Red Ninja
Listed as one of the Worst 10 Games of the Year by Game Informer (whose opinion is periodically subject to question), I confess I am really enjoying Red Ninja. I'm on my second rental of the game right now, because 3 days was not enough for me to beat it with my present schedule. My opinion thus far, however, vacillates wildly between pure enjoyment and utter frustration.
There are 3 major challenges in the game. Tricky Jumping Shit, Tricky Camera Shit, and Tricky Button Timing Shit. The jumping is to be expected. As a ninja, one should expect to overcome some serious wall running, leaping, and crazy hanging-from-a-tiny-filament type action. That isn't so bad once you get the hang of it, and the game is pretty forgiving in terms of continues when it comes to sections that require you to succeed or die.
The camera in the game can and will drive a person to drinking unless you're willing to use the left shoulder buttons to frequently correct the angle manually. To be honest, since L1 is the enemy auto-target - a crucial part of combat unless you feel like taking a chance on button mashing - the camera correction is (usually) pretty easy to deal with.
The game's potentially most frustrating flaw rears it's ugly head during the aforementioned Tricky Jumping Shit. Say you have to dash to the edge of a ledge and leap to the other side, one's instinct is to mash on the jump button on that very last step. Wrong. This is the path to certain doom. Jumping has to be done about a step or so before that. Otherwise your jump doesn't execute like you didn't touch your controller at all, and one of two things will happen. Either A) you will automatically slip and hang from the ledge by your highly skilled ninja fingers, or B) you will dash right off the edge to your watery or cavernous or bone-crunching doom below. No fun either way. Result A is a lifesaver, but result B will happen often enough to cause less patient players to throw down their controller in disgust and quit altogether.
The bosses are challenging, but they rely pretty heavily on their individual gimmicks. Auto-targeting, running around a bit at the beginning of the battle to notice their patterns, and back flipping like a fiend is typically the best way to figure them out. Incidentally, my understanding is that the back flip is invincible. Something with will prove very useful for both the hard-hitting bosses, and the occasional hordes of enemy soldiers.
Still, the stealth elements and regular enemy combat provides you with plenty of things to play with during the game. There are a variety of attacks per weapon, making use of the tetsugen wire can make dispatching soldiers a barrel of fun. There are also lots of opportunities to set up the ever-entertaining stealth kills, which will help keep you stocked in healing materials for the more difficult traps and bosses. The story itself is really interesting, and there are character vocals provided by the same actor responsible for voicing Invader Zim, no less. There is a grading system at the end of each mission, which does inspire replay for those who really want to work on their timing.
While I am aware of the game's potentially fatal flaws, I'm finding it to be fun enough to want to play it all the way through. I'd recommend checking it out on the rental, since I know I haven't been able to find it new or used at any of my local retailers.
