If there is one thing that can truly separate one game from another, it’s genre. It works just like with movies, TV shows, books, and pretty much every other sort of entertainment. Pretty much everyone has their favorite genre of things, and it will lead them to be more open to games, movies or whatever of their chosen genre. Me, personally, I like platformers when it comes to gaming. And while I should really save this intro for when I do some sort of salute to platform games or RPGs or something, I’m gonna go with it anyway, because I don’t have anything better.
So yeah, I like the platforming games. Those are the ones where there’s a lot of jumping and item getting. You know, Super Mario Bros., Banjo-Kazooie, most MegaMan games and the like. I think subconsciously they’ve been my favorites forever, but I have gone through a couple other phases. Like when I first learned of ROMs. At that time I was on this really bad RPG kick. Pokemon might have had something to do with it, and it’s funny because before that I was deathly afraid of RPGs because they looked too long and hard. Then when I first got Final Fantasy Tactics I got into strategy and got hooked on that and Advance Wars. I still enjoy those genres and others, but platforming is what I like to think of as my major.
But what happens when a game comes along and defies the normal genre qualifications? If you take Wario Ware Inc. and MegaMan Battle Network as examples, it’s a great experience. When a game can combine all the winning elements of other games or create a whole new type of game, you know that it’s at least worth a look. And that’s what I’ve got today. The game I rented this week has a ton of crazy stuff in it, and while it would be a platformer if it had to pick one, it certainly takes a lot from other genres. That game is Namco’s newest submission, I-Ninja.
I-Ninja, in a word, is cool. Obviously enough, it’s got ninjas. That alone allows anyone to think it’s cool. It also has its fair share of robots. Ding. Ring up some more cool points. And I haven’t confirmed it yet, but to top it off there might be pirates as well, as there is a pirate-esqe area in the game. So right off the bat you know that there are ninjas, robots, and probably pirates too. Those are without a doubt the three coolest things ever, so the game has definitely got its cool down. But we’ve seen before that cool alone cannot make a game. *coughMatrixcough* So let’s take a deeper look at I-Ninja
After a rather lengthy and unskippable (tisk, tisk) line of company logos, we get to the start screen. Now the start screen is rather cool by itself. Unlike most other games, it’s not just the title and a “press start”, oh no. While you’re deciding whether you want to load an old game or start anew, there is a demo of Ninja whacking a bunch of baddies. Already we see that the game is going to involve a lot of fighting and a lot of spraying goo. Some even splashes the screen and drips off slowly. So far, I’m impressed. Oh yeah.
It seems natural to start from the beginning to show you what it’s all about. So after selecting “new game”, we’re off to our first cinematic sequence. Here we see Ninja sneaking into an enemy base to rescue his sensei, aptly named Sensei. Ninja fights off a bunch of goons and then a big monster. It’s all very cool to watch, as Ninja has all the style of an entire discotheque.
After a savage beatdown, the monster spits up a strange glowy crystal thing. Ninja is captivated by it and takes the loot for himself. Sensei warns no, but Ninja has already been possessed by the glowy thing and goes into a berserker rage. He bounces around furiously glowing red and Sensei seems to be in a very panicked state. Ninja flies straight at him, and they smack right into a brick. Ninja's rage ceases, and Sensei’s head detaches. His ghost pops out and tells Ninja that he just grabbed a Rage Stone and must find some more. I guess now would be a good time to explain what only the instruction booklet tells us.
Apparently the island of whatever was a happy place thriving with ninjas or something like that. Then some guy name O-Dor came and attacked the place with his army of Ranx ninjas. So all the good ninjas were killed or driven away and only Sensei and Ninja were left. Now since Ninja is the last of the… uh… ninjas, he has to stop O-Dor and save the island from the evil Ranx. I’m not sure what the Rage Stones have to do with it. Either it wasn’t explained or I wasn’t paying attention. It happens. First on Ninja’s list of things to do is save Robot Beach by toppling the evil Kyza.
To do this, Ninja will have to pilot the former something or other robot, Tekayama. But there’s a catch: Tekayama is impaled on a rock, and Ninja has to find his eyes and heart, which have been stolen by the Ranx, to bring him back online. So the game throws you right into the first level, where your mission is to retrieve Tekayama’s right eyeball, which the Ranx have been using as a laser. Sounds simple, no? Well if you said no, you’d be closer than if you had said yes.
Not to say that the mission isn’t easy, but it certainly isn’t simple. This is the training level of the game. It shows you how to execute most of Ninja’s amazing abilities. First you’ll learn to do things like slicing baddies, run up walls, double-jump, and use the ninja chain. There is a lot to learn, but thankfully it’s all pretty basic stuff and is easy enough to do. There are a lot of enemies to beat up around this area, and you’ll need to get a good feeling for how to kill efficiently, because it’s almost always four or more against one, and the enemies only get harder as it goes.
