Who doesn’t want to be a ninja?  Don’t sit there and tell me you’ve never dreamed of the day of being insane enough to throw stars at objects with utmost accuracy, or get the sneak-up on someone from behind to subdue them.  Well, very few games these days make you truly feel like a ninja, since the Tenchu series has fallen by the wayside.  To make up for this, Namco Bandai has brought in Acquire, Tenchu's development team, to produce Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen to the PlayStation Vita, giving gamers the opportunity to go all ninja-like with a vengeful assassin named, well, Zen.

Now, the first thing you’re probably thinking is, “Um, 2?  When did the original came out?”  Well, that’s the rub.  The original was never released on US soil, and yet when Namco produced this for US release, it was tempted to include the 2. It probably wanted to make it sound special or something.  No matter.  In the game, you find yourself free-wheeling between clans that are warring with one another.  You know, like Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo character, but in video game form and more contemporary means of killing someone.

Anyway, Zen has a deeper agenda – he’s trying to figure out who killed his girlfriend.  And he figures that infiltrating these clans and completing the missions they request (mostly killing unfavorables that are being a pain in their backsides) will get him the answers he wants?  Right.  Um, that’s how it’s supposed to be, but in all honesty, we went through several hours of Shinobido and didn’t even come close to opening up the bigger picture.

The biggest problem with this game is repetition.  Sure, it provides a variety of missions, and if you’re good enough, it opens up new gear and weapons to give you the edge in competing them.  But they all run pretty much the same way.  Sneak, sneak, kill a guard who’s too stupid to investigate properly, sneak, sneak, get to target, screw up trying to kill target, chase target down, kill target, mission complete.  There’s only so much you can really do here.

And when you do get to the killing, not only is it by the numbers, but the controls have a way of completely falling apart on you.  For instance, let’s take grappling.  You use a hook to go higher up, just in case you want a lay of the land, wanting to see where certain guards are.  There are two ways to do first.  The first is automatically, which is terrible, since you prefer executing the command yourself.  The second is by touching the rear pad of the PS Vita, which doesn’t work due to lack of accuracy.  So you’re stuck with the ground game.

That isn’t much better.  Sneaking around is a pain in the neck, and trying to simply move forward results in an awkward forward roll – right into harm’s way.  Honestly, though, it’s not that big a deal because the guards are as dumb as rocks.  These guys could literally hear a thunderstorm behind them and not even flinch when something crackles nearby.  Either their hearing aids are out of order or they’re simply paid to walk forward, turn, walk forward.  Either way, getting stealth kills is a breeze.  Perhaps too easy, in fact.

About the Author

Robert Workman

Senior Writer/Editor

Robert has years of experience in the video game industry, writing for such sites as AOL GameDaily, PlanetXbox360 and Comic Book Resources.  He can also outdrink you any day of the week.  And twice on Sunday.  Follow him at www.twitter.com/thedcd.