At first = great game. In the end = disapointement.
To begin with, I could tell you a bit about the story. It shortly resumes to "the village is under attack, the princess is in danger, protect both as well as your life..of course!" period. The story isn't of much interest, so don't consider this game for the storyline, this is a baaaaaad idea. Lord of the Dead, bla bla bla, some sentences were so badly translated that I could hardly understand what they were saying. Enough said about a bad storyline, which already there lowers the score. You don't need to know much more of the story other than keep protecting people and villages.
Music! This game as..repeatitive music! They should of called it Tenchu: Repeat the secret or something. That's the secret: Repeatitive. Anyway the music most likely went unoticed to my ears most of the time, nothing too amazing.
Gameplay wise, this game can be enjoyed by many, yet most people will find this EXTREMLY repeatitive and linear and that is because it is. I don't mind the repeatitive side of it, every games in existence comes repeatitive after a while, but Tenchu DS is just...way above the repeatitive limit allowed by 90% of the gamers population. If you wanted a good ol' Tenchu game, again, this isn't for you. But if you are open to new experiences try-outs for Tenchu, this is for you. You cannot use much stealth, anyway not the way you would before. Some enemies simply CAN'T be killed in one slash even using stealth, but luckily you have many traps at your disposition to take care of dealing HUGE deadly combos which destroys every enemy you want within a seconde.
This definately can't be someone's favorite game of all time, but can be amusing for a quick play of slashing into enemy ninjas or dead corpses walking. The graphics? They are pretty simple..nothing jumps out at me very much. No need to say much about them. The important thing to me is that I can make the difference between my character and the different kind of enemies throughout the game..and it is widely enough for me. I don't like talking much about graphics unless they are amazingly off the top, since I don't consider graphics a valuable argument for what is a good or bad game...unlike MANY but MANY people do.
So far this is fun. The game is fun. Then where did it go REALLY down for me? The difficulty of the game. If you want something challenging..run away as fast as you can from this game. You'll totally hate how easy this game is. If you HATE hard games, this game will turn out to be a jewel to your eyes. I mean damn...I thought the final boss would give me a bit of challenge to compensate for the easiness of the game..nope..not even..the second boss of the game was MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH harder than the final boss. When the second boss of an entire game ends up being the hardest of the entire game..to me that's something wrong. Anyway, I still enjoy this game, and even though I am far from having ever scrolls and stuff, I doubt I'll ever go back to it. The replay value is good as there is alot of scrolls to gather, yet it lacks just about everything to make you WANT to actually play it a second time, but that is, purely my opinion. I remember with previous titles..no matter how many times I had to go through a mission to have it perfectly done, with everything, I would do it..This game just doesn't make you want to..it was like this for me:"It's finished? I'm done through?....what the hell!?".
But of course, if you forget this..it has alot of replay value just to get every scrolls and to get a high ninja rank. Ain't got much to say about a game that doesn't have much to offer, a great pick-up and play game for a handheld, a bad game to play 24/7. Have to take the bus? Tenchu DS will bring you some fun meanwhile you're riding to wherever you are going. But for extensive gameplay, you'll get tired of this game quick easily (most likely) and that is if you don't finish the game at lightning speed. My recommendation is to have 3 to 4 other games started at the same time, that way you will get a change of game, then when you go back to Tenchu, you will still enjoy it no matter how repeatitive it can get. You can always get on the multiplayer..but I doubt there is many people playing this game lately. And even there..the wi-fi play doesn't give the game much more attributes.
So we can't give a positive nor negative overall review of this game, which in my opinion is why most people rated it around 4 - 6 on 10, which will most likely end up being my score as well once I fill in the attributes down there.
Should you get this game? I say try to find a place to rent it first..renting it is HIGHLY reccommended as the game's value will highly differ from one person to another. You are warned though, disapointement might be waiting for you..waiting for you to beat this little game.