With all this talk about Ninja Gaiden dominating the ninja genre nowadays, it appears that Sega wanted to show everyone that the PS2 had a little bit of ninja left in its compact black body. Accordingly, they decided to release a sequel to their stylish, but badly designed, PS2 title, Shinobi, called Nightshade.
Why Nightshade? Beats the hell outta me. In Japanese, male ninja are called "Shinobi", while female ninja are called "Kunoichi". Since the character in the background is the first character for "ninja", just like it is in Shinobi, and the game has a heroine, it should probably be entitled “Kunoichi,” but they called the game Nightshade instead. I have no idea why, unless "Hibana" (the main character's name) translates to "Nightshade." They did make an old NES game called Nightshade, so maybe they just went with it. Who knows?
Does Nightshade assassinate all memory of the tragedy that came before it in the night? Or will it merely make us long for an XBox so that we can actually play a good ninja game?
Story
You are Hibana. Somewhere along the way Oboro ninja clan has been reformed. The fools over at Nakatomi have started searching out the pieces of Akujiki that Hotsuma shattered in the last game (how does this company stay in business? Is there really a demand for products made by a company that continually puts the country in peril?). You, in your duties as a government ninja, have been tasked with the retrieval of the pieces of Akujiki, and the destruction of any Hellspawn that you encounter.
Gameplay
The gameplay here is pretty much the same as it was in Shinobi. The left analog stick makes you run around (leaving *2* red trails from your scarf). The right analog stick controls the camera, which thankfully doesn't ALSO require a button press this time. L1 throws kunai, L2 uses your ninjutsu, and R1 locks on to an enemy, X dashes, O jumps, and Square attacks.
Nightshade is slightly better equipped than Hotsume was. In addition to her katana, she wields a pair of kodachi as well. You can execute combos with these by hitting down and X, and holding Square will drain a bar of chakra and execute an unblockable shadow attack.
In Nighshade, just like in Shinobi, you have “Tate” sequences. This time they’re not there to satiate your blade, they're just there for style (repetitive style, once again). The main difference with the Tate sequences in this game is that occasionally, you'll get set-ups tossed to you that allow you to execute long kill sequences. If you get a 10 Tate combo, you'll get a special sequence, and 30 Tate will give you a blood red screen. 5 Tate doesn't give you anything, but thanks to the font, it looks like "State Combo".
The big difference with Tate sequences in Nightshade and Shinobi is that they are now easier to obtain. If you're in midair, tapping Square will execute a dash over to the locked enemy. This allows you to attack your next target in sequence much more easily than before. A Tate timer is provided for you in the upper left corner of the screen so that you know how much time you have left before the enemies fall to pieces.
All in all, the game's really fun to control with no real control or game design issues...until level 9.
Graphics
Um...they suck again. This is, however, supposed to be a quick game, not really one that looks all that impressive. You'll notice a lack of color variation inside all of the levels, as well as rampant texture re-usage. Hibana doesn't look quite right and, for the most part, neither do the other characters. Even more fun is that "old kung-fu movie" feel you get due to the lip-synching matching the Japanese dialogue and NOT the English dialogue (you can't set the dialogue language like you could in Shinobi, which bites).
Sound
The voices aren't too bad. They're mostly passable, though Hibana's voice sounds too wimpy to be coming from anyone with any real presence. Plus, her lines are weak and repetitive. I realize that you aren't going to be able to give someone the 750 different lines they'd need so that you could cover each of the numerous Tate sequences in the game with a unique line, but that's Sega's fault for making the game so repetitive, not mine for being unable to blindly accept it.
The music and effects aren't too bad, either. Some of the techno is actually kind of nifty, but I'm really not the type who gets too into video game music soundtracks. It's better than most, but you're not going to be humming the tunes or anything. There aren't very many effects present in Nightshade, some sword clinks and such, but what there is doesn’t sound bad.
