Oh Tenchu, how you have fallen.
Sorry all you ninjas out there, but seriously, don't buy this game.
Back in 1998, you had us reeling in awe over the ninja simulation action of Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and you made forget all about Shinobi, a hard task indeed.
But alas, that was almost 10 years ago, and on the original PlayStation.
Why then From Software has released a brand new installment that looks nary a bit better than the PS1 original, and plays even worse, is beyond us. Tenchu Z is an Xbox 360 exclusive as well, which means it wasn’t like they were busy working on ports for the PS2, etc., and had to cut some corners. Actually, I think they were working on a port – porting Tenchu Z from 2005’s stinker Tenchu: Fatal Shadows on the PS2.
OK, so what’s so weak sauce about Tenchu Z? Well, we’ll get to that in a second as we’ve already torn it apart in the friggin’ opening of the review.
If only the character models looked as good as the ninja on the box.
What’s good? It’s still fun to scale fences, scan perimeters, plan strategies to dispatch guards and sneak your way into a compound to exact punishment upon the corrupt.
The problem? There are 50 missions of doing this, and they’re all basically alike – you’ll either be doing straight up assassinations, total exterminations on a premises (kill everyone) or an assortment of errands (retrieving items, escorting peeps, etc.). Meanwhile, the guards are ridiculously inept and have very little realism.
Can you tell what's going on here? You could if the textures, lighting and coloring wasn't so awful.
Also, the game is seriously muddy – bad coloring (Bullet Witch had more vibrant hues – ouch!), the models are simple, not reflecting any of the graphical prowess of the Xbox 360. Oh, and the animations are laughable at times.
Phew.
Story-wise, there’s nothing here to help the series move forward drastically - Rikimaru is back and in charge, with you playing as a younger ninja that must do his bidding. Through some cut scenes (and a pinch of text) you’ll learn that a civil war has broken between clans. We discovered there was more story to be had if you played through every single mission, but the game lays out a path that you can follow where you can skip certain missions to beat the game, which most people will do (we suggest it) from boredom after playing through the first 5 or so.
You can customize 2 characters, which was cool, but you’ll really only need one – other than popping up from time-to-time in a cut scene or something, your second ninja doesn’t do anything, which further confuses things.
Here's the first, second, twentieth, fourty-eight mission - get the picture?
We mentioned the 50 missions above, which we were really excited about upon first hearing about them – thinking of the rush and difficulty of Stealth Assassins, and hoping the game would reflect almost 10 years of growth and innovation had us wringing our hands, excited about sneaking our way though and endless assortment of missions. Sadly, the thing endless about Tenchu Z is how it seems to go on and on while simultaneously going nowhere, leaving Tenchu Z unable to deliver much rush at all, and barely a stitch of difficulty.
Why? The enemies are stupid. Lame. Totally phoned in. There are lots of cool weapons to use – blow guns, smoke bombs, mines, throwing stars – but you’ll never use them because there’s no need to when you can still finish a mission successfully even though you get spotted. Sure, you don’t earn as many points, but what are you going to do, take your extra earned credit and gain access to weapons you don’t need? I think not. You can actually run past enemies and roll up on your mark, wait for him to turn around and then run him through and get the “Mission Complete” screen. What happened to failing mission if you get spotted? Solid Snake and Sam Fisher are ashamed of you Tenchu Z. Weak.
Even three on one isn't fun if your controls suck.
The AI goes from not noticing you at all to extra-sensory perceptive, seeing you through walls and such. When you do step up to take on a baddie, you’re punished by controls worse than firing a gun as Frank West in Dead Rising, having to click and hold down the right analog stick, move it to aim and then tap the left bumper to fire. Ugh.
To make matters worse, when you do die from time to time, you’re treated to unusually long load times. Our question is what is the game loading? It isn’t powerful graphics or chipset-intensive AI schemas, that’s for sure. After the reload times, you’re then forced to reequip all your items, pick your mission again, and then wait through more loading. Meh.
Tenchu Z features a four-player coop mode over Xbox Live and System Link, but you’ll prolly never use it because, well it’s not really that fun and you’ll most likely be hard pressed to find friends who own it because it sucks. When we played it, the game lagged heavily and served up jaggy ninjas floating all over the levels.
In closing, we're scoring it a 1 out of 5, which might seem harsh, but we don't think so considering that Tenchu Z, with its pedigree, Xbox 360 exclusitivity and, well, ninjas, had the potential to be truly great. Instead, Tenchu Z is a major disappointment for the series first foray into the next-gen landscape. Usually you can’t get much cooler than being a ninja, but the muddy looks, bad controls and ham-fisted AI make this little more than a distraction until you get a good game to play, at which time Tenchu Z will fall into your “games to sell back to EB” pile. That is, if you even bought it, which this review is trying desperately to keep you from doing.
1 star out of 5
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