Mediocre, 5
For the first time ever, I'm just going to let my review speak for itself because I think I've said all there is to say.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/21/04