Tenchu: Fatal Shadows

With the Tenchu franchise shifting shop from Activision to Sega, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows had the potential to bring a classic franchise out of the dark ages and finally give it the treatment it deserves on the current generation of video game systems. Potential often lies unfulfilled though and Tenchu: Fatal Shadows is another disappointing outing for a series.

Fatal Shadows revolves around old favourite Ayame and a new, younger ninja named Rin who Ayame takes under her wing. You will guide these two characters through a 'ninja simulation' game which involves sneaking around, trying to be very quiet and occasionally slaughtering an entire village. Okay there is more to it but the game does try to keep things simple. Simplicity is not be scoffed at; Nintendo have made simplicity a fine art. Keeping it simple is a poor excuse for making a boring game though. It is possible to complete the vast majority of the levels by running (or rolling if you prefer, which for some mysterious reason is a lot faster) through them and trying to avoid combat at all costs. Avoiding combat may be a good idea actually as combat is horribly poor.

There are two forms of combat. 'Stealth Kills' can be performed if you manage to creep up on an enemy undetected. Sneak along, hit one button and you will send your enemy to ninja heaven. 'Stealth Kills' do make sense but they inevitably feel cheap and nasty. The other form of combat is melee combat and it will quickly leave you wishing that you hadn't been spotted. If you are detected by an enemy, you engage them in melee combat that may have been passable had the camera not been so appalling. Enemies will launch themselves at you from everywhere as you struggle (in vain, always in vain) with the camera positioning. Walk around the corner though and your pursuers will suddenly be struck down with amnesia. The AI somehow manages to forget that a ninja has just walked past with a big sword. Bizzare! It really does let the game down quite badly. These things were excusable back on the PlayStation One, but things shouldn't be as bad on the PlayStation 2.

Graphics fare little better. Very little has been done since the last Tenchu game, Wrath of Heaven, which was a full two years old. The game looks archaic compared to some other Playstation 2 titles. Models are poor, the environments are boring and textures are bland. The colour scheme is also tedious. The game's only saving grace in the graphics department is that the frame rate manages to stay brisk most of the time.

The music in the game is actually quite good, yeah shocking I know. Tenchu games have always had a good score to add to the atmosphere though so this shouldn't be a huge surprise. They had to get something right. Voice acting is quite poor though. The sword sound effect is classically retro, it sounds like it has been sampled from a NES game. I liked it but it could put you off.

Believe it or not, the game isn't all bad news. The grappling hook remains intact and is still amazingly fun. You will feel like Batman as you fly around levels with your grappling hook. Although, being a ninja you would expect to be fairly agile. The game succeeds in its attempts to force stealth tactics upon you. It does this though by making combat so annoying that you will do almost anything to avoid it.

If this game had of been released two or three years ago then I doubt that my criticism would have been quite so harsh. The graphics wouldn't have seemed quite so bad back then and I could have possibly forgiven the camera. But the fact remains that the title just reeks of laziness and complacency. The Tenchu franchise could be great again; come on guys, how cool are ninjas? But the developers have just made a half arsed version of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven and tried to pass it off as a genuine sequel.

Titles like Ninja Gaiden have been released since the original Tenchu hit the PlayStation. If Tenchu is ever to reclaim its former glory, then they may need to take a leaf out of Gaiden's book and make an uber-fun 'ninja simulator'. Tenchu: Fatal Shadows is boring, has an awful camera, frustrating, bad looking and has incredibly clunky controls. Please fix it up next time Sega! I want a good Tenchu game.