Ninja or Die: Shadow of the Sun

Great concept for a game. Shame the level designer is a sadist who instead of making obstacles that are unfun has made every level have a new obstacle gimmick that is just frustrating. I'm getting a huge migraine and arm+hand cramp from playing this. Also the price is way too high for what this is. Also because of the graphics that look good in pictures in motion its hard to see what you're actually doing.

i love the concept and the pixel art is really beautiful, but the levels are just not designed to be fun, maybe thats the point, i even waited a few weeks just for this game to release, but frustrating levels are just not enjoyable

The jumping is akin to jump king and simply all you do is jump. I didn't have fun with jump king and I didn't have fun with this. The jumping itself is good. It has a solid foundation that has a lot of bad designs and missteps that will hopefully be fixed with time. The music and art are pretty solid for the most part, though the art is too much at times. On the surface level it works, but so much of the game comes off as annoying and unfun. The map design doesn't seem to lend itself to any interesting platforming with much of it just being spamming A. This leads toward the art being overwhelming as the time slow and screen flash happening over and over and over. On top of that jumping near enemies or bosses with any items leads to the screen becoming a cluttered mess. Speaking of messes, the inventory management is very annoying. You have a max amount of items and are continually having to go to menu to select and throw out an item. On top of that to upgrade item slots it is among the most expensive. ON TOP OF THAT pause doesn't actually pause the game and instead slows it down. Then when there is an item you want and can't pick up you have to move away from the item and back to it. Just more spamming A. Now the shoe horned roguelike mechanics, wouldn't be an indie game without em. You get money for upgrades, and you rescue people for town upgrades. Your town is empty when you start and is filled as you discover individuals. Both of these you lose if you fail the mission, you do retain some sort of amount I'm not sure what, but that can be upgraded. The stickler for me is that rescuing people and town progression people is based on stages with them having a set location. Some of these might easily be overlooked and some might be missed as there are secrets. My playthrough I accidentally started without doing tutorial as there is a skip tutorial option. Well, there is a town progression person in the tutorial. Should just have that always at town and not unlocked. The method for finding these secrets is again, annoying. You have an infinitesimal minimap that provides next to no use. You can make the map bigger which why would I need to when its 4x4 pixels. You are supposed to slowly rotate camera all around you to search for secrets and then know there is an invisible wall/ceiling and find it. So in a game solely around jumping I might need to stop at any moment and search slowly around me to try and find a secret containing a town upgrade person. So annoying. Then then small things just keep adding up. Flavor text adds more clutter to the screen and again doesn't pause the game which can lead to annoying situations. The 2nd boss completely changes the gameplay, however before I can assess what is even going on the event already begins. You have to actually pick up coins which again is just more spamming A. Again there is an upgrade to pick up from afar, and an upgrade to see further. These upgrades are taking up inventory slots just to make the game less annoying. Map design seems linear with stages 1-10 or such. But there are alternate exits for some stages that take you to another stage having to eventually wrap around and get the other. You don't know which is the alternate route, and you don't know what the exit is until you press exit. THEN you can see if it is the exit you want except you must either continue or save and exit. No cancel if you actually want the other exit. It's just a continual lack of polish that strip the game of any fun. And map design that doesn't really lend itself to interesting platforming at all. I don't think it's too hard as others have said, just uninteresting. Granted I didn't play much, but when should it get fun? And again I didn't like Jump King, if you did and the game itself looks fun definitely give it a shot.

Full Walkthrough: https://youtu.be/tHCeYfb6Wgs Gameplay: Good Graphics: Retro Story: Decent Music: Epic PC Requirements: Potato Game Time: 3-4 hrs

Im actually re-doing this review now I've completed the game. GOOD Plays great on steam deck Collecting/rescuing villagers is a great little side quest to rank up the starting village Controls are simple for basic to intermediate level gameplay (great for casual arcade play) Great grinding RPG elements like stockpiling cash by redoing stages to make a ninja of your choice unstoppable. Grinding is easy Story is short and simple. Character design is unique and enjoyable to look at especially the bosses. Hidden characters (which you don't see much in games anymore) You can switch between characters you meet between stages making gameplay a whole lot more interesting and (an IMPORTANT mechanic to explore during more challenging sections). Each character has a gimmick for a contrasting gaming experience Everything in the game works well together to create a very classic Japanese style dungeon crawler. .......................................... BAD (not necessarily bad but should be taken into consideration) There are no checkpoints and about 12-16 stages on average between each boss. Most are short but some like "FIND THE DOOR KEY" can take time. Gameplay is fast but feels restricted because a lot of the initial gameplay is underground. This gets better when you are outside. MASTERing the controls in this game will take more than persistance, you have to think hard about how the mechanics work, especially towards the end. Some of the stage obstacles are built by an absolute schadenfreude, so eat lots of sweets. When that happens switch characters ( i recommend the Samurai) or spend time grinding for health and Attk.damage increases. Your bag fills up quick, so throw away anything you're not using or increase your item limit Summary Great arcade game to get straight into, play like a 2d scroller in the beginning and like an RPG around stage 6 and change characters every now and then.

