I-Ninja is a great game. I've had this game for a long, long time (since about eight grade), and I just now have gotten around to beating it. I-Ninja is essentially a straight up platforming game, with a few elements of hack-and-slash combat thrown in to break up the running, jumping, and swinging. The story is as it should (typically) be in a platforming title: minimal. You are a tiny, big-headed ninja bent on collecting the forbidden rage stones. The end.
Very much like most other platformers, the game mechnics revolve around advancing the game through the repeated collection of an item (in this case, "grades") offered at the end of every level objective, such as the stars in Mario 64 or the power cells in Jak and Daxter. This can get a bit tiresome, however, and usually results in shorter, but more frequent play sessions.
The aforementioned primary game mechanic calls for interesting and varied level design to keep things fresh, and this game has plenty. The levels in the game are all very different, with tasks ranging from swinging your way through levels via your retractable chain to boxing Punch-Out style inside of gigantic robots.
Ninja's (yes, your character is simply called "Ninja") abilities are quite diverse. Throughout the game you will attack enemies with your sword, blow darts, swing from grapple points, use your sword as a propeller to hover safely down to earth, grind on rails, run along walls, hurl shurikens, ride on giant shurikens and balance yourself atop spherical objects and roll them about, and use half-pipe structures to build up vertical speed. Ninja's movements and controls are tight and responsive (although the proper timing for the sword helicopter maneuver is a little ambiguous), and moving through the levels feels great.
Overall, the game is not a tremendous challenge. It sits comfortably at a moderate skill level, offering several difficult challenges, but not punishing players too harshly for their mistakes. Aside from a few weird but unintrusive bugs here and there (sometimes Ninja's wall run did not register properly or a chain grapple that was clearly within range did not activate) and the mild tedium of the collection game mechanics, this is a great example of the platforming genre.
Platforming games are a dying breed among the modern game industry, which is a shame because they have always been some of my favorites. The only way to play really good platforming games today is to go back to the "golden days of gameplay" before story became such a huge focus. Don't get me wrong, I like games with great stories. The Metal Gear Saga is one of my favorite stories of any medium. But to me a game with engaging, responsive, twitch and reflex-based gameplay will triumph every time. Check this one out.
Verdict: Recommended
