Shinobi Bad Buddies

The Bad Buddies have stolen the fish from your village, and it's your job as a former ninja to get revenge on the man who gave your clan leader "an indigestion." Oh, and you'll be able to retrieve all the fish, too. Win-win. SBB is a simple platformer that revolves around a chibi ninja that flails around in midair like Luigi, climbs walls like in Mega Man X or Steamworld Dig, and swings around with a grappling hook similar to what is seen in Worms Armageddon and Windforge. It also expects you to kill enemies directly with throwing weapons (primarily shurikens), though it's also possible to lead them into spears, fire, and water, because no one knows how to swim. Once you become accustomed to the controls, you should be able to move around quickly, but that's seldom the case. Enemies are spread around in a such a way that most cannot be avoided, and they will chase you once you've been spotted. Attacking them from behind or at a distance (while off screen) would presumably guarantee a kill, but sometimes they will instantly deflect the attack anyhow. Using the melee strike is pointless, because it delays your ability to use a shuriken afterwards. This isn't the case with the enemies, who will spam melee attacks and finish you off with a shuriken before you have a chance to recover. How they react is inconsistent, so playing offensively (even in areas where you don't really have a better option) feels entirely luck-based, and that becomes frustrating. I found it easier to intentionally let them spot and chase me to a large, open area where I could keep my distance and eventually kill them with one of their own deflected weapons. The dialogue suggests that English is a second language to the developers, but it works well here. It makes the characters sound just as cute as they look. I doubt that was the intention, but I hope most of it remains in the finished product. Missions allow the player to unlock new weapons and hats by taking out specific (or all) enemies, saving captives, and collecting floating sushi. Each set of four missions requires you to move around in the same location and deal with the same enemies (usually resulting in having to kill, or nearly all, of them) repeatedly. It would make sense to either offer all four objectives within the same playthrough, or change around the obstacles and enemy placement to help keep things fresh, but none of them require that much time to complete, so it's not really a major concern. In its current state, I have mixed feelings about the game. It's charming in some of the best ways and irritating in some of the worst. There are a few bugs, but nothing gamebreaking, and the developers are still working on updates, so I'm going to be optimistic for once in my life and type that it's worth checking out.