Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins

"Hold up, did anyone actually playtest this?...."

Introduction
The Azuma Ninja masters return to serve and protect the honourable Lord Gohda Matsunoshin from evil do-ers and other nasty folk. As either Rikimaru or Ayame it is your job to perform your master's bidding and see that the Azuma Ninja's duties are fulfilled. Basically you get to kill, maim and enjoy yourself assasinating bad-guys.
Tenchu 2 is your Tomb Raider style 3rd person perspective 3-D kill-em-up, it's got all the usual ingredients that you'd expect from a game of this ilk. However it also has a mission editor mode which allows you to create your own stages, which is nice. ''HI-YA!!!''

Graphics
Mmmmmm. Well...they're...a bit crap actually. Weird-looking and oddly designed sprites, bland shabby looking backgrounds and camera angles that often have 50% of the screen filled up with a close-up of a wall don't bode well. Overall the graphics aren't that bad, they're just very flawed.

Sound
The developers have attempted to give the game a tense atmosphere by only having the music play when you enter action. It works to a certain degree, but there aren't enough sublime background effects, such as the wind blowing or twigs snapping to give you that ''what was that!!??'' feeling. It does the job, but not very impressively.

Gameplay
Weww, well, weww. If you're a fan of these Tomb Raider, Soul Reaver etc. type games then you know what kind of general gameplay to expect, unfortunately Tenchu 2 is flawed in several ways. First of all the main characters are about as stealthy and ninja-like as the Big Show is after 16 pints of ale. Controlling them is very awkward and not half as instinctive as say MGS, they move erratically and if you are seen by an enemy actual combat is confusing and annoying. Then you've got those lovely camera angles, boy are they fun!!! Trying to sneak up on someone when you can hardly get a look at them sort of defeats the purpose of the whole game. In fact you can just rush about the levels and 1/2 of the time the enemy are looking the other way allowing you to do them in a one-er, so stealth goes straight out the window.
And when all said and done it soon gets boring sneaking up on the baddies and slitting their throats. Whereas other games, such as MGS, are broken up with some real drama Tenchu 2 just plods on at a sluggish pace. Oh and going all the way through a stage to get your candy ass kicked by the boss and start all over again makes you want to let the game rot.
The gameplay does have it's good points, and yes sneaking up on someone and killing them is fun the first few times, but most of the good points are overshadowed by the bad ones.

Replayability
Whether you play through it all the way the first time would be questionable, let alone a second time. However the mission editor is the game's best feature and does give you a good reason to come back and mess about with the game.

Buy or Rent?
Rent first and see how you go on.

Graphics: 5/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Replayability: 6/10

Overall Score: 5/10

Summary: It feels like the first basic copy of a game that needs to go through the play-testing and bug-ironing stages. By no means un-playable or terrible, it's just a bit annoying and a bit boring.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/11/00, Updated 11/11/00