I love the heart and soul of Nightshade. They just need to improve the plain Genesis-like presentation.
User Rating: 7.2 | Nightshade PS2
Nightshade is a lot like playing a 3-D version of one of the old 16-bit fighter/platformers. Since it is the follow-up game to Shinobi which had it's roots in the 16-bit era, this is no surprise. However, we demand more from a Playstation 2 game. Nightshade has many good things going for it. The ninja dash is a blast to use. Zipping around the screen at near-light speed from foe-to-foe, using an attack on one Hellspawn to propel to another over bottomless pits makes playing Hibana (the female shinobi, called Nightshade) challenging and fun. Also, it is very satisfying to be able to dash from the front of a Hellspawn to its unguarded rear in a split second and dispatch it. The best use of the dash is, of course, to pull off Tate attacks. Racking up a quick succession of attacks on Hellspawn before the Tate meter runs out rewards you with Hibana striking a pose while all of the attacked Hellspawn simultaneously die. I admit that I got quite addicted to the Tate attacks. Also, if you were unsatisfied with your score after completing a stage, you can always repeat that stage to try a different strategy to boost your score. Keep this up and you'll become skillful enough to beat the game at all the different difficulty levels to unlock other playable characters and features. Unfortunately, there are a few bad things about Nightshade. It is a difficult game to play. However, a lot of this difficulty is unnecessarily due to the poor camera control. In tight spaces or when Hibana is clinging to a wall or other structure it is impossible to see where to make her next jump or where attacking enemies are. This can be extremely frustrating and detracts from the enjoyment the game. Using the auto-lock targeting and clicking R3 helps somewhat with this problem, but not nearly enough. It is also difficult to determine whether or not Hibana can cling to certain walls. This will cause some hair-pulling, especially when it happens near the end of a stage over one of the afore-mentioned bottomless pits. The cut-scenes and the voice acting are done well. Hibana is a powerful, sexy-looking, and well animated character. The run-of-the-mill Hellspawn are nothing special to look at but some of the bosses can be appreciated. The environments are graphically very plain and unremarkable. For a 2004 Playstation 2 game this is unacceptable. The soundtrack consists of the same generic music endlessly looping in the background of each stage. It sounds like it was lifted from an old Sega Genesis game. Perhaps the most annoying part of Nightshade is when Hibana quips "This just isn't my day" over and over again. Nightshade is a good game, but not a stand-out game. I love the heart and soul of the game. It just needs to shake off the plain-Jane Sega Genesis look and sound. I do hope that Sega-WOW gives it another try because they could have a really good game if they just improve the presentation. At the time of this writing, Nightshade can be purchased at a very low price. Therefore I can recommend that you pick it up.
