Articles

The main protagonist is instead a young ninja plying his (or her) craft to rid the land of corruption and suppress the clan war that gains momentum as the game progresses. Though the plot sounds appealing, you get no real sense of gang warfare in the game. If you are looking for the plot to knit seamlessly with the game action then you’ll be disappointed. If it weren’t for the fact that you are being told that there is a clan feud, you would have no idea that one is occurring. This is largely due to the type of missions you undertake in Tenchu Z. You must observe patrolling guards patterns of behaviour and then time runs and kills so that you remain unseen. Tenchu Z is a game with a large single player campaign. You have 50 missions to complete with varying objectives. Unfortunately there is a lot of similarity between missions as you invariably find yourself clambering across rooftops to assassinate someone, like a greedy merchant. Other mission types do crop up from time to time, like large scale exterminations, escorting people safely across maps, defusing bombs, etc. but even with the various mission goals, the means to achieving those remains the same, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Stealth is at the core of the Tenchu series and Tenchu Z is no exception. You must use the shadows, the rooftops, vegetation, basically anything to conceal yourself from the patrolling enemy. Walking up the middle of the street will result in your quick demise so you have to remain unseen to complete your missions. The grappling hook is the main accessory and is an absolute pleasure to use, though you have to be accurate because if you are off with your aim and have nothing to grab a hold of then you will fall ungraciously to earth with a thud loud enough to wake the entire village. You will spend most of your time moving in the crouch position around levels to minimise your visibility and the sound you generate. Crouching requires pressing the left bumper button and the issue with that is that you rarely stand in the game and consequently, the left bumper gets a workout. It would have been great to see some control configuration where crouching is default and standing bound to pressing the bumper button as that would make it easier on the finger, and the left bumper. Another annoyance with moving while crouching is that your character seems to snag on invisible objects when moving around corners. This always seems to crop up when you are stalking an enemy and are moving out from cover to perform a stealth kill. It’s not a big issue, but it does have fairly big in game consequences.

Approaching an enemy unseen with your katana drawn allows you to execute a stealth kill which dispatches bad guys silently with one elaborate stroke of your sword. The downside of this is that there appears to be 1 stealth kill animation and you get tired of it quickly. Some variety of kill techniques using different button combos would have been welcome. However, a you can now kill enemies through the paper  panelled doors which is a new addition and very effective. Accumulating stealth kills during a mission provides you with greater rewards on completion of that mission. In addition to stealth kills, you can also grab an enemy from behind with your weapon sheathed. Once you have a hold of the enemy you can drag them to a quieter area and knock them out. This is a nice addition to the game that gives it a Splinter Cell feel. Other Splinter Cell style additions are the noise and light meters. The noise meter fills to varying degrees showing how much noise you are making as you move around. This works very well as making noise while running will alert enemies in earshot and they will come to investigate. The light meter shows the degree of shadow or light that you are currently in. A dot on a sliding scale indicates the level of light you are in. A high light reading will mean that you are easy to spot. Like all respectable ninjas, it pays to keep in the shadows. The more stealthy and patient you are, the greater the mission rewards. Every time you are detected you incur a penalty. Numerous detections will mean a large chunk taken out of your earnings which is something you want to avoid. You get to spend your earnings on new skills, abilities, items or clothes, so you could say that stealth is wealth.

Social Bookmarking