[quote] Please consider following my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41005226/]Curation page[/url]. I cover a wide range of genres both paid and unpaid, providing unbiased opinions as well as regular giveaway events. [/quote] [h2]There isn't much to like here[/h2] The game is similar to Jump King or any other game that involves traversal, with the extra feature of being able to do damage to enemies that you touch while leaping. It's not exactly interesting, while the visuals of the game are really nice, the overall game play is not, as it is just straight up boring, especially boss fights which are just so unfun. [h2]Conclusion[/h2] Leap around as a ninja, kill monsters and bosses. You can't move, only jump. It's not fun especially with how frustrating the level designs are, this isn't fun. I wasn't expecting to have to play a game with the same sadistic mindset of games like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. This game could have been so much more with a bit more focus on level designs that were actually good and rewarding, rather than punishing for no reason other than, you can't move.

楽しみにしていたので早速２面までプレイ＆レビュー！ ギラギラした画面とハイスピードな忍者ジャンプアクションの爽快感、トリッピーな感覚！ クオリティの高いドット絵アニメーションがゲームプレイを盛り上げてくれます！ 簡単操作でストレス解消したい時にサクッとプレイ出来てとても良いです！ プレイヤーキャラも複数体いるらしく、周回プレイも楽しめそうです！

[h1]目指したのは爽快感なのか？ジャンプキ〇グなのか？はたまた苦行なのか？[/h1] １周し高難易度を触り始めたところでレビュー、悪くはないゲームなのだが…… [h2]GOOD[/h2] ワンボタンですべてのアクションを行えるという点は素晴らしく フィールドの探索、攻撃、回避、すべてジャンプのみで行う爽快ゲーム！ 敵を倒した時の演出など、簡単操作で非常にかっこいい！ グラフィック、BGMも和風の雰囲気が出ている [h2]BAD[/h2] [olist] [*]とにかくステージ構成が不快 アクションがシンプル、また非常に高機動（壁さえあればどこでも行ける）ため ステージ構成にバリエーションを持たせるのを苦労したのか [list] [*]とにかく視界が悪い [*]マップが機能せず道がわからない [*]迷路状になっており鍵を探すのが大変 [/list] と、爽快感を削がれとにかくしらみつぶしにジャンプするステージが頻発する、苦行 後半の城ステージはジャンプキングほどではないがシビアなジャンプ操作を求められる、これは楽しかったがストレスもえぐい [*]描画範囲が狭い、マップがクソ 画面の派手さ、爽快感を重視した結果、自キャラのジャンプ能力に対し画面のサイズが小さいため [list] [*]全然先に何があるかわからないまま無計画にジャンプ [*]仕方ないからカメラ操作をするが結局まともに見えない、テンポだけが悪くなる という事態に [/list] マップも画面と同じ程度にしか表示されない、しかもなんと [h2][b]マップの拡大機能があるがマップがデカくなるだけである[/b][/h2] 表示範囲がデカくなるのではない、もう一度言うが [h1][b]マップがデカくなるだけである[/b][/h1] 意味ありますこの機能？？？？ 上記二つの要素によって探索は脳死で隅々までぴょんぴょんバッタになることに…… [*]ボスのステージが…… ボス、強くはないのだが、壁でジャンプしてなんぼというゲームで [b]ただのだだっ広い四角い部屋で戦わされる[/b] という工夫も何にもないボスしかいない 回避があほらしくなる弾幕が来るので殺られる前に殺れで殴り殺すだけなので面白くない [/olist] [h2]総評[/h2] それなりに面白く、恨みを言うほどクソゲーではないが 人に勧められるほどかというと勿体ない部分が多すぎてギリギリ及第点以下になってしまった

"Ninja or DIe"? Choose Ninja!

stage5の途中で、精神に限界が来てリタイア。 [h1] 爽快感は、ありません！ [/h1] ・見た目に騙されました。爽快感があるのはstage1のみ。 　あとは、以下のような嫌がらせのようなステージギミックが延々と続きます。 stage2霧の谷：ステージがとても見辛い stage4暗闇の岩穴：ステージが真っ暗 stage5森林：隠し通路のみで構成されていて、マップをみてもどこにいけばわからない。 　　　　　　そこに強制スクロールも加わりとてもストレスがかかった。 かなり精密な操作精度を求められており、 とてもマウスでやるようなゲームではありません。