Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Tenchu Shadow Assassins

1. Official Site
2. Platform: Wii
3. Publisher: Ubi Soft
4. Developer: From Software
5. Release Date: 02/05/09
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mike Repella

There are some settings that are perfect for videogames. Ancient Japan is one of those settings. It has everything you need, Samurai, feudal lords, castles, ninja, hot babes, swords, hot babes; it’s all there for the developer to take advantage of. The setting is perfect, which is why we have great games like Ninja Gaiden and the Tenchu series.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is the first Tenchu game for the Wii platform. The game was developed exclusively for the Wii which is usually a good sign that a game isn’t just a lazy PS2 port. So does the developer’s concentration on one platform along with the addition of motion controls and slightly upgraded graphics produce a stealth action game that is worth playing?

The greatest compliment that I could give Tenchu’s graphics is that they really remind me of the look in Resident Evil 4. The world is very dark and gritty and the level of detail in the background and on the character models is comparable in the two games. The problem with this compliment is that Resident Evil 4 was released almost 5 years ago. So while the game doesn’t look horrible it certainly isn’t the best looking Wii title to date and can’t hold a candle to action games on the other consoles.

The very nature of the Tenchu demands stealth and because of this all of the action takes place at night, so every level will be dark. However, the darkness is often broken by lightening effects which are really well done. Each level also relies heavily on lanterns and lights which can be snuffed out by your character.

Perhaps the biggest letdown graphically is the limited character models. Generally each level will feature several bad guys who all look exactly the same. This isn’t a game where you have to plow through 100 guys to reach the next level, instead you have to sneak around or kill about 5 guys per level. So it would have been nice to see the developers throw in some more character models. On top of that issue, one of the character models features lips that look like his mom mated with a duck. I’m not kidding, it looks like he had collagen lip surgery that went horribly wrong. While that isn’t a game killer, it certainly is distracting.

Do you remember the Heath Ledger movie called A Knight’s Tale? It was set in medievil times but it featured a rock music sound track. Many reviewers panned it for that because the music didn’t fit the setting. Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is the video game equivalent of A Knight’s Tale. This is a stealth game set in Japan, but the background music is very loud and very fast. I would call it a mixture of traditional Japanese sounds and rock. It’s very jarring and doesn’t really lend anything to the atmosphere of a stealth game. The music isn’t horrible, just awkward.

Tenchu also features voice actors for every major character. All of the actors are competent and do a good job with the lines. However, I have a complaint similar to Ron’s complaint in his review for Prince of Persia and it's that the characters are Japanese but they are all voiced by American actors. Perhaps the most notable was the narrator who also doubles as the tutorial voice. If anything having an American accent for a Japanese character takes you out of the setting and ruins the mood of the game.

The first thing Tenchu veterans will notice is that there is a big dose of motion controls throughout the game. The developers have adopted the “Hey this is the Wii, so we must use motion controls for better or for worse” approach. While most of the controls do work, they still couldn’t get sword fighting down.

One neat innovation that the developers came up with that I think other people should emulate is the need to hit a face button prior to using most of the motion controls. In this case you will have to flick the Wiimote forward to throw shuriken, spray water, etc. But you can’t throw items until you hit the B button to activate the item. This eliminates unintentional Wii actions.

You will also be swinging the Wiimote or nunchuck to perform finishing moves on enemies. This is handled a lot like a quick time event in which a graphic will appear on screen letting you know that you need to swing the Wiimote. The biggest difference is that you have the option of performing different finishing moves depending on which direction you wave the controller.

Where the motion controls utterly fail are during the sword fighting sequences. If an enemy detects you and attacks you while you have your sword out you are forced into a mini game. This mini game is pure torture. I swear to you that I played through the entire game and was never able to beat your standard foot soldier in the sword fighting mini game. Not once. In essence you have to hold the Wiimote like a sword and the object is to hold it perpendicular to the sword of the enemy. So if the enemy swings his sword horizontally you need to hold your Wiimote vertically to parry his attack. Do this enough times in a row successfully and you will get your own chance to attack. Here’s the problem. The attacks come so quick that it is extremely hard to parry enough of them to kill the enemy. The good news is that you can use stealth to completely avoid the enemies if you want to, eliminating the need to ever win the sword mini game.

I thought I was going to run into an absolute game killer for me when I ran into the first boss and sure enough I was launched into the sword mini game. Thank god the developers decided to make the boss fights easier than the soldier fights, for some reason they realized that the sword mini game is really hard. Forcing people to complete it on standard difficulty would result in Wiimotes being smashed all over the world. This begs the question though. If the developers knew that they had to dumb down the sword fighting so that you could beat a boss, why even include it at all?

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins is a pure stealth game. Fighting is an option but it is discouraged and will usually result in death. Instead the game is really designed to allow the player to sneak past enemies and never kill a single bad guy (with the exception of bosses) if they don’t want to.

Players will find themselves sneaking in shadows and bushes, eliminating lighting sources along the way. Rooftop crawling is mysteriously absent in this version, but players can still crawl along rafters and swing through trees.

Those who choose to kill the bad guys will be able to do so by sneaking up on them. Once close enough a quick time event will be activated that will allow you to use a wide number of gruesome killing blows. The animations for the attacks are all done fairly well and it’s entertaining to see what killing combos you can pull off.

There are several different levels which will take you through Japanese castles, valleys and towns. Each level is fairly small and the objective is to go from one end of the level to the other without being noticed. If you are spotted by the enemy and you don’t have a weapon drawn your character will automatically perform a ninja move that will transport him back to the beginning of the level. When this happens all of the guards will reset their alertness level. The problem with this is that the rest of the level will stay exactly the way it was right before you got detected. So all the guys you have killed will still be laying on the ground right at their still alive buddy’s feet. The living guard will literally walk over their fallen comrade without so much as raising an eyebrow. To say that this is odd is putting it mildly; it’s downright unrealistic and completely shatters the intensity of the stealth gameplay.

Tenchu features a story involving warring nations. You will get a chance to play as both the male ninja Rikimaru and female Ayame, both characters appeared in previous games. It doesn’t really matter who you play as though, since both Rikimaru and Ayame have the exact same abilities. But each character has their own storyline that comprises one half of the overall story.

There aren’t any multiplayer options here. But there are challenge levels included. These levels are separate from the main storyline and present you with a challenge which you must complete within an allotted time in order to advance to the next challenge.

At $49.99 I can’t really recommend this game to anyone. The campaign is relatively short. Experienced stealth gamers could beat it in about 6 hours, but 8 to 10 is probably more reasonable.

Fans of stealth games may want to wait until its price comes down or you may be better off just renting it for a weekend.

I had high hopes for Tenchu: Shadow Assassins when it was announced as a Wii exclusive. I was hoping that Wii gamers would get a polished game that wasn’t just another PS2 port. While Tenchu isn’t a PS2 port it certainly isn’t polished.

The graphics are average for the Wii, the sound is out of place, the sword fighting is Red Steel levels of bad and the fact that the bad guys will let their guard down when their buddies are lying dead at their feet all add up to a disappointing game. Hopefully Ubisoft goes back to the drawing board before releasing Tenchu 5.

Gaming Trend Score

69

1. Graphics: 75
2. Audio: 70
3. Controls: 68
4. Gameplay: 68
5. Value/Replay: 65
6. OVERALL:69