From Software adds another dull and uninspired Tenchu game to their arsenal, which features nothing but the same-old.
Once upon a time a title called "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" came along and expanded on the newly-thriving "stealth" action genre. Stealth action was on the rise, fueled in a large part by the success of Metal Gear Solid at the time, so Tenchu definitely jumped in at the perfect time. Perhaps one could even argue that the success of the the first Tenchu game could be attributed to the increase in interest surrounding stealth action, and a surprising lack of stealth games at the time. I mean, let's be fair - the earlier Tenchu games weren't astounding or incredibly original, but there was at least a lot of fun to be had. Well, that was around a decade ago and things have, sadly, changed for the worse. Today the Tenchu series seems to continuously prove itself to be nothing more than uninspired and shoddy attempts at milking the success of the original predecessor.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Tenchu series, let me summarize. You take the role of an assassin in feudal Japan and must do your best to secretly maneuver through small villages in order to introduce Mr. Assassination Target to Mr. Steel. If you're wondering if there is much of a story present, there really isn't anything there other than that which is necessary to establish a vague premise – your a ninja and you're out to make certain individuals pay for their transgressions. Since Tenchu has an emphasis on stealth, the idea is to get the job done secretly, but you aren't forced to do so. If you want you are welcome to disregard the incognito route and just try to duke it out with the guards, but going stealth is definitely the way the game was intended to be played, and of course you will be ranked on how much of a ninja you were for each mission. The mission objectives are very thoughtless and typically as easy in execution as principle. Most of the levels consist of having a single assassination target, and on some rare occasions you will need to recover X number of bombs scattered throughout a village, retrieve an item, kill every guard, or meet an informer. On the surface, it may sound like there is a variety to do, but the core execution of each task tells differently as each mission is practically identical in most respects. If you have played any Tenchu game before, then you can go into Tenchu Z with a very good idea of what to expect. It's a welcome notion that Tenchu Z hosts the classic game play you may have come to love, but it's not the most alluring notion to realize that that's all there is to it. An absolute lack of ingenuity in close to a decade is quite a turn-off, to put it in a friendly way.
Without a doubt, Tenchu has aged far worse than any other series that comes to my mind. It's not as though the games have just gradually gotten worse, but the fact that Tenchu refuses to evolve and improve. I wish that this could be said of only a particular aspect of the game, its mechanics, or some other specified feature, but the sad truth remains that virtually every aspect of Tenchu Z remains untouched after roughly a decade.
Do you remember those imbecilic guards that couldn't see you slitting the throat of one of their buddies 15 feet in front of them? Well, they are back and dumber than ever. There were several occasions where I was asking myself if the developers are actually using the same exact code for the artificial intelligence, but then occasional circumstances would come up in which an enemy would do something so incredibly lame that they must have actually become more stupid. If they gave out Razzie awards for gaming, Tenchu would definitely blow the competition out of the water for the absolute worst AI in modern gaming. For starters, guards have predetermined linear routes which they continuously repeat absolutely clockwork. Each guard also has an incredibly minimal "line of sight" (if you can call it that) which is laughable by all measures. Although, it's quite interesting to note that the key characters throughout the game, such as assassination targets, have much better sight than regular guards. Factual or not, many people seem to associate wearing eyeglasses with intelligence. The developers over at From Software seem to take the opposite approach in relating good vision to intelligence. Well, that's how it appears on the surface at least. The programmers of Tenchu seem to rely solely on how capable of seeing you an enemy is to dictate their inherit intelligence. Intelligence as defined by how far one can see: very weak. This not only means it is very simple to maneuver around without being seen, but it means that should you ever be spotted it is virtually effortless to loose your pursuers. You don't need to do any fancy weaving through buildings to loose your tail; just run in a straight line. That's right, just run 20-30 feet away from a guard and they will completely lose track of you, as they stand puzzled looking around in all directions. If you have aroused a guards' attention, but they don't necessarily know where you are, you will likely see them fumbling around in circles being incapable of deciding where to go. At first it's kind of funny to see a guard repeatedly jump or turn around in circles, but after a while you really start to feel disappointed in how shoddy some of the coding is. Because of the downright stupid AI, achieving Ninja Rank 5 (the highest skill level) on each of the missions becomes an effortless task. I enjoy feeling that I perform exceptionally well while playing a game, but I don't like the thought lingering in my mind that I am only doing so well because of severely handicapped AI.
