The term ‘ninja’ may collect images of different characters – masked mutant reptiles in New York learning to fight and eat pizza with the rat master, Joe Musashi may have been wearing a cool red copper glove. However, my ideal ninja archetype is akin to a prematurely gray-haired disciple of Azuma Ninjutsu: Rikimaru, the warrior/defender of the Goda Kingdom.
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins was and always will be an essential ninja game that not only launched the franchise but gave the world a 3D peek into the medieval land of The Rising Sun, via the game console. Will another Tencho come out of the shadows, or are we waiting in vain on our sofas?
They were ghosts, shadow assassins, and warriors trained to infiltrate and disappear without a trace. The trick lies in three basic elements: killer games, killer skills, and killer outfits. Oh, and the ghost. This was essential and inevitable. You’ll never see a ninja whistling on the street in broad daylight, or someone hitting their knees loudly on a daimyo coffee table. Infiltration was part of the trade.
In 1987 and 1990, the first installment of Metal Gear games introduced players to the idea of hiding from enemies by bending over, time-alert systems, and items used for distraction. Then came 1998 and everything changed with the release of two franchise launch games: Metal Gear Solid and Tencho: Stealth Assassins.
Acquire Studios was created by visionary Takuma Endo in Nagoya, Japan, just as the first Playstation console was launched on the Japanese market. Over the next four years, Endo and his team of the most honorable developers trained, trained and modified the budding ninja gem. During that period, Playstation released some titles that Acquire studied and drew inspiration from. according to 1998 interviewEndo admits he was inspired by gaming trends at the time. “As far as we know, Metal Gear Solid plans to use many of the same game elements as Tenchu. This pressure has worked in a good way for us, thus making the most of the real Japanese world.”
The setting blew the door wide open. With Tenchu, never before has such a sweeping depiction of Sengoku-era Japan happened on a game console. Every time I used the controller to play, the confines of my North Carolina living room faded into the middle of the night of the Mysterious Land. I’m here again. Sakura trees thrive in the majestic courtyards of medieval castles. After wrestling silently on one of the many hanging eaves, my quilted feet race through footsteps with steely insistence. Later, on another mission, pure white snow gently fell on the ground next to the crimson pools of blood from the castle guard. paper thin shoji Doors lead the way into tatami-mat rooms where friends or foes await—but often enemies. Corrupt finance ministers, Spanish pirates, members of promiscuous cults, and demonic warriors are all being cut at random by my katana blade. There is no rest until Princess Kiko is safe and Lord Gohda’s house is secured once again. I vividly remember sitting next to my brother and wanting to live this is Kind of from Japan, but maybe with a bit of a throat slit.
The focus on stealth was unprecedented. While Tenchu and Metal Gear Solid combined it, it was Tenchu that completely disappeared around the 3D gaming mechanics. The level ranking system is mainly based on these secret attacks, especially when each victim received a famous death from the ninja flick. Of the five possible rankings (Thug, Novice, Ninja, Master Ninja, and Grand Master), only reaching the rank of Grand Master will unlock a new ninja item. A couple of these delicacies added some zest to the killing spree.
However, it was entirely possible to obtain a Grand Master rating with only the standard equipment assigned to it: easy-to-use hook, healing potion, shuriken (Throwing stars), portable landmines, and poisoned rice. In fact, the harmless ball of poison rice was one of the most practical in your arsenal, after the grappling hook. A simple throw into the eye of the enemy and they were slowly walking around and bending over to retrieve Onigiri, oblivious to anything else happening around them. There is no rush to sneak up behind you and deliver the death blow. And as a bonus, if the rice ball isn’t eaten, you can put it in the pocket afterwards and make the deadly bait and switch back on the road.
Then there was the human side. Ninjas were not immortal, but they beat men – albeit wonderful men. Takuma Endo explains it In a metro interview That his desire was to portray both the human and supernatural qualities of a ninja. “We just wanted to make something that would appear to someone, even though they are clearly at the height of physical ability and high ability, still human and fallible, capable of loss and death.”
After Tenchu, the next show from Acquire shows a new ninja ally other than the silver-brushed Rikimaru. In 2005 Shinobido incorporated many of the same ninja techniques he learned from Tensho. Enemy alerts and stealth kills were a staple of the game, along with “executions,” with successful stealth kills giving players a 3-4 second cinematic animation depicting death. A ninja’s arsenal is certainly not very diverse, but one look at Shinobido’s inventory, and a close comparison can be made to Tenchu’s special weapons.
Then there was the infuriating – award winning – shinobi game from FromSoftware. The developers are no strangers to the Tenchu series, they have produced many of the recent series themselves. In fact, from an interview with FromSoftware President Hidetaka Miyazaki, Sekiro was the closest thing to the new Tenchu. “A lot of influence came from Tenchu. So we thought of making Sekiro: Shadows die twice part of Tenchu series at the beginning.
In fact, the familiar elements abound: stealth mechanics, grappling hook, bloody killing. However, one important difference with Sekiro is that stealth is only optional. There is no motive to sneak in except for the fact that it is a much more effective way to get rid of your opponent and will save you some trouble in the future. In Tenchu, at least you are rewarded for your covert operations. Even the beloved hook hook is used on a case-by-case basis, rather than being indispensable.
Even after the Tokugawa regime consolidated Japan, their attempts to eliminate the ninja ultimately failed. You cannot kill a ghost. Likewise, the influence of the Tenchu series will never fade away. It was introduced to the immortal world and is still considered the gold standard in ninja games.
Time will tell if another Tenchu-like game comes out, but until then, we’ll have to wait patiently and be satisfied with our current ninja brother. Yes, that includes pizza-eating reptiles, too. Kwabunga.
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