Gripes
This was well on its way to becoming an excellent game. Sure, the hopping from car to car and boat to boat was getting old, but the mid-air lock-on made those parts bearable. And then came Chapter 11. I suppose that Chapter 10 should have given me an inkling of what was to come, but it didn’t.
First off, this stuff was completely ripped out of Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, the Irem earthquake survival game. There is a freeway bridge that's all messed up and you have to go across it. Fall once and you die. Big fun. That’s a pain, but it still isn’t all that tough to work through.
Then comes Level 11. The Shinobi level. Normally when you make a sequel to a game that had bad parts to it, you don't pay homage to those crappy parts by putting them in the next game. This is especially true when you haven't fixed the problems that made those levels crappy to begin with. But, no, there it is again. Pretty much the exact same Golden Palace level from the last game. Miss a jump, and you die.
Let me break this down again for you Sega, and for anyone else who might happen to be designing a game. This type of crap, where you fall once, and die? That's dead like Richard Nixon, OK? I’m not talking about the Nixon that comes back to become President in Futurama, either. You might as well have the player walk up to an enemy and choose one of the four buttons. If they hit 3 out of the 4 buttons, they attack. If they hit a randomly assigned "wrong" button, they die and have to restart the level from a checkpoint.
I'd like to take Sega's level designer and give him my saves at the start of Levels 11 and 12, and say. "I think you suck at level design. However, you can prove me wrong, and I'll tell the world I suck at platformers, if you can pass both of these levels without cheating in 2 hours." Then I'd just sit in the room with him and talk mad trash every time he missed a jump and fell to his death. "So...why do you find bottomless pits so enjoyable? Is it the way you have to constantly restart the level?" "That's an interesting design philosophy you have...to try and make the game as redundant as possible."
If I have to fall and restart from a bottom point without losing all my progress, that's fine. Just so long as I don't have only one shot, which can easily be wiped away by your "missing double jump" glitch again.
That's what bothers me the most about this game. I reported this in my Shinobi review. If you try to double jump sometimes the game records you making 2 jumps when you've only used one. This leads to situations where you prepare for a jump-jump-dash to get to high ledges, or walls you can cling to, only to find that you have no second jump for whatever reason. This gets particularly frustrating in an insta-death zone, where a jump-dash carries you over your target ledge, a jump lays you up just short of the desired ledge, and the double jump is the only way to progress.
Even more frustrating is the fact that in Level 12, you will hit a certain area where you'll have corridors that end with bottomless pits. After a couple tries, you'll find that you can climb some walls...with the same textures used on the walls in the previous level that would cause you to lose your grip and fall to your death. What makes this even more ridiculous is that walls with that same texture on the SAME LEVEL don't let you cling to them. You're just supposed to know.
That's Bad Game Design Flaw #1: Inconsistency. The gamer has to be given results that meet with their expectations from usage of the action previously in the game, or as described in the manuals and tutorials. Failure to do so will exponentially drive up frustration, and drive down enjoyment.
There comes a point in Nightshade where you're going to start thinking about Alkaiser's Law of Diminishing Fun Returns. The law states, "If the frustration or boredom incurred is greater than fun or reward experienced by completing the task, then it is time to end the activity and label it unworthy."
Nightshade, you have been weighed and found wanting. You are...unworthy.
Overall
I can't see anyone wanting to replay this over and over just to unlock Hisui, Hotsuma, and Joe Musashi, so this game is just a rental, if that. All any gamer is going to really want this game for is to boast about how they've beaten it. You can do that on a rental, but is it worth that?
For those kids who have far more time on their hands than I and enjoy this type of instant death insanity, I say go for it. Me, I'll stick to games that are intelligently designed, as opposed to being stylish and stupid. Like I said in my Shinobi review, I don't mind a game being tough...so long as it isn't the design fighting against me in addition to the enemies. R-Type Final, Einhander...those games are excellent and hard as hell. Shinobi, Nightshade...these games are hard as hell and mediocre. At least Nightshade is better than its predecessor. Sometimes, it takes a woman's touch.
