Fatal Shadows

Life

PS 2 

The ninja is silent. The ninja is deadly. The ninja also respects tradition – almost to a fault. So it goes with Tenchu: Fatal Shadows, a game that takes its stealth heritage very, very seriously – a slave to dying ways for better or worse.

There are many ways to cook an eggplant

Just like its predecessors, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows is a ‘ninja simulator’ that emphasizes cunning and planning over running around with guns (or in this case, swords and shuriken) blazing. In each level, you are expected to study the paths of your foes, wait patiently around corners and behind walls until their backs are turned, and then silently move in for a ‘stealth kill’ that earns you special scrolls and cool ninja tools as rewards. While it’s possible to make it through many levels just by running your fool head off until the end, your ego takes a hit when you get a negative score for being spotted by everyone and you earn no new special moves because you didn’t stealthily kill a single soul. The game can be extremely cool and rewarding – you really do feel like a ninja when things go right – but if you’re not the patient and meticulous type, this ain’t the game for you. You can fully expect to play levels dozens of times before you get them ‘right,’ and be prepared to check your outrage when you have to restart a level many times from scratch each time you make a tiny error.

Lethal shadows
While Tenchu was once the alpha and omega of stealth gaming, its has since been surpassed by the graphic and storytelling prowess of Metal Gear Solid and the gloriously open-ended gameplay of Thief: Deadly Shadows. In Tenchu, old quirks die hard: The guards still walk predictable patterns and quickly forget you the second you turn around a corner or dangle off a ledge in front of their faces. The camera is still obnoxious to deal with, too, especially when peering around corners.

Improvements are here, but they’re minor: You now make sounds (which mostly means guards hear you if you splash in the water) when you move too quickly, and you’re able to drag bodies out of sight as in Tenchu 2. The story is also split between the two main characters, making the narrative more interesting and the levels less repetitious. Stealth kills can also be turned into ‘super’ stealth kills (earning you more reward scrolls) if you tap the kill button a second time at the right moment during your assassination animation.

The old cur
The way of the ninja is still one heck of a challenge, but games have found better ways to be stealthy since Tenchu first snuck into town. She’s a good old dog but hard pressed to learn new tricks.

Specs:

Tenchu: Fatal Shadows
Requirements: Sony PlayStation 2
Rating: 80%
Price: EUR*59.99

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