Although that ‘way of the ninja’ mantra works to some degree, it appears the developer added this in to mask the fact that the fighting system is extremely poor. Should you get caught out and you have loads of guards running towards you, your instincts tell you to kick a few in the head then leg it to safety. If you get truly surrounded, fighting is inevitable – yet the controls appear severely unresponsive at the best of times. You’ll hit Square to start thrusting with your sword a few times, only to realise that by the time Crow actually executes, your enemy has run behind you. It’s a frustrating system, so you’ll try to actually avoid any kind of combat whatsoever.
Having said that, there is no margin for error in the missions either. We took a task where we had to find a chest of documents in a guard outpost and leave with them in hand. Sneaking around a bit (and getting lost, but that was due to our dodgy A-Z map rather than the game’s fault) and finding the location of the chest revealed a bunch of soldiers all on the watch.
Although you can purchase many different items such as healing potions and shurikens from the main menu, and then arm them to your buttons while holding down the shoulder triggers, we never managed to find items that we could throw to distract the guards. Every attempt we made to sneak in anyway resulted with millions of guys with sticks running at us, so after retreating six times to the same hiding place, we did the only thing we could think of – leg it, nick the chest, keep jumping up and down to avoid the nasty swordsmen’s jabs, and very slowly (but surely) escape back to the main entrance.
For a game that’s all about stealth and cunning, for gamers to be able to resort to such ungallant tactics and get away with it means there’s something wrong with this ninja picture. We’ve managed to successfully complete missions in this very un-ninja-like way many times, where there seemed to be no other option. Maybe it’s down to us being impatient gamers. Maybe we just weren’t thinking outside the box when playing. But when you’re sitting there for five minutes in the exact same spot trying to figure out a way past a guarded bridge, there’s something up.
It doesn’t exactly help that many of the missions repeat themselves, or are based around very similar objectives (kill a guy, steal a box, run around a bit, repeat…). Unfortunately, the story isn’t that inspiring enough to chug through the missions – it’s the non-linear structure of those missions that makes it worthwhile. There’s an interesting ‘Garden’ mode, where you can create your very own area by raising land, adding traps and other landmarks, so you can run around in a training map of sorts. At times you will need to fight in this custom garden to fend off bandits trying to steal your items, which is a unique and interesting spin to the usually gimmicky create-a-map idea. But for what small inspiring aspects there are to Shinobido, it negates with clunky, tedious gameplay.
SPOnG Score: C
[i]There are a few good ideas in Shinobido, and the non-linear mission structure is a refreshing addition to not just ninja games, but action games in general. The idea of what you do impacting other parties is one that should be embraced. However, with some irritating controls, repetitive game play and for very little reward, Shinobido also disappoints on many levels. Worth a rent for ninjaholics, but Crow is no Hayabusa.
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Joji 2 Nov 2006 01:05