Ninja Blade

Have you ever had that one geeky friend when you were a kid, that had the lamest imagination out of everyone you know with not an ounce of originality, aside from the fact of "trying way to hard to please" with his stories. The ones that would pit Boba fett and Wolverine against every single powerranger. You know...that kid. Well guess what, that kid just made a videogame after playing certain ninja fable related games and downing three cases of Red Bull. All while being confined to his parents rooftop.
 
That is pretty much the entire tone that gets set after the start of the game. A game that is trying way to hard trying to be extreme and not doing anything original besides that. 
Let's get the story out of the way first, or better yet a lack there of. Not that you can blame it, as it is trying to rip of games that also have poor stories from the outset. It tells the epic tale of Ken Hayabusa, I mean Ogawa, who together with his father, a black redshirt and mister I'm-Clearly-evil-face  are fighting an infestation (origins of which will never be explained) in Tokyo of what looks like an amalgamy of monster from "Dune", "the slither", the zerg and whatever other kind of uninteresting unimaginative gooey monsters you can think of. The story can't really keep any focus, just like any work of fiction created by an nine-year-old, and wonders off after the first mission only to come back in the final act to kill off some major characters (that you problably never cared about).

 
Gameplay-wise is where this game fairs better. Though not as good as it's "inspiration", it still holds up. It is you typical hacky-sacky-slashy gameplay, where blocking is suicide and dodging is king. Ken can use fast and ranged attacks, but which are pretty weak and looked like they were ripped from Heavenly sword's armanent. A medium attack with your avarage katana sword. And a heavy attack with a broadsword. Switching between them is alright and the differences can be feld throughout the game. The combo's are nevertheless on the short side. Even though you only have 3 hand weapons, the game is surprisingly barren of complex button combination to pull of some sweet move. Though upgradable, the new combo's won't be a game-changer.
 You also can use ninpo-like attacks with your overcompensating shuriken. Yet unlike a certain other title, it is not very useful or powerful. But don't worry, the game will constantly force you to put out fires with your wind magic shuriken like a smokey the bear from the 90's.
 Aside from the normal assortment of ninja moves, Ken can also use ninja vision, or focus, or whatever dumb name they try to give something that is already know as "bullet-time" for the last decade. Bullet-time and apparently a bad case of  conjuctivitis. This ability is problably the most useful (and sadly  the most original) Ken has to his disposal, yet it is so useful it sometimes feels like the developers try to make up for the fact for the otherwise frustrating gameplay.
There are sections in the game which are a welcome change a pace, where Ken goes suicidal on us and jumps off the roofs he loves so much to crash right into the a couple of cronies. Besides that there are also a ludicrous amounts of on-rail sections that just seem lazy.
Unfortunately this game abuses the quicktime events during cutscenes and battles to such a degree it's almost opressive. While a buttonmashfest is fine to get the blood pumping and some of the buttons prompt do make sense in what Ken is trying to achieve. But later on the game seems to want to test your patience by asking a few button commands in which Ken can jump by either attacking or moving sideways, like this is done by a hatefull simonsays game.
 
The game itself looks ugly in that "we just got next-gen dev-kit" kind of way from a few years back, both artistically and technically there is nothing for this product to show for. Wether the faces looks like they were made out of clay or this is one the first games that makes tokyo look visually unappealing and actually unidentifiable (seriously, this entire game takes either place in the sewers (the favourite place to be) or on the rooftops of this megalopolis, IT's ROOFTOP INSANITY), this game comes to the pagantry way too late and spended too little time on her make-up. 
Like I said before, the enemies in the game look like either the sandworms from dune or  were inspired by burned victims and animals. It also doesn't help that the color palette is either tasteless grey or inflammatory red. 
What's sad is that the developer are the ones behind the beautiful looking and vastly more interesting Otogi series, yet none of that brilliance shines through here. Where those games had colourfull worlds inspired by ancient asian mythology running on todays outdated hardware, this one seems to be "inspired" by recent Z-grade cinema mythology running on todays decent hardware.
The cutscenes themselves look like they were made by someone who was raped by their physics teacher. the action is so over the top that it can't be taken seriously and makes every final blow look silly, which is both hilarious and sadly out of place.
 
The design of the game is pretty bare-bones, with only some collectibles and extra costumes thrown in it for some people with OCD to collect. Yet these are problably some of the most ugly looking, yet colorful suits I have ever seen in a game, that clearly showed disinterest to go the extra mile (or extra yard) to give the player something worthwhile for their efforts. Even characters from the final fantasy universe would laugh at these wares. Strangely I actually wore them the whole time, just so I wouldn't fall asleep. That and together with the outlandish cutscenes and it sometimes looks like your watching a violent Cirque du Soleil.
Enemy AI is pretty standard fare, in that they have the same complexity as the ghosts from Pacman. Most annoying about the run of the mill enemies is that they don't just attack, but leap at you. This in combination with the camera's tendecy of being shy and hiding behind a pillar makes the game go off  the cliff.
The game itself also shamelessy recycles alot of elements thoughout the game like bossfights and areas, which seems to me like they actually thought nobody would notice, or "From Software" lives in the world of memento, yet instead of cool tattoo's, there are crinchworthy outfits....and rooftops. 
 
Also there is no manual save.....again......with few checkpoints. Not only that, but this game goes for the gold by not being able to autosave during mission. Which means if you quit before finishing the boss, you get redo the entire 30 minutes all over again. Oh ode to joy.
 
To conclude, this game stumbles to give as a good Ninja Gaiden knock-off, yet succeeds in educating the people in Tokyo's urban roofage planning. ROOFTOPS!