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IGN Review of Ninja Reflex
Ninjas are awesome, plain and simple. They move about the night stealthily, chop stuff with wicked-awesome katana blades, and throw deadly shuriken. It's basically the greatest job on earth. In fact, being a Ninja is so awesome that even big-name publishers out there have gotten the message, as EA brings Ninja Reflex exclusively to the Nintendo Wii and DS. What is Ninja Reflex, you ask? Patience, young grasshopper. The truth will be revealed.
Sitting with similar company in games like Rayman Raving Rabbids or Carnival Games, Ninja Reflex is a casual-friendly mini-game package that puts players in the role of a new ninja student. Through the game's six challenges, aspiring ninjittles (little ninjas, for those not in the know) can rise in belt ranks, eventually resting on the coveted black belt. Like the young Karate Kid's teachings, you'll need to learn that fighting isn't the first step to true strength, but rather the ability to do random activities instead, such as catching flies with chopsticks, and grabbing fish with your bare freaking hands. That's the true path to being a ninja.
There are six challenges in all, each of which has a list of tasks within them that grows as your single player campaign unfolds. The six events include shuriken throwing, fly and chopstick (called Hashi), fishing (Koi), katana, firefly catching (Hotaru), and nunchaku training. Each tier of gameplay is decided by your performance in these six events, so as you play through the sub-games within each, you'll earn the right to do a belt test which includes a random list of challenges within it. Each belt test you pass progresses you to the next level, where each sub-event is again cleared and made more difficult.
We had a chance to go hands-on with Ninja Reflex a few weeks ago, and our general impressions are still the same now. The game is fun, well made, and an entertaining multiplayer distraction from more robust Wii experiences. In the end though, it's just way too short. Six events is hardly a full experience, and the sub-events end up being nearly identical to each other.
Take, for example, the Hashi challenge, where you're catching flies with chopsticks. The goal here is to catch flies with a pinching motion: on the Wii using IR to control the sticks, and A+B to grab, and simply tapping and grabbing on the Nintendo DS. That idea is a decent concept, but it's also one sixth of the entire product. You'll use that to complete different sub-events, such as grabbing a group of flies as fast as possible, snatching one "super fly" that moves at incredible speeds, sorting out colored bugs and placing them into different bowls, or pinching flies with odd behavior as they scroll perfectly across the screen like UFOs. Again, it's fun to play, but it'll take the average gamer about ten minutes to finish these tasks all in a row, and want more.
That's the case with every event here. The concept is great, the execution works very well (though the sword battle in Katana could be much better), but there's just so little to see here. The entire game – made up of 11 belt ranks - can be beaten in about two hours by a competent gamer, and we picked up the title, popped it in, and already snagged the first five belts in a matter of a half hour. It's just too short, especially for the price of $40 on the Wii, $30 for the portable version.
In fact, if the package only offered more games in total we'd wholeheartedly recommend it as a great casual experience. The presentation is simple, but well designed, using traditional Japanese music, some interesting 2D animation for animated menus, and a Engrish speaking sensei who constantly rambles on about the "true path of the ninja." There's even a hokey name system that randomly takes two words and puts it together for a ninja name on each file. Ours is currently Defiant Grasshopper, and we've warmed up to it nicely. As you play through the game, more multiplayer sub-games become open up, as well as new ninja name pieces. It isn't a huge unlockable by any means, but it's a funny little time waster. As a final little addition to the single player experience, Ninja Reflex has a "meditation" mode that is basically a screensaver and traditional meditation VO. It's stilly, but a funny add-on. And then of course there's multiplayer, which makes use of each sub-game in a simultaneous and/or turn based fashion, depending on the individual events. The whole game is Wii-mote exclusive on the console, and touch-screen controlled on the DS.
©2008-03-11, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Sitting with similar company in games like Rayman Raving Rabbids or Carnival Games, Ninja Reflex is a casual-friendly mini-game package that puts players in the role of a new ninja student. Through the game's six challenges, aspiring ninjittles (little ninjas, for those not in the know) can rise in belt ranks, eventually resting on the coveted black belt. Like the young Karate Kid's teachings, you'll need to learn that fighting isn't the first step to true strength, but rather the ability to do random activities instead, such as catching flies with chopsticks, and grabbing fish with your bare freaking hands. That's the true path to being a ninja.
There are six challenges in all, each of which has a list of tasks within them that grows as your single player campaign unfolds. The six events include shuriken throwing, fly and chopstick (called Hashi), fishing (Koi), katana, firefly catching (Hotaru), and nunchaku training. Each tier of gameplay is decided by your performance in these six events, so as you play through the sub-games within each, you'll earn the right to do a belt test which includes a random list of challenges within it. Each belt test you pass progresses you to the next level, where each sub-event is again cleared and made more difficult.
We had a chance to go hands-on with Ninja Reflex a few weeks ago, and our general impressions are still the same now. The game is fun, well made, and an entertaining multiplayer distraction from more robust Wii experiences. In the end though, it's just way too short. Six events is hardly a full experience, and the sub-events end up being nearly identical to each other.
Take, for example, the Hashi challenge, where you're catching flies with chopsticks. The goal here is to catch flies with a pinching motion: on the Wii using IR to control the sticks, and A+B to grab, and simply tapping and grabbing on the Nintendo DS. That idea is a decent concept, but it's also one sixth of the entire product. You'll use that to complete different sub-events, such as grabbing a group of flies as fast as possible, snatching one "super fly" that moves at incredible speeds, sorting out colored bugs and placing them into different bowls, or pinching flies with odd behavior as they scroll perfectly across the screen like UFOs. Again, it's fun to play, but it'll take the average gamer about ten minutes to finish these tasks all in a row, and want more.
That's the case with every event here. The concept is great, the execution works very well (though the sword battle in Katana could be much better), but there's just so little to see here. The entire game – made up of 11 belt ranks - can be beaten in about two hours by a competent gamer, and we picked up the title, popped it in, and already snagged the first five belts in a matter of a half hour. It's just too short, especially for the price of $40 on the Wii, $30 for the portable version.
In fact, if the package only offered more games in total we'd wholeheartedly recommend it as a great casual experience. The presentation is simple, but well designed, using traditional Japanese music, some interesting 2D animation for animated menus, and a Engrish speaking sensei who constantly rambles on about the "true path of the ninja." There's even a hokey name system that randomly takes two words and puts it together for a ninja name on each file. Ours is currently Defiant Grasshopper, and we've warmed up to it nicely. As you play through the game, more multiplayer sub-games become open up, as well as new ninja name pieces. It isn't a huge unlockable by any means, but it's a funny little time waster. As a final little addition to the single player experience, Ninja Reflex has a "meditation" mode that is basically a screensaver and traditional meditation VO. It's stilly, but a funny add-on. And then of course there's multiplayer, which makes use of each sub-game in a simultaneous and/or turn based fashion, depending on the individual events. The whole game is Wii-mote exclusive on the console, and touch-screen controlled on the DS.
©2008-03-11, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved