REVIEW: Tenchu - Shadow Assassins

Tenchu is a franchise I have a bit of a soft spot for - admittedly, I haven't played the original Playstation game that people seem to hold in such high regard, it's still in general a stealth series I adore, even if their concepts could have been executed better most of the time. Shadow Assassins is just the latest entry into the franchise, and even though some of the fundementals of the series are changed to a decent amount of success, some aspects of the game prove to be extremely infuriating - sadly, more on fault of the game rather than the player.

Outside of gameplay, Shadow Assassins is merely decent in some fields, and bloody lovely in others. The graphics aren't particularly special, but they're enough to get by on and aren't particularly distracting or intrusive. The only real problem I have with the visuals is the animation, which ranges from okay to laughably bad - at several points I managed to kill enemies by setting them on fire, and I couldn't help but marvel at how ridiculously unfitting the death animation was. There is no ingame lipsynching and very little facial animation of any kind, which also tends to lend characters a very dated look when viewed close up. The game also supposedly boasts Havok physics, but what physics the game displays are incredibly clumsy and poorly thought out - dead bodies needlessly twitch for ages after they've dropped dead, and I've even had several incidents where I dropped a crate on the ground and it landed sideways on one of its corners... and stayed there, making jumping on them as a platforming aid completely impossible.

The aural side of the game, on the other side of the spectrum, is fantastic. Many of the sound effects take influences from old japanese movies, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't fit eerily well for a game of this kind. In fact, much of the time it's perfect. The sound you get from cleaving through some poor sod at the climax of a Hissatu stealth kill is also immensely satisfying, and easily enough to single-handedly make up for any possible inconsistent and less-than-stellar graphics that may compliment the phenom. But as far as sound goes, Tenchu's best trait is easily its soundtrack. It may take a bit to grow on you, and sometimes I felt the tone of the tune didn't quite match the context, but otherwise the soundtrack is simply a masterpiece and a real pleasure to listen to. I absolutely adore the feeling I get from losing a guard's interest after drawing trouble, which cues a set of strings that seems to compliment your sense of relief, note for note. Absolutely beautiful.

Getting into the matter of the way the game actually plays, the movement scheme immediately feels awkward from the second you start playing. I'm not going to deny that. If you're a fan of the Resident Evil 4/5 control scheme, this method of playing may seem less alien to you, and to be fair it gets less intrusive the more you play the game, but no matter how much you adjust, anything that involves jumping universally feels clumsy and limiting - often you'll find yourself pressing the jump button in excess of five times just to clear a waist-high fence, even if you take a running start first.

The hell starts, however, the moment you first get spotted by a guard. More often than not, if you are seen, the guard attacks you in a scripted cutscene, you disappear into a cloud of smoke and feathers and spawn right back at the entrance of the level, leaving behind any dead enemies and moved items that you might already have tinkered with. Yes, that's right, you don't even get a fucking say in the matter, you just stand still like an idiot and wait to be attacked. This happens quite often throughout the course of the game, even as you get better at it, and it doesn't get any less annoying every time it happens. The only way you can change the outcome of this is if you happen to have a sword with you (yes, you don't even start with a fucking sword in this game), which brings me to my next point: the combat.

The actual fighting in Tenchu - Shadow Assassins simply screams of "missed opportunity". The main highlight is guarding against enemy attacks - the enemy swings in a specific direction, as helpfully indicated with an assisting red line intersecting the screen, and you have to hold your blade horizontal to the direction of the strike to defend it - a perfectly angled block fills your Tenchu gauge more than usual, whilst a bad defense angle (such as guarding parallel to the strike) results in the blade taking damage, resulting in you losing the fight if it breaks and sending you back to the beginning of the stage as per normal. As far as defending goes, this is a very clever mechanic and would've worked well to compliment a gameplay style overall that suited it.

The only problem is that this gameplay style doesn't suit it. Every other concept the fighting utilizes screams of sheer retardation and it's a wonder that From Software thought these ideas would work well together. See, remember that Tenchu gauge I mentioned earlier? You can't attack until it's filled to the brim. When it is filled, the enemy can't attack nor defend, and you simply flail the Wiimote until either the other guy dies or your Tenchu gauge runs out again. I'm assuming that the attacking has some kind of directional sensitivity, but I never bothered with anything as such seeing as generic Wiimote shaking always does the job the same way, if not better. What the hell kind of sense is this supposed to make? I would've played an RPG if I expected turn-based fighting, not a reputable stealth series.

Like all decent stealth games, though, I can't particularly fault the game too badly for its horrendous fighting scheme - any seasoned stealth player will learn to avoid a direct confrontation either way, so as long as you don't suck, it won't be a problem. Of course, you could also simply forfeit the combat altogether and refuse to carry a blade at all, simply warping to the beginning of the level when spotted. It only becomes a burden when the fighting is forced on you for the boss fights that happen after completing some levels. Either way, it's a frustrating affair.

Naturally, the game is at its strongest when you learn to stay undetected and take out enemies stealthily. Tenchu has a strong reputation for stealth kills that vary depending on context, but Shadow Assassins goes way over the fuckin' top with them, to the point that you can kill an enemy whilst doing virtually anything.