The visuals make absolutely no attempt to impress either. The graphics are below average and show very few signs of improvement. If it weren't for being in high resolution and minimal polygon increases, you wouldn't even know the difference between Tenchu Z today and Stealth Assassins some nine odd years ago. Characters and clothing still aren't very high-poly and have quite jagged edges, while everything from buildings to objects and people show a remarkable lack of detail. Detail? What am I saying; attention to detail is virtually non-existent. Even the bottomless pits, that are uncovered from time to time, are nothing but a square. Instead of actually making a realistic looking hole in the ground, with polygons creating an intricate shape, we are left with a simple square, like the Stealth Assassins on Playstation. While you are crouching, your knees look like big jagged blocks as opposed to having rounded-off edges. Most of the textures are smudgy and low resolution – I'd probably go so far as to say that some of the textures look like they are the same ones that From Software has been using for countless years. You wont run into water many times throughout feudal Japan, but when you do it shows a stunning lack of motion and texture clarity. There are a few scenes throughout the game which consist of computer rendered cut-scenes, and while these do look considerably better than the real time graphics, they still are below average by today's standards. I must admit that when I first saw screen shots of Tenchu Z, when it was in development, that I wasn't impressed. Yet, I never could have imagined that the graphics would be as poor as the end-result is. Is it just me, or does it feel like From Software just isn't even bothering to try anymore?
Fortunately, the music is the traditional Japanese instrumental music many of us find both soothing and suiting to such a game. On the other hand, it is virtually indistinguishable from previous Tenchu installments, and will begin to sound quite repetitive pretty quickly. For the most part, the music serves as nothing more than mere ambiance, but occasionally does paint the portrait of a traditional Japan. It does well to fit the theme of the game, but there just isn't enough of it and the desired variation just isn't there. When you are just doing your own thing and being one with the shadows the music is much more relaxed and laid back, but when you are spotted and an enemy is after you the music escalates and becomes more intense. Herein lies a rather negligible, yet frequent annoyance. Sometimes the music will turn dramatic as if you were being chased, just from startling a guard milliseconds before executing them. It becomes quite irritating because you often become unsure if you really are being pursued, or if was just a poor judgment on the game's end – thinking you were seen when you really weren't. I wish I could give you my honest take on the voice-over work, but I don't speak Japanese. Like all the other Tenchu releases in the past, very little of the dialog is actually localized. None of the spoken dialog is translated, and during actual game play you won't even get subtitles as you would during cut scenes. It's probably nothing to make too big of a deal about considering most of the time guards are saying a mere one-liner, but occasionally, you will spot two guards having a short conversation, presumably about your assassination target, and there is no way to know what they are saying unless you speak Japanese.
It's not just the the fact that Tenchu is quite half-assed by today's standards, but the fact that there are so many little problems that snowball into creating a truly poor experience. First of all, the game play is extremely repetitive. Actually, Tenchu Z is probably the most repetitive game I have played in a couple of years. You do the same exact thing over and over again countless times. Even worse, is the fact that there are 50 missions in the game but no more 10 levels. How is this possible, you might say? Simple, the developers re-use the same exact levels over and over again throughout the game and just give you a different objective. I guess they might be thinking that if you have been playing Tenchu for this long your brain has probably already been conditioned to be so stupid from dealing with the inane AI that you won't even notice that you were in the same place countless missions before. Even more disappointing is the fact that the different levels that do exist all look incredibly alike and have some of the most dreadfully boring designs I've ever seen. The textures are always the same, the buildings always look the same, walls always look the same, and so forth. Tenchu Z exhibits an unprecedented level of repetition which may very well burn out your brain, if you play it long enough, that is. Still, you might be trying to tell yourself "irregardless, 50 levels is an awful lot of game play". Wrong! Most of the levels are so incredibly simple that they can be beat in several minutes. In fact, if you aren't concerned about receiving a high ninja rankings in the levels, you could probably skim through the game in a couple of hours. There are 49 humorously easy levels and a single frustratingly difficult level in which you must follow a target without being seen. Interestingly enough, I was not even able to distinguish any greater or lesser challenge between playing on the different difficulty settings.
The number of annoyances are just too many to turn your head too and aren't just limited to design flaws, but a shoddy presentation. The loading time is ridiculous – typically 10-15 seconds (on occasion even longer). Plus, failing a mission, doesn't give you the opportunity to retry the mission; instead you must wait for the loading time to enter the level selection area, and then wait for another loading time after you have re-selected the level. If you are smart enough to pause prior to imminently failing a mission, you can choose to restart the level, but even then, the level is completely reloaded from memory making you wait 10-15 seconds, when it very well could have been instantly taken from memory instead of re-reading the storage medium. Selecting levels is also obtrusively annoying. Instead of selecting the level you want to play and pressing the A button, you instead need to select the level and press the A button three times to different dialogs that appear – how unnecessary, guys.
