Great, but lacking Shinobi's intuitive design
User Rating: 8.3 | Nightshade PS2
Gameplay: The gameplay is a strong point about Nightshade. The controls are alot more fluid than they were in Shinobi. The "unique once you've mastered it" mechanic from Shinobi is still intact though if you havn't mastered it, it will fell dull and shallow. In Nightshade the main character, Hibana must kill enemies in chains. When one enemy is killed he/it will freeze for a few seconds, then a timer will start dwindling down, you only have a few seconds to kill the next enemy for the timer to reset, kill 4 more more enemies using this method and Hibana will strike a pose and all of the enemies will fall to the ground. This is called a tate (pronounced "tah-tey") and this is where all of Nightshade's depth comes from. Take this feature away and you'll be stuck with a crappy game with awesome boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, this is where Nightshade truely shines. In order to beat the bosses easily you must try to tate it. When an ememy of the chain is killed Hibana's sword will become stronger, when Hibana moves to the next link it will get stronger and stronger from link to link. Once the enemies spawned by the boss are finished you can use your temporarily powered up sword to do more damage to the boss monster. If you are successful enough tou can execute a boss tate and max out your score. New to Nightshade is the new kick ability which is used to break an enemies guard, break their armour, or trip them and kick them down causing a shockwave knocking surrounding enemies over. Then there are Hibana's short swords, which can be used to do combos and fill up your chakra meter. When one chakra meter is full Hibana can excute a stealth attack, which can do monsterous damage to a boss. There can be up to 3 chakra meters filled, each stealth attack is stronger than the next. Graphics: Nightshade's weak point is it's graphics. The textures are plain and simple and there is alot of clipping. But why did I give the graphics a 7 you may ask. Well this is because the character models look great and the bosses look superb. And it all runs at a beautiful 60 frames per second. The CG cutscenes also look great and no longer will you see those corny fight scenes as you saw in Shinobi. Sound: The sound effects are great, with all of the clangs, jump noises, and footstep noises changing when Hibana is on a different surface. The music is not as good as it was in Shinobi but it fits the game like a glove. The only weak point is the voice acting and sadly there is no way to switch to Japenease dialogue. Nightshade is a game with a good look and sound and unique play mechanics. The difficulty is toned down from Shinobi but that still doesn't make this game easy. The game is at it's hardest and best during the air combat sections. Throw in high replay value and you've got a game worth checking out. Not everyone will like this game though and some will find this game abysmal.
