Over all review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8dK71r3XGg&t=217s
Ugh... well all i can say is DONT MARATHON THESE GAMES BACK TO BACK!
Lets just "cut to the chase" and spare the audience and spoil the review here. Its a good game, and my favorite in the ninjahtic series. Im going to give it a thumbs up, because based on this games objective level of quality, even for being a screen based wall jump platformer its good, and i recamend it for its movement system and screen based save system and a means of restrictions that are more for challenge than to be a ♥♥♥♥ to the players.
i was actually pleased to see "ninja" on the streets of futuristic honcong, or Japan, or whatever, meaning that this wont be too easy to compare the game to any of the tomb raider games at any rate. And now there's a more freeform movement system, although you can only double jump or jump dash ONCE PER JUMP, or untill you hit the ground or wall. But as stated above thats meant for challenge more than anything else.
Also, kind of a pull over from the last game, there are stealth elements, where in if you can attack a guard before he sees you, he will die instantly. i like this concept better here because in ninjahtic 1 there was a huge chance that enemies would see you just walking into the room, here the humanoid gaurds walk faster and you actually have a chance at sneeking around them entirely.
The world around you is drawn from the self titled "psudo 8 bit" retro style, but this time there appears to be more contrast in the art style and the outlines of the characters and objects, so everything looks like a pixelated cartoon. Theres still no map but just like my last review the levels lock you out of finished areas, and there's very few repetitive or confusing screens, so you really don't need one.
Some of my gripes from the first ninjahtic have been fixed, and the game play is actually somewhat fun, with no HUGE TRIPS just to get to a dead end
My only problems smokers with this ninjahtic game come from the story and the writing... and maybe some of the boss fights, but i'll get to that later.
(Spoilers)
This game is meant to follow the first where in "ninja" finds a ton of ancient alien technology at a dig site, and opts to bring it back. in this game you first wake up at some science lab, and are told that you now have newly acquired abilities for movement. you can just run up walls whenever, like a really slidy version of spiderman, and the aforementioned jump dash techniques. But then the story starts to go down hill as they outright tell you that they've programmed a rival for you. No joke, these scientists have outfitted you (deus ex style) with newly discovered alien technology, just so they could do the same thing to someone else with the intention of making you two fight during important business like an impromptu version of rockem sockem robots.
Hes not a partner, or someone there to police you and he isn't really brought up more than once or twice... its entirely pointless.
Then you are immediately called out into the city, where all of the alien drones and samurai bots are going haywire and attacking people. also there are a bunch of creatures hanging around, most are hostile aliens, but some look like ghosts or something from previous games.
But then the story goes a little far off the rails when, apparently, you're following some woman around town that has the ability to teleport... im sorry who!? You only see this woman right before boss fights, and once after its established that alien invasion has taken place. Shes obviously connected to the aliens, but ive kind of got bigger things to do lady than chase your sorry ass.
But no, this must be the tastiest ass in the galaxy, as some gargoyle weirdo keeps showing up to rimind you that she's way out of your league. and at one point the "level boss" just shows up and its your rival, who also has the ability to teleport and hes here to fight you for the love of the alien princess in a red dress... WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥!? IM TRYING TO SOLVE THE ALIEN MYSTERY NOT GET WITH ALIEN PRINCESS DAISY!!!!!
But you're following her...
HOW DO YOU FOLLOW SOMEONE WHO CAN TELEPORT EXTREMELY LONG DISTANCES. I actually started looking for her after a while, and no i didn't see her guiding/stalking you like the g-man from half life either.
And the game even goes out of its way to ACCUSE YOU of being in lust with her... i ask again ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WHO!!?? AN ALIEN GIRL IN A RED DRESS?!?! you never showed a bigger picture of her, never bothered to establish a connection beyond 2 sentences and blinking out of existance.
as i matter of fact, i thought it was a really weird looking trash can when i first saw her, and beyond that just from the few other times i saw her she looks like a cheerio stacked in top of a small end bit of a twizzler.
Don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tell the player that they are absolutely interested in this character and then chide them for lust when the real question is WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥ ARE YOU ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT, I THOUGHT I WAS PLAYING CYBER COP IN THIS, NOT CAPTAIN KIRK.
And once again the ending comes from way out of left field, except instead of the usual twilight zone esk ending, the princess shows up and says shes real sorry for leading you on. she then teleports away and the gargoyle shows up and puts the ninja into a coma for following the alien princess.
.... thats absolutely stupid and poorly handled story telling, blaze. thats really far beneath you, and you know it.
Also its another room based wall jump platformer, its a continuation of the last game and now its really similar to shin_samurai jazz, but its so stupid. a lot more NEW OBSTACLE COMBINATIONS are put into this game which keeps it from feeling too stale, but its still the same type of game as the last 2 before it.
You proved before with the SJ series that you could change the base game play and still make it feel like a continuation...
Near 5he end of this game, i was starting to get bored.
