Ninja Blade is a third-person action game exclusively for Xbox 360 from From Software. This development company has a long history established all the way back in 1986. But even for this long history they have not been able to have many breakout titles. Their most famous franchise is Armored Core which has spanned across numerous gaming platforms and has been critically mediocre. One of their big recent titles was Chromehounds which again was mediocre. But it must be noted that these games were not bad and the newer title has quite a niche following but just lacked some polish. Will Ninja Blade slice its way to the top or follow the company’s mediocre history?

Years ago in Africa an incident happened. An outbreak of a parasite, called alpha worms, ran amok and starts turning everyone into monsters. Containment was so difficult it was eventually nuked and a cover story was released.  This site was called Alpha site. After this threat appeared, a special team was created to survey the world and jump into foray whenever they appears again and so they did but they were always contained. Until August 12, 2015 in Tokyo where the game takes place. You play as a member of this special team and are dropped in to contain the infestation.

This premise sets up an over-the-top third-person action game similar to Ninja Gaiden. Some may same it’s a rip-off but it does diverge. Whereas in Ninja Gaiden has few or no quick-time-events (QTEs), a significant portion of your time on this ride will be trying to mash the correct button before you fail. A lot of people may be turned off right now but do not fret, if you fail, it just rewinds for you to do it again. If it is still too challenging or annoying for you, you can individually adjust the difficulty of the QTEs independently of the game difficulty. The action aspect is exactly like Ninja Gaiden though. You have a short range attack, a long range attack, block, and use of the glaive. You’ll be able to run along walls, up walls, and other stunts with relative ease. Wall running at a particular section was particularly difficult though because the controls are not that precise. Kill enemies to get orbs which can heal you or add to your bank to upgrade your weapons. Each weapon has a move list. The weapons are fairly generic; you have the quick and nimble swords, the middle of the road sword, and of course the giant hulking sword.  They do have some different abilities though so you’ll constantly be switching between them during battle. For example the giant sword breaks shields. The weapon switching is quick, easy, and natural. In addition to weapons, you’ll also have a glaive reminiscent of Dark Sector. You’ll gain elemental powers for it as the game progresses to combat different situations. Sometimes you’ll be blocked by fire so you’ll have to use its wind power to blow it out. Plus you’ll also have ninja vision ability which it sort of like bullet time. To round it all out you can pick up items throughout the game to increase your meters as well as bonus costumes. And let me tell you, the new outfits are the most ridiculous things you’ll ever see but they fit with the over the top, almost parody feeling of the game. The game is a mesh of great elements from other games but its biggest downfall is just a lack of polish. When I say Ninja Gaiden people probably wanted to rush out to get the game but if you persisted this far, the game is not as smooth. The controls aren’t as precise. The enemies are not as fun and the bosses are not that difficult. But remember to finish the mission because even though there are checkpoints throughout the approximately hour long missions, there are no saves. Therefore if you leave, you have to replay the entire thing over which is annoying. Overall Ninja Blade captures some of the magic of Ninja Gaiden but doesn’t achieve its excellence.

The graphics of Ninja Blade are hit and miss. The action looks great and the massive quick-time events are stylish and awesome to view provided to don’t keep messing up but it’s not as smooth as we have come to expect for these titles. The bosses fit well with the cheesy over-the-top action of the game but the regular enemies are generic and not that visually interesting. The levels are large and expansive but feel empty and devoid of personality. There is one mission that seems to have been pieced together from previous levels which, not because it was a bad idea, is just poorly executed and looks bad. The largest graphical snafu is the mid-mission loading. Every game has it and in this game it takes about a second, just like other games. But after it loads, you have apparently moved to sometimes new areas and it’s very disorienting. You can look forward to some stylish cut scenes and hilarious bosses but the rest is generic and drowned in lack of polish.

The sound isn’t going to win any awards either but it doesn’t particularly have any technical deficiencies other than it is just okay. There is music but none of it is particularly noteworthy. The voice acting is pretty decent and passes along the generic story fine. The sound effects are just what you expect but do not capture the magic of slicing people up like in Ninja Gaiden. It’s good enough to keep you in the game but people without a top of the line audio system won’t be missing much.

The story is an ounce of Resident Evil and the game is a pound of Ninja Gaiden on steroids. If you thought Ninja Gaiden was over the top, this game makes it look tame. The story is generic and predictable but serves to perpetuate the parody of it.  Unfortunately the smoothness and preciseness of the gameplay in the other series could not be matched for this title and for that it suffers. You can look forward to some stylish cut scenes and hilarious bosses but the rest is generic and drowned in lack of polish. It’s good enough to keep you in the game but people without a top of the line audio system won’t be missing much. Ninja Blade tries to be a parody of Ninja Gaiden and nearly pulls it off. The over the top action is hilariously cheesy. Unfortunately the lack of polish brings it down to an average game.

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