Mini Ninjas tries to be a lot of things. One of these things is to be a kid's game, and it even fails that one.
What I disliked : Fun factor is literally at 0. No variety whatsoever in the game itself. Poorly implemented potion system, useless leveling system, button mashing combat, sketchy stealth sequences. Useless other characters.
Mini Ninjas got me right off the bat when IO shown the first trailers. The art isn't childish ; it's colorful, vibrant and almost brilliant. Unfortunatly, what seemed to be an awesome adventure with some Zelda flair turned out to be a simple point A to point B adventure game in the likes PS2's less known adventure games.
You'll have at your disposal a vast array of weapons that, in the end, serves the same purpose ; pepper bomb will stun enemies, so do catlops, so does fart bombs and such. They all have one purspose ; stun. Of course, the animation on the enemies is different, but the result is the same. The game will never tell you to use them, and other than your own will to attempt to diversify your methods. Wich are simple ; stun, and mash X.
At some point, I asked myself if this was a kid's game. Clearly, it's not. A kid's game still has challenge to be found in it. I remember my youth, games considered for '' kids '' were very eye-candy friendly, but they still asked for some skill.
Skill is non-existent in the world of Mini Ninja. Even a six years old kid got bored playing this under my eye ; he clearly stopped playing after the first two levels saying it wasn't fun anymore. And he was playing on Hard mode that I've set myself without telling him.
The graphics of this game are, like I said, brilliant. Superb models, top notch animations and you'd have to be some kind of grinch to not be charmed by the Mini Ninjas and their wonderful and colorful world. Everything resonates into every single Japanese folkore's clichés, but it's not a bad thing either. It's very pleasing to look at.
The audio is very well made, and it is everything it should be. Good voice acting of stereotyped japanese grand masters speaking in english and missing words in between sentences. Unfortunatly, it seems like there's only one or two voice actors.
The gameplay is... weak. See, you can attempt to sneak and kill one or two guys in a row, and then you'll go back to your three main combat moves. Then, you'll unlock some new ninjas that don't actually have any use, except when the game forces you to use Futo to defeat the big bullies. Wich can insta-kill you with some eyebrow raising move. Odd, for such an easy game. Fishing in the game is relatively simple, its a bit like Zelda, without all the challenge. And it always give you the same thing ; some sushi that restores one heart of your healthbar.
You'll have access to six ninjas, and seriously, I couldn't believe at how useless they all are. Stick with Hiro, the main one. He doesn't only looks the coolest, he's the best fighter, can use magic, and fight bosses. See, you'll unlock a big melee fighter - who hits like a girl -, a dude who thinks he's a tiger and has no purpose, an archer who gets auto-detected after firing ONE arrow ( uh, okay, no stealth sniping here ) and two girls that have no uses. The boss fights are fun to look at, because they're just a big QTE, but the fight itself is nearly non-existant, except for the last boss or so.
The one thing that I really liked was the hat rowboat, wich was a clever addition to the game. Unfortunatly, it gets old quite fast. Still, having your little ninjas wearing the hat or rowboating on it will always make you smile.
When i tried to figure out the audience of this game, it wasn't clear enough. It tries to be a kid's game, but at the same time, it gives you enough tools to try and be something else it'll never achieve. It just teases you into willing to be an everybody, zelda-ish game, but it always fails. In some case, I'd describe it as an interactive cartoon. That's the best description I can give it.
Should you buy Mini Ninja? No, not at full price. But for 19.99, yeah, it'll give you a couple of hours of distraction until you turn it off, puzzled by the fact it could have been so, so, SO much better and in the end, it's not even worth giving to a kid.
IO interactive clearly built a new and very solid blueprint for a fantastic franchise - now they should just decide what audience they want to aim for.