Tenchu Z (loosely) tells the story of the 16th century Japanese country of Goda which is on the brink of war with a neighboring country, Ogawara. The player takes part in the war by taking control of a new recruit of the Azuma clan of Ninja working for Lord Goda. As a newbie ninja, you are sent to assassinate threats to Goda, as well as take part in other tasks to help the country.
The story is "told" through extremely short scenes at the end of some missions, most of which seem out of context and unrelated to other scenes. If you haven't caught on, this game is not at all about storytelling. In fact, I'd say that the game fails miserably in that aspect. Mission briefings give a slight background on your target or mission, but even those seem only loosely related to the overall plight of Goda. Either I was extremely good at mimicking the non-emotional focus of a ninja, or the story does a miserable job of making you care about any of the characters. As far as I'm concerned, the game doesn't even have an overall story.
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| So uhh, I'm supposed to kill this guy because..uhhh...he did something to someone, or something, I think. |
Tenchu Z takes place over 50 missions with three difficulty levels for each. Missions most typically involve finding and killing a target, though other tasks are sometimes pursued. Some missions ask you to collect a certain number of items, find a specific item, or even rescue a hostage. Sure 50 missions and multiple objectives sound like a good thing, but then you realize that you're really just playing the exact same missions over and over 50 times. There are only six or seven different maps which each mission takes place on. Normally your mission objectives are hidden in the exact same place on each map, no matter what mission you are on. Eventually the game even starts reusing target models and mission setups to the point that you are literally replaying missions you have already completed. This mission design just screams a lack of care for a final product by the developers. Add in that most levels are extremely easy and can be completed by simply running straight to your target and you have a game with little gameplay value
Arguably, the coolest thing about Tenchu Z is the actual gameplay. Stealth mechanics such as enemies hearing your footsteps or other sounds you make, lighting affecting your concealment, and even smells on the player all affect your attempts to secretly dispatch your enemies. Returning from previous Tenchu games are stealth kills, special one-hit kills available to you once you successfully sneak into range of an unaware enemy. These specially animated kills used to be the coolest thing about the series, but Tenchu Z once again just reuses the same three or four animations. It's pretty sad when you quickly get tired of the coolest thing a game has to offer, especially when there are 50 missions to slog through. Eventually, playing the game seems more like a chore than a pleasure. The laborious trek through the missions isn't helped by the fact that, should you choose to engage enemies without utilizing stealth, the combat system is terrible. Basically, you are forced to choose the lesser of two evils.
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| Yay! Piggy-back ride! |
As the player completes levels and gains money from the missions, new skills and items unlock in the ninja village, a base of operations for the Ninja. Players can spend money on items to use throughout levels such as health recovery potions, different weapons, and even disguises. Money can also be spent on new abilities. These abilities sound quite cool when you first unlock them. Unfortunately, you quickly learn that most of them do not work nearly nearly as well as their descriptions promised, resulting in just using your basic abilities over and over again instead of anything new.
Tenchu Z also allows the player to unlock new clothing through completing missions. This clothing can be purchased and used to customize your own ninja with items and accessories ranging from cool, to just plain silly. This customization is really nice to see, especially since Tenchu Z offers an online cooperative mode via Xbox Live. Through Live, players can team up with up to three other friends to tackle levels together, making missions even easier than before. It's nice to see the ability for friends to romp around feudal Japan together in silly disguises though.
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| The greatly feared Cutesy Ninja Gang. |
When compared with other launch-era titles, Tenchu Z looks pretty bland. I can't help but think that the developers just re-used textures and models from their last Playstation 2 game. The character model for your main ninja seems to be the only thing that was brought up even close to the level of modern games. Luckily, ninjas work mostly at night, so all the ugly textures are hidden by the darkness in most levels.
I continuously found myself thinking "why is this game so much worse than the Tenchu game I played on Playstation 2 years ago?!" While the stealth gameplay can be enjoyable for a few missions at a time, overall Tenchu Z is a boring, repetitive game. It took me nearly 15 hours to complete all 50 levels on normal difficulty with the highest rank. In most cases, this length would be a plus for a game, but since it was 15 hours of boredom, it's definitely a minus for Tenchu Z. The facts that I never really encountered any glitches, that I liked the customization, and that the stealth mechanics are somewhat satisfying save Tenchu Z from an even lower score than I'm giving it.
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