Great old-skool fun! Satisfying stealth kills on [toaster-AI] enemies with well designed levels and plenty of freedom.

User Rating: 8.5 | Tenchu Senran X360
By Lord_Mataeus | Review Date:
Okay, so lets get the bad out of the way first: The graphics are very substandard. Apart from a bit of bump-mapping and some pointless refelections, this has 'budget title' written all over it. It looks like a mid-life Playstation 2 game. Also the AI - It's awful. Oh yes. Tenchu's AI has always been rubbish right from the very first one, and it HAS NOT CHANGED ONE BIT since the very first release. Enemies will still see a corpse of their supposed comrade-in-honour and buddy, only to stand on the spot, rotate a bit and then go back to what they were doing. (Ie, getting sliced to bits on the edge of your sword). A lot of levels are very simliar as well, as are objectives, which will grind for some people. However, I personally consider this to be a good point as far as Tenchu is concerned because my favourite element is the core gameplay - Using the grappling hook to get to the roof tops, jumping down and splitting a guards neck with your sword with a manga-style overload of blood and suitable "WhhhuCHING" sword sound effect. Thankfully, apart from the odd level in a mine or cave, this is what you get. THE GOOD: Dozens of levels set in mansions, villages and temples where you find a suitable vantage point to survey your surroundings, watch the paths of the nearby enemies to see when it is safe to strike, and then leap down, stab the guard through the top of the head, dispose of the corpse and swiftly take back to the roof tops before his buddy notices. (I like to play for hi-score and getting the best rating, so even though his buddy seeing the corpse wouldn't really affect the mission it would put him on alert and reduce my rating, so it pays to play it properly and hide the bloody corpse).

This is where the game is really, really fun: The actual killing. There are many reasons to kill: to get a high rating, to get a hi-score, to get more money at the end of the mission for buying clothing and abilities, and for achievements: 20 kills, 50, 100, 300, 700 and 1000 kills with an echievement for each milestone. There's also one guy on each level that wears a big straw 'Raiden' hat, if you kill him there's milestone achievements there too.

The mission objectives are usually assassination ones too, which is plenty of fun as you can now take down bossess with stealth kills, although you get more points and a higher rating for facing him head on with honour.
There are plenty of different stelath kills to perform, from the front, back and side, down from above, up from below, with bow and arrow and blowpipe, from the other side of those Japanese sliding doors (Watching for the sillhouette and sticking him with your sword, then pulling him through the door bringing it crashing down on top of him in a shower of over-the-top blood is very cool), pressing up against a wall then grabbing the guy from round the corner and pressing him against the wall pinning him with your sword is great too!

Overall, the game looks average (but well enough to play for sure), the music is alright, sound effects and ambient effects are basically nil but the stelath killing is excellent, very fun, great to replay levels to try and get the quickest time with all enemies killed. People who have never liked the series will not find anything here, but for fans it does exactly what you want it to. Nothing has changed since day one for sure, but that's not a bad thing here. Considered as a remake of the original Tenchu, you will be hard pressed to find a better game in the series.

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