The biggest problem with the game play (among many problems) is the AI. Enemies follow their basic patrol route with no deviation. I’ll accept that, since the point of the game is to lie in wait until the perfect moment to strike, but they do not react to changes in their environment at all. They don’t notice missing comrades, or anything out of their immediate cone of vision, for that matter. If they are alerted to your presence, they will give chase, but all the gamer has to do to elude the pursuer is turn a corner. It’s really that simple! Once you’ve given them the slip, the enemy will return to his normal patrol as if nothing ever happened. Someone at From Software forgot that 50% of “A.I.” is intelligence.
Yet another flaw with regard to game play is the repetition from mission to mission. The majority of the missions will ask you to sneak into a city or castle to assassinate an enemy of Goda. A few others will instead ask you to meet someone, or collect something, but the basic formula is get from point A to point B. You’ll be dropped outside the city gates, where you can either run in screaming and finish the mission in seconds, or sneak around and kill as many guards as possible. When I played the game as the developers intended, I was able to put a lot of the flaws in the back of my mind, and actually enjoy sneaking around and making the most of the game, but it got too repetitive after 8 missions or so. Couple the repetitive missions with the handful of building and scenery varieties, and this game does not have a lot of replay value.
The environments themselves are fraught with flaws. Your character will often get hung up when rounding corners too close to a wall. Another problem involves the stealth meter, which tells you how visible you are to the guards. It seems as if the values are predefined, and do not relate to the surroundings at all. For instance, creeping along “wall x” will give you a certain measurement on the meter, and passing in front of a lit torch does not move the meter at all. Creeping in and out of visible shadows often has no effect on the meter either. It seems like the developers assigned value to certain areas of the environment with out regard to the contents of that area.
Fighting is very, very basic in Tenchu Z, with only one button required. Your best bet is to avoid direct combat altogether, and opt for the stealth kill. This means you can shift your attributes to maximize speed at the expense of strength and vitality. If you engage in combat, you’ll deal with an awkward camera that will constantly need to be adjusted via the right stick. This does not work well, as you will continually need to change from button mashing to camera adjusting throughout the fight. Your right index finger will take some abuse, as the right bumper is held to crouch. Creeping around can often require holding the button depressed for several minutes at a time. After a few missions, your index finger will feel the abuse.
Tenchu Z has an impressive array of items to take with you into a mission. From shuriken, to grenades, to poisons, the selection is vast. As with everything else in this game, something that sounds good is actually flawed. You don’t need any of these items to complete a mission. In fact, you get a bonus at the end of the mission for not using any items. All of these cool ninja goodies are nothing more than unneeded window dressing.
The soundtrack is the one area where there is not much to complain about. The in-game music keeps with the Japanese theme of the game and stays nicely in the background, without dominating the game at all. The voice acting is 100% Japanese, so it could be great, or it could be terrible, without me knowing. In keeping with the pattern that every aspect of this game has a flaw, I assume it’s terrible, but I’m blissfully unaware of it.
Tenchu Z may be a game that only fans of the series, or fans of stealth games could love. Some fatal flaw bogs down every aspect of this title that shows a glimmer of promise. You would have to be a true fanboy to overlook all of these flaws. I have to believe that most gamers would rather perform the rite of Hara-kiri than play this game.