Then we get to the next part. It really turns a corner here, going from ninja-style moves to more of an extreme athlete motif. You’ll learn how to use half-pipes, grind, and outrun some kind of weird energy balls on huge high-speed tracks. And off in the distance, we see the target; the eyeball! After a lot of running and grinding, Ninja frees the eye from its prison pedestal and we’re done! …or not. After breaking the eyeball-holder thing, it falls to the ground, and then you’ve gotta roll it around. Nobody expected that to happen, and you won’t be expecting what happens next either.
Eye-bowling. Yes, eye-bowling. The eyeball rolls through a hole and into a huge, winding half-pipe. There are all sorts of pillars, ramps and fire in the way, and we’ve gotta get to the bottom in less than one minute!. It’s a tricky task, especially if you want to hit all the Ranx and pick up all the coinage. The fun part is that the Ranx are lined up like pins, and if you hit them the right way, you get a strike! After making it to the end, Ninja and the eye are beamed up to the surface of Robot Beach to celebrate a jorb well done.
After every level, there are a few things that game has to count up. First and least important is the score. I got hi-scores every time because the previous hi-score was 0. Anyway, the points will earn you continues, so they are slightly important. Next it counts up the cash you earned in the level and puts it in your bank. Then it tallys your kills. For every so many Ranx you kill, you earn a new sword with increased destructive ability and swiftness. Finally, if you’ve filled out the requirements of the level (the first time through is just to make it to the end), you get a Grade. Once you get so many Grades, you earn your next coloured belt and can open new levels and take on tougher challenges. Think of Grades as Shines in Super Mario Sunshine. They work pretty much the same way.
So now that we’ve passed the intro stage, Ninja is finally free to explore the overworld. Or at least a part of it. Robot Beach is both a large and small place at once. It’s a big place, but there is very little to actually do there. But like most other “collect the doodads” games, more areas will open up later. For now we shall just marvel at the sunset and jump around aimlessly. The next move is up to you; either go for the other eye or the heart. They’ll both have to be got by the end anyway, so we’ll check out the second eye’s level because it’s easier.
This time there is grinding and running right off the bat. There is a lot to see in this level, and you’ll notice that you can’t quite get to everywhere. All in good time, grasshopper. All in good time. For now, just do all that crap you need to do to find out where that eyeball is being held. Since this paragraph is way too short, I’ll take the time to explain a thing Ninja can do. See the small gray diamond in the bottom-left corner? Looks like part of the scenery? Well when it fills up (by getting hit of hitting), Ninja can go into a rage and get real strong. Later, he gets other rage abilities, like healing and such. It’s all outlined quite clearly in the manual.
Ah, once again, the eye is being used as a lasery beam. But this time, Ninja will have to navigate a maze of lasers while on floating platforms. The camera in this game is a little tricky to get used to, and it’s fickleness might lead to getting zapped a few times on account of you can’t tell how high you jumped because the camera’s right above you. But after you get to the end and blow up the control switch, you can free the eye and, you guessed it, roll on out of there.
Ugh. More rolling. Only this time there’s no timer. Woo-hoo! But to make up for that, now we’ve gotta get across a bunch of moving platforms. Anybody who’s mastered Super Monkey Ball will probably find this a lot easier than those who are virtual ball rolling virgins. It’s not too hard to do, and if you fall the game puts you back with no penalty besides having to try again. Once you get a feel for the ball, you should be able to complete the area quickly and easily. Just don’t move faster than you can handle. It leads to much falling.
Yay for us! We’ve gotten the second eye of Tekayama back and now all we need to do is get the heart and we’re ready to rock! The third level of Robot Beach is a lot tougher than the first two, as the enemies have gotten a lot smarter (read: learned how to block) and there are sentry bots which will teleport you back to the start if you’re caught. And once again, the level ends in ball-rolling. This one is quite tough. It makes you try to balance to ball across very slim platforms, and it can get quite frustrating.
So I’m going to skip a detailed rundown of that level and take you straight to the first boss fight! Ooh! It’s Teleroboxer in colour and real 3-D! Now if you get that reference, you’re a real Nintendo fan. That or you’ve been reading a lot of old Nintendo Powers. Anywho, the boxing is a fun way to end the day. It brings a very needed element of freshness to the game, whose ball-rolling antics have gotten very annoying and stale. Maybe it’s just me, but I hate the ball-rolling parts.
So this guy is ugly Kyza. He’s pretty easy to beat up on until he backs off and starts firing missiles. After you dodge those, he starts blocking, and that means that you’re going to have to dodge and counter-punch to win. Fortunately, a defense system is installed in Tekayama and it tells you which way to dodge. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give you much time to react, so you’re better off watching Kyza move. After three rounds, you’re going to have to work that way anyway, as the defense system breaks down and the warning lights don’t work anymore.
When you bust Kyza’s iron jaw, you’ll pick yourself up another Rage Stone, and this time, Ninja goes out of control for even longer. This is bad news for the guy who’s unlocking the next overworld area. It’s all kind of a blur, with Ninja bouncing here and there, yelling stuff all the while. Eventually, he winds up in the second, pirate-styled area known as Bomb Bay. Ha. Play on words, get it? Bomb Bay, like coach Bombay from The Mighty Ducks. Damn those were good movies.
