- Prowl and strike with lethal precision as ninja assassins Rikimaru or Ayame in the shadowy world of feudal Japan. Armed with mystical weapons and sheer cunning, you must shed blood with discretion and move without detection. For only the unseen survive. Master dozens of motion-captured ninja moves as you disembowel fearsome samurai, wild beasts, and evil demons. Wield 20 stunning death-dealing devices, including throwing stars, grappling hooks, caltrops and more. Stalk the towns, temples,.
Product description
-------------------
Prowl and strike with lethal precision as ninja assassins
Rikimaru or Ayame in the shadowy world of feudal Japan. Armed
with mystical weapons and sheer cunning, you must shed blood with
discretion and move without detection. For only the unseen
survive. Master dozens of motion-captured ninja moves as you
disembowel fearsome samurai, wild beasts, and evil demons. Wield
20 stunning death-dealing devices, including throwing stars,
grappling hooks, caltrops and more. Stalk the towns, temples,
forests, caves and dungeons of 16th century Japan in 10 deadly
missions.
.com
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Cast as either the male Rikimaru or the female Ayame, you are a
ninja assassin hired to right the wrongs of the land. To aid you
in your missions, you have access to a whole arsenal of ninja
tools, including a , flash grenades, smoke bombs, grappling
hooks, poison pills, and throwing stars. Be assured you will need
every resource to fight your way through the maze of houses,
gardens, forests, and castles in ancient Japan.
Your target must be eliminated at all costs, but the code of
your honorable clan instructs you to harm no innocents. The wise
ninja chooses his or her battles; stealth, deception, avoidance,
and distraction are the tools of your trade. But sometimes combat
with guards is unavoidable, and Tenchu offers the best of both
third-person action games and two-person fighting games with an
interface that allows for multiple forms of attack and defense.
Be warned: the animation in this game is not for the faint of
heart. Blood flows freely and realistic sound effects and movie
cut scenes make no attempt to hide the brutality of the
assassination business. Overall a great game for fans of Japanese
animation or martial arts. --Allen Stewart
Pros:
* Exciting martial arts moves
* Nonlinear levels--choose your own path to the target
* Different moves for Rikimaru and Ayame
* Use of many ninja weapons and tools
Cons:* Very gruesome violence
* Occasionally awkward camera angles
* Poor character voice-overs in cut scenes
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Review
------
Acquire's Tenchu can easily be seen as a confluence of Eidos'
Tomb Raider and Square's Bushido Blade. There is, thankfully,
more originality at work here than just a direct meld of the two
titles, and it delivers a better attempt at an action-packed 3D
adventure than we've seen to date.
The name of the game is assassination. You play as one of two
ninja: the -faced, gray clad Rikimaru or the thin La Femme
Nikita type, Ayame. As in Kalisto Entertainment's fairly similar
title, Nightmare Creatures, each character has his or her own
unique plusses and minuses. Ayame is lightning fast and carries
two short blades, while Rikimaru isn't as quick, but is very
strong and wields a katana.
The goal in Tenchu is easy to comprehend, but difficult to
attain. You must sneak through the various environments without
being seen, assassinating your targets as they appear. The plot
surrounding all of this (you're an honorable ninja, entrusted
with the objectives of protecting your master, wiping out his
evil enemies, and attempting to rescue his kipped daughter
from a demon lord and his followers) keeps the game from being
completely merciless, but there is, admittedly, a whole lot of
killing involved. Invariably, some guard going about his rounds
is going to find himself in your way, and you'll have to try to
sneak up behind him and execute him. If done correctly, one of
several short death animations will play, showing your character
reaching around and cutting your enemy's throat, breaking his
back, and so on. Without trying to come off too sadistic, this
never, ever gets old.
It's the stealth of Tenchu that makes it so original and
appealing. Using the R1 button, the player can hide or flatten
out against every wall he or she encounters. Approaching a corner
in the latter fashion will cause the game camera to swing around
to see if anyone's waiting for you there, preferably with his or
her back to you. But that's not the only way to set about town.
Both characters are well equipped with a grappling hook and a
never-ending supply of rope. When the hook is selected, the
perspective goes first person and a thin, red target appears in
the center of the screen. Once fired, the hook shoots forward and
the player is yanked quickly along after it. What's the
advantage? Running along the far less populated rooftops is a
much faster, if less confrontational way of moving about. And
it's extremely cool.
There are also more than a dozen tools other than the grappling
hook at the player's disposal. Chosen from a finite stock at the
beginning of each mission, there are such items as poison rice
treats of which to paralyze dogs and guards, smoke bombs,
ing potions, explosives, and throwing stars (which use the
same targeting system as the hook).
There's surprisingly a lot of value within the game, for not
being incredibly long. It's made up of ten fairly large and
varied environments, which are just difficult enough to be
challenging and fun, though shouldn't take too much time to beat.
But, as unlikely as it may sound, the game is enjoyable enough
that you'll want to play again after beating it, attempting each
mission without being seen at all. If accomplished, the player
gets a new and different special item per each stage, from a
spell that cloaks you in a foe's image to a ing potion. Once
that's done, you'll be motivated to try it all over again with
the other character. However it's not the end result that goads
you on - it's the getting there that comprises most of the fun.
While Tenchu excels in motivation and concept, it also scores a
lot of points for the mood it sets. There are many little touches
in the areas of graphics, sound, and design that add up to make
the title really engaging. The soundtrack has undertones of
traditional Japanese music, although with a more modern bent, and
goes a long way towards establishing the game's old world
atmosphere. Incidental cricket chirps and babbling brooks also
complement the excellent music. Likewise, the character design
and graphics are also very well done, even though there is
occasional instance of pop-up. But it's the sum of these parts
that makes the game come together as it does. For instance,
there's a species of creature you face several levels in that
resembles a thin, nearly naked child with brown leather skin.
Instead of simply walking around, they shimmy and dance about
like anemic marionettes. When one sees you, it lets out a cooing
cry straight out of a nightmare, and then begins breathing fire.
It's wonderfully creepy, and it's not the only thing in Tenchu
that will inspire this emotion.
All of these things, essentially, were present in the Japanese
version of the game, but the US release has seen quite a few
significant improvements to Tenchu. The graphics have been
tightened up so that the textures are sharper and there's no
longer any noticeable slowdown when multiple enemies appear on
screen at once, and the camera angles appear to have been refined
so that these harried battles don't cause "death by perspective."
The language translation has also been handled very well, with
voice acting that is, at times, superb. The enemy AI is now much
more alert (guards will now investigate cat howls or death
gurgles, and will pay attention to levels above and below them),
making the goal of sneaking through each level unseen much more
challenging. As important as these tweaks is the inclusion of two
entirely new missions, one requiring the infiltration of an enemy
checkpoint and the other the assassination of a corrupt official.
Both are far from just being rehashed versions of other levels in
the game - they have their own unique environments, enemies, and
carry fantastic soundtracks, making them among the best in the
title. This remixed version has corrected many flaws in the
Tenchu (which could be partially ignored in light of the game's
overall coolness, but it's very nice to have them all but gone,
all the same), and added an extra degree of depth. Now every
aspect of the title is handled well, if not quite perfectly.
Still, if the game's flaws could be largely ignored before, they
intrude far less noticeably now. Tenchu excels in every way that
counts, provides a lot of fun, and is well worth the price of
admission. -- Joe Fielder
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