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Review : Tenchu Z for Xbox 360
Since it came out last week I've been playing Tenchu Z for the Xbox 360. Now that I throughly sunken my teeth into it I feel qualified to review it. There has been some really nasty reviews of this game on the internet but what I think they are based on is that they were expecting a different game. The Tenchu games have been a cult hit in Japan and while they did some gradual evolutionary changes to the series it is still pretty much the same game as it was back in the PSOne days for better or worse. I think for the better. I have both of the Tenchu games for the PSOne, the two sequels on the PS2, the port of Wrath of Heaven for the Xbox One and the PSP game that only came out in Japan. (There was a 2-D Nintendo DS game but I have stayed away from it)
Tenchu Z is a new original game made for the Xbox 360 and it is pretty nice to see some good Japanese developed games on the 360 that weren't developed by Capcom. The Tenchu games are all about stealth. You play a ninja under the employ of a benevolent war lord who is sent on various missions that involve sneaking around a fortress or village and sliding your sword into the back of enemy guards and ninjas. The concept of the stealth kill is very important and takes them down with one blow. However if you are discovered fighting an armed enemy takes a bit longer and they will almost always call more of their friends to gang up on you. It is usually better to run off and wait for things to calm down. Now the ridiculously short amount of time that it takes for the bad guys to relax and go about their duty after spotting you is down right comically short. However if you want you can play the game at a higher difficulty level and then they will remember where you were and be a bit more tenacious. One cool thing is that the silent kills can happen if the bad guys see you but you stick them before they get a chance to draw their swords. There are a bunch of Xbox Live achievements that are triggered by a certain number of silent kills. But it is still a bit humorous when they just shrug off the gutted corpse of their fellow henchmen since they have not seen you for a good twenty second and they put their guard down only to have their neck slit by your blade after you come out of hiding. It is quite an M rated game.
One of the added things to this games is that not only can the bad guys see you and hear you but they can smell you. If you been fighting bad guys instead of using the super convenient slice and dice stealth kills and you get your outfit splattered in blood and the bad guys will remark at how funky you smell. One of the necessary items to carry is super secret ninja deodorant and to clean up your funk after a few particular bloody kills so that you won't alert them with your musky bloody body oder. They also tweaked the button layout and changed how some commands are done. The grapple and hook are way toned down are are much more realistic in this game.
Now rather than playing as the main characters from the previous games you must design a new ninja, use the money from previous missions to buy upgrades, equipment and outfits for your ninja.
The levels look awesome and are authentically designed and detailed by Japanese developers who know what they are doing. Sometimes they reuse the layout for a level and there is some definite repetition because of it. Most of the missions tend to be about killing a particular bad guy and once you know where they hand out you can either jump right there and get a low score for the mission or you can take your time and kill all of their henchmen one by one before slitting the throat of the corrupt official or monk or whoever you've been ordered to take out.
One of the coolest feature of this game is the inclusion of Xbox Live game-play. You can put together a team of up to four other Ninjas over Xbox Live and on the assassination missions they tend to go quick since everybody runs for the boss and avoids the underlings but there are a few missions that tend to lend themselves to Xbox live.
It is pretty nifty to see a nice Japanese game on the Xbox 360 and over this is exactly the kind of game that I would expect to see on the Playstation 3. While previous US releases of Tenchu games were dubbed with rather humorous and questionable taste this game has unaltered Japanese dialog with subtitles in the cut scenes but no translation of what the in game characters say during a mission. Some in game subtitles or and optional english track would have been cool but I still like it since I can speak lots of Japanese and I can sort of piece together the bulk of what they are trying to say.
One of the coolest missions involved European sailors that are dressed like pirates and you get to fight them and kill them. Yes that is right a ninja game where you get to slaughter pirates. It's awesome, you totally flip out like a ninja and waste like 20 guys without even thinking about it.
If you really like ninjas and samurai movies or the previous Tenchu games than you are bound to like this. If your upset that it's not another Splinter Cell game then you should probably pass it up. I think that this is a well make cult classic that is not for every gamer out there but ultimately I am really glad that Microsoft decided to publish this game in the US. I knew what I was expecting with this game. I was expecting another Tenchu game and I was not disappointed.
Jake at June 18, 2007 
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Comments
What I missed in the game was something new, it was more like a port of the PS2 version with HD graphics to Xbox 360.
I'd rather play the PSX originals.
Posted by: Jim at August 18, 2007 11:16 AM
