Reviews

Take a pinch of God of War, a sprinkling of Resident Evil, a drop of Ninja Gaiden and a dab of Prince of Persia and what do you get? Ninja Blade of course. YATA!!!

You are Ken Ogawa, Ninja member of the G.U.I.D.E Squad, whose job it is to stop the infection of Alpha-worms upon humans and plants before it turns them into zombie monsters of varying sizes. Ninjas versus zombies makes a good combination in an action game like this, as who could be better suited to cutting zombies to pieces than Ninjas?

Thanks. You're not so bad yourself.

Ninja Blade takes recognizable elements from several iconic games and mashes them together. What could have been a derivative mishmash of influences actually forms a sort of greatest hits parade, in other words, we get all the good bits of the aforementioned games minus the dull bits. Usually you'd fight minions/henchmen, then larger penultimate enemies before facing a whacking great boss at the end of the level. Ninja Blade turns this on its head so you're fighting bosses first and foremost, with the occasional henchman zombie face off afterwards.

It's a really cool idea and will no doubt cause hack n' slash fans to do a Darth Maul routine in their bedroom out of sheer joy. Your character, Ken, is the sort of clean-up guy you'd need for the Cloverfield monster - except this is the year 2015 and the Alpha-worm outbreak in Tokyo is so bad that he's practically working 24/7. Your first task is to practice some moves on zombies in an office building.

Did your mother never warn you about running with swords?

You can perform various combos with your sword, with the most hits in a row bagging you the biggest points. As well as your trusty sword, you have at your disposal super speed (handy for dodging flaming rocks vomited by giant slugs) and a Cyclone Shuriken, or throwing star. Both your sword and shuriken can be upgraded once you have enough blood crystals, which burst out of infected enemies upon death.