- It's possible to get a different stealth kill for every one of the 8 directions you can approach an enemy on the ground
- It's possible to get a stealth kill whilst airborne, in mid-dash, whilst hanging from a cliff (on an opponent above AND below), standing on a support beam in the ceiling, pressing on a wall corner, holding up high in the inside corner of a wall ala Splinter Cell, hiding in the floor, a large jug, under a table or inside a storage compartment
- It's possible to get a stealth kill by knocking enemies into environmental hazards (such as wells, cliffs or fires and torches) via use of Shurikens or a handy fishing rod.
- It's possible to get a stealth kill in the middle of or just after a quick dash between bushes, and also to kill up to three enemies in one Hissatu if they are bunched together tightly enough.
- It's even possible to beat other Ninja to the punch and throw a Kunai at them into their hiding place - they'll never get seen seeing as they were in invisible hiding spots to begin with.

It's worth noting that several of the close-quarters stealth kills now utilize Quick Time Events, utilizing motions with the Wiimote and Nunchuk to complete the kill. Quite frankly, these feel unnecessary in practice, and sometimes even frustrating, as failing them yet again causes the guard to counter, spot you and usher your ass back to the beginning of the stage once again. In some instances, the QTEs just add to the satisfation of catching some fucker off guard and snapping their neck - the actual movement of flicking the Wiimote and Nunchuk in opposing directions works well and feels in-character with the rest of the scene. What really irritated the hell out of me, though, are the stealth kills that require a thrusting movement.

Now to be honest, at first I had it down that these movements in particular were incredibly unresponsive, most notably because I'd perform the action indicated onscreen in excess of three times within the generous timeframe that was offered to me... but as it turns out, the problem wasn't the reponsiveness of the controls, as strange as it may sound. To demonstrate my point, I'll use a Hissatu from a bush as an example, where your character drags an enemy in and stabs them out of sight. The game shows an image of a Wiimote thrusting into the screen to compliment the QTE, which consequently, I failed 4 times out of 5. Right near the end of the game I learned what the problem was - it was the wrong input. I was supposed to thrust downwards.

Just in case you thought there was a typo there, I'm going to repeat that last bit for emphasis. There was an onscreen prompt that indicated to thrust towards the screen. The REAL QTE required me to thrust into the ground, as if the victim was lying there.

What.
The.
Fuck.

And as it turns out, this isn't even the only example. There are other QTE inputs in the game which hardly resemble the real, working solution at all, and sometimes require educated or even random guesses contrary to the button/flail prompts and closer to that of the animations of your protagonist. Never in the history of all of videogaming have I ever seen a game that expects you to outright ignore an onscreen prompt and instead do something completely contrary to the game's instructions. This is easily one of the nastiest fuckups I've seen in the gaming biz, let alone the genre, and can single-handedly ruin the whole experience if you can't figure out how to decipher the vauge onscreen prompts. It's a good thing I told you first then, isn't it?

Defining Points
- The soundtrack for the game is simply amazing, and aside from an odd out-of-context usage here and there, it benefits the situation no matter where it is used. The sound effects are also suitably retro and fit into the game surprisingly well, despite their dated and even somewhat cheesy nature.

- The sheer amount of methods that exist to kill your targets is surprisingly large, to the extent that you can practically kill an enemy whilst doing anything, no matter what it may be, and get a completely different stealth kill for each context. Pulling one off in itself after careful planning is a feeling of satisfaction in itself, and the main selling point of a game of this kind.

- There is plenty of potential replay value for those that look for it - you can replay the story missions to improve on your initial ranking, which in turn unlocks a series of 50 side-missions which are graded seperately and give extra incentive to play the game. There is also collectable pieces of a mysterious map and a host of secret, extremely potent items to find if you look hard enough.

- The defending mechanic in the swordplay combat is a very good idea, and in fact is one of the best swordplay mechanics in a Wii game I've seen in ages...

What could've been done better
-...but it still doesn't change the fact that the rest of the combat completely sucks ass. Reducing the fighting down to turn-based block-attack schemes and reducing the actual attacking to generic waggle is one of the worst ideas imaginable, however good the guarding phase may actually be.

- Even without loss of progress, restarting the map over and over again because you got spotted is needlessly frustrating, particularly when the solution to a problem isn't immediately obvious. There is no justification, at all, for robbing us of the ability to flee from a confrontation and hide instead, either.

- The prompts for ingame QTEs are sometimes outright inaccurate, and the game in these cases expects you to perform an action completely contrary to the instructions displayed on the screen. It is simply unbelieveable that any developer could make such a fucking retarded mistake in this day and age.

Overall...
7/10: There is a great game hidden somewhere in here, but it is buried under some extremely infuriating mistakes in the conceptual and development process, resulting in a game that rewards only the perfectionist player. To veterans of the franchise and/or genre, this can prove to be an experience enjoyable enough to warrant a purchase, but newbie players will be too busy tearing their hair out to make any ends of it. For fans of the franchise or the stealth genre only - everyone else should steer clear and buy a Splinter Cell game instead.