Gamers ask a ninja: "What happened?"
Unfortunately, no-one appears to have told this to the developers of the latest iteration of the Tenchu franchise, Tenchu Z. While the opportunity to play as your own custom ninja and stealth around assassinating warlords, smugglers and generally the baddest of the bad in feudal-era Japan is certainly a draw, the gameplay simply doesn't pan out.
The game begins with you utilising a fairly simple customisation tool to create your own ninja and your partner. To begin with, there's very little to choose from, but the options do get larger as the game progresses and you unlock or buy new clothes, accessories, etc. The partner, however, is ultimately pointless, serving only as a small plot device that shows up only in a few sparse cutscenes. Once you've created your dynamic duo, you're dropped into the training level where you'll learn the basics of ninjafying. Basic movement, combat, weapons and abilities such as the stealth kill are covered, and are all fairly easy to pick up. After running through the tutorial, you'll jump to Ninja Village (that's really what it's called), where you can further customise your character, buy items such as shurikens, and select missions to go on provided by series stalwart Rikimaru.
The missions themselves, unfortunately, are rather disappointing. While it may sound impressive to say that the game has 50+ missions, if you're being honest, this really isn't the case. Most missions are just variations on a theme, be it killing a certain someone, rescuing someone, stealing something, or getting through enemy-held territory - all of which, except the first, merely involve getting to a certain place in the level, at which point you'll complete the mission. Many of the missions are also set in the same levels - making for one of the biggest disappointments of the game, for the last level is a level you'll already have played, and the placement of enemies hasn't really changed either. The game also lacks any kind of challenging enemies - most guards can be killed with one and a half to two combos, and stealth kills allow you to do away with them in one solid stab. Of course, it's a perfectly viable solution in most cases to run through the level without stopping until you reach your target and stealth kill them. The only times you'll find yourself up against a challenging enemy is during the boss fights, of which there are a pitiful two - three if you count the last level's two named enemies. These aren't done very well, since actual combat isn't handled with any degree of quality - thus the stealth kill being the much handier way to dispose of enemies - and so the boss fights can tend to be frustrating.
The customisation allows you to make your ninja look fairly cool, but there really isn't that much variety, with a lot of the options simply being colour changes. As for items, while there's a lot of them in the game, they're ultimately pointless, as the only times you might use them are during the aforementioned boss fights. Buying extra skills and combos is also not needed - you can literally get through the game with the basic starting combo. Basically, Tenchu Z feels, for lack of a better term, half-assed. There's not nearly enough variety in missions, the extra abilities, skills and items thrown in are almost complete nonentities, and character customisation is nowhere near as in-depth as you'd like it to be. Add in a stringent plot about drug running and you get a disappointing mess of a game. Spend your money on a copy of original Xbox classic Ninja Gaiden for your ninja ass-kicking fix.