My first Tenchu purchase.
Before I actually purchased the game, I downloaded the demo from XBOX live, it consisted of 1 level only, and limited character customization. I ended up clocking about 10 hours on the demo alone. I guess I just like killing un-suspecting npc's?
Game play: The game play is pretty solid. The controls are easy enough to get use to, and once you do, you probably wont have much trouble running around the city jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Though there are two things that kind of annoy me about the game play. The first thing is that when I get a stealth kill, if I'm not right up on them, it's as if I teleport them a step or two before I stab them, giving it a choppy feeling. The second thing that bothers me is the fact you can drown NPC's, but you don't really have a way to throw them into the water (at least from what I can tell). I usually have to end up grabbing them and knocking them unconscious, then walking my character into them to nudge the NPC into the water.
Graphics: I only rated this as a Seven. I am really kind of disappointed here. The graphics aren’t necessarily bad, but they really aren’t the best the 360 can do either. On a positive note, the architecture and character models seems accurate to how I would imagine the setting, so they get quite a few points back there.
Sound: The sound is one of my favorite aspects of this game. I like the music a lot, I also like how NPC’s will kind of talk to themselves or whistle as they walk around the city, it gives them a bit more character. The SFX seem pretty accurate too, ie.ninja stars (shuriken) etc.
Value: Well, there are roughly 50 missions to accomplish, and it has online co-op and a form of death-match/ versus mode? (Haven’t tested these yet). So for the single player mode, I imagine once you beat the game, your first thoughts won’t be to do it again several times over. The multiplayer features I think will add a lot of value to the game in general. But from what I have played so far, I think anyone who is interested in stealth type games should like this one, I don’t thin it’s quite as in depth as say, Splinter Cell, but it really does accomplish what it set out to do.
Thanks for reading my review for “Tenchu Z” on XBOX360.