And then there is the problem with items. Well, the problem is two-fold you could say. For starters, there seems to be a second-or-so delay from when you press the item-use button to when your character actually uses the item. This makes the most mundane of tasks an irritation. Say you are being hunted down, and you want to shoot your grappling hook atop a building in order to escape. Well, just be patient and hope for the best. The other problem with items is their lack of necessity. What I mean by this is that they are all pretty useless. I always thought that perhaps the reason I never used items much while playing Tenchu was because most of the Tenchu titles I have played were Japanese versions in which the purpose of the items was shrouded behind a language barrier. As it turns out, I no longer have this problem considering I am here playing and reviewing an English copy. Yet, oddly enough, I still find the items to be more of a hassle than a benefit. Since Tenchu is a stealth game which rewards being unseen, it makes no sense to ever need smoke bombs or darts which will only give your location away. Further, if you are playing Tenchu like a good little ninja, then your health will never diminish rendering the use of potions useless. In fact, I could easily say that you could beat the entire game without using a single optional item and it still would be a piece of cake. As it turns out, that is basically what I did anyhow.
Using any of the items that requires aiming (grappling hook, or darts for example) also hosts problem altogether. Besides the overall issue with item-use suffering from a delay, there is also the problem of aiming being frustratingly imprecise. Moving the analog stick just a tiny bit will swing the reticule far more than you ever intend, so it makes subtle movements with the aim completely impossible, meaning in many cases you will have difficulty even getting the reticule lined up on your desired target. What a drag.
Among all the problems and complaints I might have, there are three which definitely deserve the most recognition for continuously making an unwelcome appearance year after year. In no particular order, here I go.
Bottomless pits – what is the frigging purpose of these stupid things? Besides the fact that I have never seen a perfectly square-shaped hole in my life, I've never encountered such a hole which apparently doesn't have a bottom. It's not as if they aren't that common either as virtually every level has got to have at least one or two of them. There you are walking along minding your own business, and the controller vibrates and next thing you know a hole has opened up on the ground you were just walking on. If you don't make a mental note of it, you may end up falling in it when you are trying to escape and don't happen to spot it because of the camera. Seriously From Software, it was stupid a decade ago and it's just as stupid and out of place today.
Major annoyance number two: why can't you whistle, knock on walls or throw rocks to get a guards attention?! Seriously, if you want to get the attention of a guard, you have to use a ridiculous item such as a firework. Why on earth would you go through all the trouble of carrying a firework around with you and setting it off just to get someone to check out a general vicinity? What is so difficult about allowing the player to whistle or create noise some other way without requiring unnecessary items?
Last but certainly not least; is it absolutely necessary to go into the "cool" post-assassination pose all the time? I thought the idea of a ninja was to be quick, quiet and unseen – not to pose for the cameras. It's extremely agitating that you can be on a roll, and take out foe after foe in the silence, and then after you've cut someone's throat open, you stand there trying to look all cool while some other guard is approaching and spots you. What is so difficult about either losing this animation altogether or at least allowing the player to prematurely jump out of it in order to stay concealed?
As you probably imagine by now, I don't have all that much positive to say about the latest Tenchu installment. I really wish it could have been more, but I try not to fool myself. I've been a fan of this series since it's inception, and I will continue to play the games hoping that sooner or later From Software will revitalize their drastically dying series. With the success of stealth oriented games today and the size of the gaming industry as it is, Tenchu is doing an amazing job at becoming marginalized as the game from yesteryear that refuses to improve. With so many consistently lousy Tenchu releases, it is (sadly) becoming increasingly clear that the success of the original was in part to nothing more than a lot of luck and perfect timing. Today, you will most likely only be able to truly appreciate or enjoy a Tenchu game if you were one of the original fans from back in the "good-old-days" when the series didn't suck (sorry From Software, but truth be told). I'd really love to see an amazing Tenchu game someday, but if things continue to go the way the series is headed, I won't hold my breath.
Overall Score: 4.5
Gameplay: (5) The sheer definition of "repetition". Shoddy presentation coupled with unimaginative game-play and lots of annoyances.
Graphics: (4) Low poly, lack of detail, low resolution textures - what is this, a Wii game?
Sound: (5) Suiting, yet repetitive music. Dialog is not localized and annoying quirk with detection-music.
Lasting appeal: (4) A total of 50 short and easy levels, all based on less than 10 unique (and boring) level designs. This game takes the term "repetition" a whole new level.