If you screw up by pressing a wrong button in the sequence, time will rewind and you’ll have to attempt the QTE again. Depending on how well you time your attacks, you’ll be rewarded with grades on your QTE’s such as “Perfect” and “Good.” If you don’t happen to like Ken’s look, players have the ability to change his outfit with a different designs and colors. It’s doesn’t add a whole new dimension to the title, but does provide a certain flare that not too many other action titles offer. On top of that, players have the ability to upgrade Ken’s weapons with orbs they have collected from their defeated enemies. While this is nothing new to the genre, it does allow for players to have some sort of replay value to max out their weapons.
Now moving onto the graphics, Ninja Blade has a certain level of great looking effects with sub-par environments to battle in. Many of the bosses don’t scream out as if they are original concepts – they are somewhat drab and expected for their artistic design. While I did find it a little more interesting than say Ninja Gaiden, the art just didn’t do much for my particular tastes. The levels on the other hand are heavily repeated as you’ll be fighting on city rooftops more often than not. The framerate does stuffer from time to time, but with such fast sword play going on with the animation and such short localization time from the Asian version, the game holds up better than I expected.
What’s the final word on Ninja Blade? Well for one, it plays as if it was a smash-up combination of the PlayStation 2’s God of War (for its QTE’s and cinematic approach) and Shinobi (for its sense of speed and combat similarities). It’s a title nowhere near the upper echelon of Xbox 360 titles, but it’ll fit quite well in a catalogue for gamers who prefer action-oriented games over the standard first-person shooter fare that overruns the Xbox 360 game library.
