Tenchu: Stealth Assassins for Sony Playstation
Developed by Activision

Tenchu is set in 16th century feudal Japan, in the days of ninja and samurai. You assume the role of a ninja, either male or female, with all the talents and abilities you would expect. The male ninja, Rikimaru, wields a katana, is very powerful, but is slow of foot, and not very adept at stealth. The female ninja, Ayame, wields two small daggers and is not as strong, but she is fast and much more suited to being stealthy.

Each of them can also choose from a range of other items like shuriken (throwing stars), caltrops (razor sharp four-pointed items shaped like jacks to be dropped behind you to slow pursuers), smoke bombs and grenades. The most useful item, however, is the grappling hook.

Using the hook, you can climb onto the roofs of buildings, making your way from place to place undetected. In fact, stealth is the key to the game, both in terms of success and enjoyment.

The game hinges on your success in avoiding detection. A meter at the corner of the screen lets you know how close you are to an enemy, and gives you feedback on your "status" with that enemy. If your meter is a question mark, the enemy has no idea where you are, and the point is to keep it that way.

The easiest way is to monitor your enemy from the roof, since they almost never look there, and wait until they turn away from you. When their back is turned, you can leap or roll off the roof to the ground and attack. If you get the attack off without being seen, you will succeed in killing your enemy with one strike.

The ultimate is when you get close enough to an oblivious enemy, you are rewarded with a cut scene. This amounts to an animation being shown of your character assassinating the enemy in some suitably gruesome way, such as slitting his throat, or stabbing your sword clean through his belly to come out his back.

If your meter turns to an exclamation point, you've been spotted, but you have not yet been identified as an enemy. Usually slowly slinking away into the shadows results in your enemies dropping their guard once again. If you are made as an enemy, however, your meter will turn into a flashing red double exclamation point, and your enemy (or enemies) will attack with intent to kill.

At this point, the best strategy is to run and find a safe spot to grappling hook to the roof. If you manage this, your meter becomes a question mark and exclamation point, meaning that your enemies have lost you, but are actively searching for you, including on the roof. Once you make it to the roof, though, they will always lose interest eventually.

The advantage of staying invisible becomes fairly obvious by the middle of the second level, so it is imperative that you master this skill as soon as possible, to further your enjoyment and your progress. It is possible to battle hand-to-hand with enemies that have spotted you, but it is not as rewarding as stealthy assassination, and in later levels, it can be quite difficult.

You are rated during each stage by being awarded or deducted points for certain events. Undetected kills score big while "necessary" kills (meaning you kill someone who has spotted you) score less.

Being seen deducts points, while killing an innocent does the same. If you score high enough you attain the rating of "Master Ninja," a rating which previously only Lee Van Cleef had attained, or even "Grand Master," the highest possible rating.

The gameplay itself can take some getting used to, as the camera angle can be a little disorienting at times, but once you get accustomed to it, it isn't hard. You have the typical buttons, jump, attack, use item, and so on, and each responds quickly. One very important button on your controller serves as the "look around" button. When depressed, the camera takes on a first-person look, as though seeing through your character's eyes.

Moving the D-Pad will in turn make your character look up or down, left or right. This function is extremely useful while you're on a roof waiting for that blissfully ignorant guard to turn away from you. The game does not support analog control, which is somewhat disappointing, but it does support force feedback, but the extent of its use is minimal.

During battle, your options are minimal, limited to mainly mashing the attack button, and pushing down on the D-pad to block. Each character also has a combination that they do with their weapon, each blow causing slightly more damage than the last, but often the last blow leaves you open to retaliation.

The sound, music and graphics are all very good. Not surprisingly, the music has a very Japanese feel, and while it can get a bit repetitive (as most video game music does) it usually just fades into the background if you're immersed in the game. The weapons sounds are great, from snapping bowstrings to clashing blades to exploding grenades, while the speech is sparse, but acceptable.

The pre-stage narrations are fine, but some of the in-game speech is a bit cheesy. The guards uttering a hateful "You!" upon spotting you, or lamenting "Where are you?" once you've lost them are all right, but the full motion video in which you battle a samurai that tells you "Looks like you chose the wrong party to crash" in a poor Japanese accent is just cheesy.

Tenchu overcomes its few minor flaws to be an excellent game, and one I'm glad to have in my collection. The game is fairly easily learned, but difficult to master, kind of like Othello. The difficulty level is significant to begin with, and it only increases as the levels progress. There are ten levels in all, and coupled with the difficulty level, this game could potentially take quite a while to complete, even for the experienced gamer.

Having two characters boosts the replay value a bit, and if you're a real perfectionist, you might feel compelled to finish every stage as a "Master Ninja", but I don't think my Lee Van Cleef aspirations are that high. I might just settle for the Timothy Van Patten rating.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Mario Speedwagon