Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen

Introduction

'Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen' is a title developed by the folks at Acquire, who you may know from the 'Samurai Warrior' series or from the incredibly cool and underappreciated PSP game 'What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord?' More likely though, you know them from the revolutionary stealth-action title 'Tenchu,' which was released back in 1998.

'Shinobido 2' is the sequel to an underwhelming PS2 game that was criticized for having a poor control system and a lack of gameplay variety. Sadly, this game is true to its predecessor.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

When videogame systems are first launched, the crop of first week games is filled with shovelware. There are one or two really good titles released, but if those games aren't in a genre you like, you're left trying to play something that was rushed out to make the launch windo. That seems to be the case with 'Shinobido 2,' or at least I hope it is. If there game was developed slowly and methodically, I'd hate to see what a rush job looks like.

If I have to pick out one positive aspect of 'Shinobido 2,' I'll single out the narrative. There are a few small cutscenes throughout the game, but for the most part the story stays out of your way. If you want to get background on your quest or the factions you're dealing with you can do so through letters sent to you after missions. If you're not concerned, you don't have to bother with it.

Don't go thinking you're going to get something like the 'Mass Effect' codex out of those letters though. If you're the kind of gamer that wants a deep and intricate plot with a rich background then 'Shinobido' is going to be a huge disappointment. There are a few groups of ninjas and they don't like each other much - done and done. Most of the game is spent grinding out reputation and levels, like the worst parts of MMORPGs.

After some quick training, your missions are laid out before you in a menu and you get to pick what you want to do. Each mission raises your reputation with the clan you're serving and damages the other clan in some way, whether it's monetarily or through weakening their army. Well, the game says the army gets weaker, but the weaker they get the stronger the enemies become - go figure. If you do enough missions against a specific clan and lower its military strength all the way, you can accept a mission to assassinate the leader.

The concept is cool and at first I thought I was going to be in for a really interesting time. However, after an hour or so, things start to repeat themselves in a very annoying way. There are only a few set pieces on which the missions take place and the bland surroundings get old fast. Even worse, the layout seems to be the same every time you run the same mission. Setting out to assassinate a Kihan merchant? You'll assassinate the same merchant in the same place of the same level every time.

Assassinating leaders is where things get even worse. In attempting to assassinate the leader of the Kihan clan, I killed no less than ten body doubles. That is to say that I spent five to ten minutes completing the mission - much longer the first time - and at the end found out that it was a double I killed instead of the leader. What made that even more frustrating is that every time I took the mission to kill the leader, the stage was exactly the same. No variation at all in a quest that I ran over and over again for an hour.

Of course, this stuff is all easy to ignore when the game is fun to play. 'Shinobido' is not, or at least not for long. The prime sources of entertainment are combat and finding routes through the mission area. Unfortunately, the abysmal camera makes both navigation and fighting a chore. It doesn't follow you as you turn, so that means you're stuck babysitting the camera the whole time.

The solution built into the game is to use the block button to turn towards your target. If this worked it might be a decent solution, but it doesn't. Using this technique sometimes turns you the right way and sometimes just leaves you facing away from your opponent while they shove cold steel through your back.

As a result of those frustrations, I ended up going the stealth route to avoid any head-to-head confrontations that would have me fighting the controls more than fighting the enemies in the game. Stealth kills are fun and all, but as it turns out they don't require stealth - they simply require you to be behind someone. If you run towards someone who isn't looking at you, they won't see you. You can jump right behind a highly trained ninja and they won't even turn around. If they do notice you, don't worry - they have the object permanence of a newborn. Walk around a corner for a bit and they'll go back to being blissfully unaware.

Acquire integrated some touchscreen controls to 'Shinobido 2,' and some of them actually work out pretty well. Each enemy around you has an awareness indicator that shows you whether you've been detected or not and touching this indicator turns your camera to face the enemy. There's also a minimap that expands to a full map when you tap, it which is good in theory but doesn't work out as well in practice. The map is located in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, which means that my thumb ended up hitting it every time I used the D-pad to select an item.

Touchscreen controls are inconsistent within menus, which is more of an annoyance than an actual problem. Selecting a mission requires that you use traditional controls - the D-pad and buttons. If you're saving the game, you have to use the touchscreen. It's not a huge gripe, but it's the kind of thing that indicates that there probably wasn't a lot of thought going into this game.

I'll credit 'Shinobido 2' for trying to integrate the Vita's rear touch pad, but only so much credit can go to something that doesn't work. It's supposed to be used for aiming throwing stars and the like, but I found it to be inaccurate, hard to move and intrusive. If your fingers touch the rear pad at all, which they will unless you only hold the Vita by the edges, you'll go into aiming mode whether you want to or not. I ended up turning it off and having a much better experience as a result.

On a more technical note, load times are absolutely ridiculous. After launching the game you'll have to wait about 45 seconds for the title screen to load up. Missions aren't as bad, but you'll still be waiting 15 or 20 seconds to get into the action.