Review: Tenchu Shadow Assassins
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 4:14PM 
Tenchu is one of those series that started out great and later on went straight into the crapper. Originally released by Acquire in 1998, Dimensional Ninja Action Movie Tenchu (title subsequently being reduced for international release) became a quick cult hit and spawned a strong following. After several titles in the series however control of the franchise was handed off to K2. This action resulted in what many consider the beginning of the downhill trend for the series, with sub par gameplay not meeting fans' expectations for one of the most well known titles in the stealth action genre. Thankfully, the rights made a return to Acquire and thus we have Tenchu 4: Shadow Assassins.
Click to read the full review
When all is said and done the game's storyline is pretty much par for the course. The game is separated into two parts, each following one of the heroes' depictions of what happened after the kidnapping and eventually rejoining at the end. The game unfortunately does not build on the backstory nearly as much as it should and thus does not answer most of the questions players have about what has happened to the characters in the previous games.
Out of the Shadows
When people think of stealth action they immediately realize that the game's goal, which usually contradicts the player's, is to sneak through a level without being caught up in a firefight. Games like Metal Gear and Splinter Cell are completely based around such a concept. Tenchu however is not. While the series does incorporate the standard hide-and-seek mechanic the game all but forces you to kill every enemy in sight, including the kill count into the overall score for the level. This is immediately different and somewhat alienating to the average stealth player but in the end becomes second nature to them once they get used to the game.
The Tenchu series is also all about playing like a cinematic ninja that we all imagine must have existed back in feudal Japan (Itagaki standards aside). Players bound from rooftop to rooftop, stalking their prey until just the right moment comes along. Shadow Assassins however feels like a detriment to the series in this regard. Unfortunately it seems that Acquire has procured the same fate as almost 80% of all titles on the Wii: minigame syndrome. While previous Tenchus have been about roaming freely through open levels and accomplishing objectives at your leisure, Shadow Assassins takes three steps back. The basic gameplay consists of getting from point A to point B while killing everyone in your way and not being seen. While this may sound like a good idea in the beginning it is actually far removed from traditional Tenchu gameplay.
Time of the Assassins
It seems like Acquire made some very poor design decisions when regaining the rights to the franchise. For one the controls are clumsy and will have you thinking which buttons to press even after several hours of play. The game also limits you to three items at any given time, limiting your options and making several of them all but useless under many circumstances. Like all Tenchu games, Shadow Assassins encourages you to not lunge head on into combat, but unlike the others, this title actually prevents you from doing so most of the time. Players can only engage in combat during boss fights and against regular enemies when they have a sword on them. The game switches to the first person perspective and plays like a poor man's version of a boss fight in Red Steel, usually ending in the player losing due to the irritating difficulty and the Wiimote's lackluster accuracy.
Enemy AI is disappointingly dumb despite the fact that they have extremely keen eyesight at times. So it does not make sense how they won't see you twenty feet away when you are fully exposed but will when you are five feet away completely shrouded in darkness. In the end the game just seems like a lesser version of Resident Evil 4 with clumsy controls. About the only thing the game does get right are the stealth kills which must be preformed via Wiimote gestures. But since you pretty much have to flail madly for them to pick up sometimes it is almost not worth the effort.
Perhaps the most annoying aspect of Shadow Assassins comes in the form of the health system. Or, rather, the lack thereof. If the player is spotted by an enemy the character you are playing almost always explodes into a cloud of smoke and returns to the very beginning of the level. This frustrating mechanic forces you to retread every single step you have made (minus all the enemies you have killed) and will result in the player feeling a sense of accomplishment in not being seen at all in a level regardless of whether they have killed anyone or not. I can understand why Acquire would want to encourage the player to not be caught but since the game gives you poor scores for NOT attacking enemies it leaves this writer most confused.
Shuriken Your Duty
These days more and more Japanese games that traditionally wouldn't be seeing an international release are finally being played by western audiences. Games like Oneechanbara and Earth Defense Force 2017 hit the market despite their overt eccentricities. With such games however, to go along with the campiness of each title, you would expect to find a terrible English dubbing job. You would not however expect to find it in a long running franchise like Tenchu, especially when a developer who has just reacquired the rights to one of their classic franchises gets a quality company like Ubisoft to handle the overseas distribution.
I think you see where I'm going with this. Yes, dear readers, it turns out that Shadow Assassins is one of the worst dubs that has graced this generation of consoles, going so far as to force this writer to turn off the in-game voices. Not only is the lip-syncing completely off but the voices neither fit the characters nor match up with the emotions the characters should be feeling. The most egregious offender is the narrator who decides that not only does he have to explain every single little thing step-by-step for the first few levels but he also has to act as if he is analytical. It also doesn't help that all the characters, enemies and protagonists alike have an extremely limited set of things to say, making the game seem more like a script for a television show or movie (and a bad one at that).
Return from Darkness
Surely the graphics aren't all that bad though, right? Well, I'm sorry to report that they are disappointing as well. The game would have looked decent about five years ago but the fact of the matter is that it is only on par with launch titles from the last console generation. Almost all the textures are dull, character movements are extremely over-exaggerated, and the scenery is just downright dull. The game doesn't even run in 480p which was a strong blow in my book. The most egregious problem is the lighting. Upon startup of the game the player is treated to a brightness adjustment screen advising you to change your television settings, a foul problem in this day and age of games in which most allow you to adjust the game itself. That aside, the lighting for the game is horrendous, displaying environments with mediocre bloom lighting and environmental lighting that is as clear as day. Shadows are non-existent, instead replaced with whirling clouds of black mist that signify darkened areas. Even if a bloom light like a torch is put out the area around it is not darkened; instead it only opens "darkened" areas that you must travel through so that you won't be seen by the guards. It is hard to understand how a stealth game that mainly occurs in nighttime settings can be so bad at creating dark areas. The fact that even seven years after Splinter Cell perfected the art of creating shadows and darkness that we still get games that have poor lighting design is just sad.
A Knife in the Back
Tenchu Shadow Assassins is a great example of a good game series that has gone bad and it is difficult to bear witness to a cult classic franchise that has fallen so far from grace. Games on the Wii are notorious for their lacking quality and sloppy ports but Tenchu shouldn't be one of them. If this is one of the games Nintendo fans trumps as a return of hardcore games to the Wii and is a sign of things to come then I have one piece of advice: get ready to sell you Wii.
Reader Comments