Tenchu action that has all the symptoms of the takeover of American culture by the Otaku.
The gameplay in Fatal Shadows is reminiscent of Wrath of Heaven with the long lost ability (from Tenchu 2) of picking up and moving corpses. This is a feature that is sorely lacking from the rest of the series. It's good to have it back. Unfortunately a lot more action oriented gameplay was thrown into the game taking away from it's stealth origins. I blame Sega.
Most of the cut-scenes and story-lines in the series are typically glossed over by players because of the stand alone nature of the missions. No other Tenchu was more deserving of skipping through the cutscenes than Fatal Shadows. The interludes play like the "Kung Fu Theater" marathon at the drive in (although I did get a kick out of "Evil will perish in a flash of crimson") and the mission preludes are so "stereotypically Japanese" that I believe even citizens of Nippon would agree that Fatal Shadows has more corny bits than Iowa.
The graphics themselves are seemingly identical to Wrath of Heaven, but since those graphics were stunning (especially compared to the original Playstation Tenchu titles) they are right on the money for this generation of consoles. Unfortunately some of the effects that have been added detract from the enjoyment of the game due to the slowdown that is caused by them (i.e. fog affects used to mask enemy characters in the distance). Many times I encountered this slowdown on every stage of the game if I was in the right angle for a great deal of action and fog effect to be seen on screen at the same time. This frustratingly happened during confrontations after mistakenly being seen, and comically when it occurred during a stealth kill giving the death animation a John Woo feel. Again, I blame Sega.
The addition of the Pit Fight un-lockable was a cool feature, but felt more like it belonged on a fighting game, such as Tekken, than on the game that began the stealth action genre. I'm still looking at you Sega.
The behavior of the enemies in Fatal Shadows is the best yet. Some enemies will come to attention if they notice you like the other Tenchu games. Some of them will investigate what that shadowy figure lurking in the dark is, even going as far as rushing over to check leaving you no time to escape before being discovered. This ramped up the difficulty by forcing you to be more cautious than any previous Tenchu. The enemy still blows off suspicious circumstances as quickly as ever, after all the screaming has stopped, which is still as funny as it's ever been. Some of these guys are so stupid you go out of your way to kill them just to put them out of their misery.
As a personal preference, I have never liked the way that the Kunoichi fight in the Tenchu series and have begrudgingly played Ayame's character in the past solely to experience everything the games had to offer. After completing everything in the games I typically played it over and over again as Rikimaru only. Even Tatsumaru and Tessu left me cold.
Rikimaru's absence in Fatal Shadows was a kick in the gut for me, since he is the only character in the games that I truly like. Hopefully a new Tenchu will bring him back badder than ever. If we get really lucky the developers will take a cue from the original Tenchu and have Sho Kosugi do the motion capture for Rikimaru again. Sho is responsible for every "true ninja movie" that made the "ninja craze" so popular in the 80's. It's only fitting that he continue to be a part of the Tenchu series, the pioneer of "true ninja games."
With over a dozen missions to play for each character; 3 skill levels per mission; 3 enemy placement layouts per mission; pit fight mode and story mode, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows will give you plenty to do for quite some time, until you finally unlock all the secrets it has to share.
One way or another, if they keep making Tenchu games, we'll keep playing them.