So now that I’ve walked you through a couple levels, and you’ve gotten to see what the game is like, it’s time for the more reviewish part. To make the intro relevant, I’ll start with the whole multi-genre thing. Now it’s got a lot of actual platforming action. That’s the obvious part. Then it’s got that ball crap which is a lot less fun that playing Super Monkey Ball. Seriously. And there’s the added bonus of having a boxing mini-game on top of it all. Now this is all just the first part of the game, I might remind you. There’s a lot more.
I haven’t played much farther in, but I’ve seen a lot more. One level is a shooting gallery kind of thing, similar to what I imagine the Beachhead games are like. Then there is rolling around on a barrel, which surprisingly, is quite different than rolling a ball around. The second boss fight is an underwater battle, in which Ninja pilots a submarine-type thing. It’s kind of like a cross between the shooting gallery and one of those top-down flying shoot ‘em up games that I love and my friends loathe. That’s about all I’ve seen, plus a couple bonus levels which are a lot more like Monkey Ball than the actual levels.
The only other game I can really think of that has such varied gameplay is Conker’s Bad Fur Day. And that game, sadly to say, is a lot better than this one. It’s not really that I-Ninja is a bad game. No, it’s designed quite well, actually. The controls are a little bit off and the camera is very defiant most of the time, but those problems aren’t severe enough to make I-Ninja a bad game. No, I have the same problem with this game as I did with 007: Nightfire; I just don’t want to play it. Maybe something’s missing, I’m not sure, but I just don’t want to go back and play I-Ninja any more. It’s sad too, because this game has a lot of things going for it.
Take the graphics, for instance. While the cinema scenes do have better graphics and effects, the in-game stuff is excellent. It’s kinda of like a cross between The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Super Mario Sunshine. The effects and animations are done in a way that reminds me of Zelda; very cartoony and funny. While the graphics aren’t cel-shaded, they’re in that kind of transition between cel and normal graphics like SMS was. Only I-Ninja doesn’t fall victim to horrible texturing. At least, I can’t remember any. The one thing I really like is the way they did the clouds. They look like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I dunno why. It’s just kinda neat the way they did it.
The music and sound stuff it pretty good to. The music itself is mostly pretty fun and upbeat, bringing to mind some other game that I can’t think of right now. But I know it was similar to something. Now the voice acting is where it’s at. Ninja is voiced by none other than the uber-talented Billy West (Ren & Stimpy, Futurama), and as always, he does a spectacular job. The rest of the cast is great too. I don’t know ‘em, but they are obviously professionals at what they do, from Sensei to the tutorial program voice. It’s like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, only the voices are funny instead of serious.
And one thing that rarely draws me to a game is a big thing in this one: the characters. Ninja himself is one of the most lovable characters ever. He’s an asshole, a hothead, and his head is way too big, but he’s a really cool character. He’s always spouting his mouth off at someone, but he’s got great writing going for him, and he’s always funny. Sensei is great too. He keeps trying to give Ninja words of advice, but never quite gets it right. Some of his quotes are just too good not to, uh, quote. Like “Your grasp of the obvious astounds” and “A stitch in time is worth two… in the bush.”
So while all it has all this stuff going for it, I just can’t find the charm in I-Ninja to make me want to recommend it. I’d say go out and rent it for sure, but don’t buy it until you’ve played it a little first. With a recommendation like that, the best grade I can give this game is a B. It’s just not the kind of game that makes me want to play, and some of the challenges are just too hard. They’re mostly the ball levels too. And considering that I’m not too far in the game and it’s already finding way to be too hard, that’s not a good sign for the future. Basically, this game is just another Pac-Man World 2 with higher production values.
I can’t say I’m disappointed with the game. There really isn’t anything wrong with it besides the lack of wanting to play it. I think it might just be the fact that there is too much ball rolling that turned me off. But in any case, it was worth my 3 bucks (go gift card) to rent it. I’ll probably never play it again unless Namco makes it real cheap and packages in Pac-Man Vs, in which case I might just buy it. But it would have to be at the $20 mark before I even considered doing so. But considering that I have resolved to not buy any games that I don’t really want, I’ll probably never play it again. Unfortunately for that resolution, there are a lot of games that I really want.
Anywho, it’s nice to be back from the cottage, but I can’t complain about the week of bliss. Not having to do anything rocks. It’s funny, I had no idea what to review this week, as I didn’t think about it at all while I was gone away. I rented I-Ninja not expecting that it would turn into my weekly review, and after playing it for a while, it just hit me that it was good review material. I was trying to find something a little less, you know, video game once again, but failed to do so. Maybe next week will bring better material. Nobody knows for sure what I’ll come across in a week’s time, but it most likely won’t be much, since I don’t do a whole lot. Oh well. See you in the future.
~Ryan
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Mr_Hotshot64v2@hotmail.com
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