This game just doesn't do much to impress I'm afraid. Tenchu Z is one of those games that's hard to finish because you just don't feel like its worth the effort(I did finish it though because I'm OCD that way). The incentive to continue to play this game dwindles rather quickly after you start. There is little or no story to follow and you basically jump from one mission to the next. The game is meant to be played as a stealth killer, but there isn't any reason to do that either. The enemies are completely incompetent. They don't usually see you until you are right on top of them. Which brings me to the next point. Once you are discovered by an enemy the alarm is sounded to indicate that you have been discovered. There's just one problem, there is virtually no penalty for being discovered. You can either run away and hide until the enemies have forgotten that you were ever there or you can just fight them head on. And unlike most stealth games where when discovered you are completely overwhelmed by the enemies on this game you have no problem dispatching everyone in sight after the alert is raised. This definately works in your favor because most of the levels involve simply killing everyone you come across. The level variety and tasks do not have any variation or flavor at all. This game doesn't work as a straight 3rd person actioner nor does it work as a stealth kill game. So it doesn't work at anything other than trapsing through a series of bland levels killing hapless enemies in whatever way that happens to work out. The game did not experience any major glitches, but the framerate was choppy at times which is surprising when you consider that this game looks like it came from a previous generation console. Yes, even the visuals are poor. The music didn't do anything to inspire me either. Now for what it does well: the controls are fairly responsive and easy to learn and there is plenty of character customization. Unfortunately customizing your charatcter has little or no bearing on how he performs in game its purely for aesthetic purposes. So in summation: this game doesn't do much well. You can make your character look however you want. But you may not feel compelled to finish the game so what's the point?
I will start by agreeing with many that this game is indeed under-rated. A score below 5 is absolutely abysmal, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I think Tenchu deserves a score in the 7's for this reason: it's ... Read Full Review
This is my first time playing Tenchu so try to keep this in mind. I can't relate to any of the past titles, so this is a review from a new player. Before I actually purchased the game, I downloaded the demo from XBOX... Read Full Review
