Ninja: Shadow of Darkness

"Hard and uninspired. Plus the only Ninja thing on it is the patience required to finish it."

Ninja Shadow of darkness is an isometric view fighter type game. You control a guy who supposedly is a ninja, and basically kick/punch/shuriken your way through the many levels of the game. The premise of a ninja game sounds attractive, but beware, this must have been dubbed ''The suicidal Samurai'' or ''The relentless Ronin'' because there are no ninja qualities to the main character/gameplay. Forget about stealth and skill, you will be hacking away your path through one of the hardest games ever designed.
Premise (6)
This game sets you in feudal Japan. Two opposing lords have been battling over the land for a long time, always ending the fight in a stale mate. This leads them to go on and make an uneasy truce. Thinking of a way to get the upper hand, one of the lords decides to invoke a powerful demon to fight by his side. Fool!!! The demon turns against him once summoned and the lord is killed. Instead of getting help on his fight, the lord unleashed a demoniacal army over Japan. It is here when the ninjas (I feel funny using that word, but let's keep it for the sake of simplicity) step in, summoned to cleanse the land of the demon presence.
Though the idea sounds promising, you will find soon enough that it is *not* a big part on this game. You could have as easily said that the demons had stolen the ninja's teddy bear and he went bananas about it. There is no further story development whatsoever, so the premise is there just as a filler for introduction to a game that is not true to its title.
Graphics (7)
This game graphics are decent for the time when the game was released. It uses the proven Tomb Raider engine. Since the views are all Isometric, you have no camera problems. The view just scrolls up, down, left or right as necessary with a little camera repositioning here and there. The environments are decent, not really great. The art design matches the feudal Japan, with a couple odd exceptions here and there. Water effects, on the other hand, are very poor. In summary, the graphics fulfill the game needs, and with a good gameplay would have been more than enough. There is a bit of slowdown when you get way to many enemies on the screen, but don't worry, you will probably be dead by then so you won't care, will you?
Gameplay (3)
Ok, here comes the real issue with this game. This game was created in order to make zen monks go crazy. The do not need to ponder anymore about a tree making sound when it falls and you are not there to listen. Instead they need to play this game. It has been one of the most frustrating experiences in my life as a gamer. Battletoads, come on! Ninja Gaiden (all versions) give me more! Perfect fights on Mortal Combat all the way through Goro, Piece of Cake! Any level on this game, a major pain. This game goes back to the really old formula of making games last by being extremely hard. It is not that I can't handle dying, it is just that cheap deaths are terrible in a game of this nature. Heart of Darkness and Fear Effect combined did not manage to make me feel like I died so many times without good reason.
Well, let's stop the rant for a bit and on to the mechanics. Your ninja has at his disposition punches, kicks and shuriken/knives, plus smoke bombs and ninja magic attacks. The punches can be improved by picking/buying a weapon that will then make your attacks stronger, plus you will be able to charge it for a more powerful attack if you have leveled up at least once. The power up tokens can be picked up from boxes or bought on a store (more on that later). Moving around in this game is relatively easy until you get to the part where you have to jump. The isometric view is terrible for this kind of movement. You will die stupid deaths over and over and over and over while jumping the thousands of gaps that comprise the majority of environmental obstacles in this game. Crossing gaps to get special power ups and extra lives will very likely end up in a silly death, which will not encourage you to stray from the main path that goes from the beginning to the end of the level just to get an extra item.
The use of the smoke bombs an magic will save you from cluttered fights, which by the way may slow down the graphic engine to a halt. The kind of magic you perform depends on the amount of power ups you have.
The enemies are typical thugs with assorted wardrobe which will go after you right away, with the AI limiting itself to dodge the evident objects that are in the straight line that exists between you and them. As another demeaning point for this game, enemies are limited to the area where you encounter them. The game is divided in small areas or blocks. Once you leave that area, the enemies cannot follow you!!! They look pretty silly walking against the invisible wall that separates you. Must be ninjas have learned a lesson from sloppy game developers. On the bright side, you cannot use your distance weaponry, shuriken or otherwise, against enemies in other areas, so don't try to pull that trick off.
The bosses are, funnily enough, the easiest part of the game. If you manage to go through the myriad of gaps, holes and free falls that plague the level design, plus you handily defeat the thugs along the way, and have a decent weapon and enough energy of your last life, you will be treated with a boss every now and then, some times there will be mini bosses in the middle of the level, mostly they will be just at the end. The first ones will be easily dispatched with the use of shuriken, and the last ones will be a matter of ''find the strategy'' where once you figure out the way to do it, they will go down rather easily. The bosses have different body parts that will vary the amount of damage they receive.
Ah, I forgot to mention, as if it was not enough to treat you to a huge deal of cheap deaths already, there are *traps*!!! See that innocent box sitting there with the promise of a power up or item in it? Be prepared to be running away from it. Often the item boxes scattered around the landscape will contain spikes, dynamite or homing energy balls that will make you die yet another time.
In between some levels you will be able to buy weaponry, powerups, bombs, magic and sometimes lives from a store, using money you collected from enemies and boxes through the levels. In general, I would stick to power up scrolls and lives. Most of the times I spent money on a weapon I came across one lying in a box somewhere at the beginning of the level just after exiting the store. You will be able to save *only* between levels, which makes the whole thing even harder. Also, be warned, I found out that if you ended a level with less lives than the ones you had to begin with your possibilities of finishing the next level are rather slim. I found myself repeating levels again and again just to be able to keep a decent amount of lives to continue on the fray. Very disappointing. Ah, another super feature. The loading times are looooooong. They could not have managed to make a more exasperating game if they had tried hard.
Sound (6)
This game has vary basic ''ugh'' and ''aggh'' sounds from the thugs you kill. Trap sounds will be probably the thing you hear after one of the sudden deaths that plague the game. The music does not make you feel in the feudal Japan, and most of the time you will be too concentrated on surviving the next jump to be paying attention to it. Very mediocre in my opinion.
Replayability (1)
The sole idea of replaying this game makes me shiver. I would not play this game again unless I was being paid to do so, and even then, the pay would have to be great. I did play the game through from beginning to end, at the cost of enjoyment, sleep and probably some health. I am a stubborn person and was unable to accept the fact that this game sucked big time, until it was too late. I had to finish it. I needed closure. I needed to tell myself that this game was not fun not because I could not finish it but because even after I did it felt cheap and empty.
If you want a reason to start going bananas, you are going to undertake major celibacy vows or any other ascetic path which will require immense patience and self control, or need an anger management tool to test your will, go get this game. Otherwise stay away from it. By the way, if you rent it, most likely you will not be able to complete the game in the rental time unless you do nothing but play it.
This game was named ''Ninja: Shadow of Darkness'' probably because you need Ninja patience to finish it. Skill and stealth are nowhere to be found.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/18/03, Updated 04/18/03