Side-note that I have to put here because I didn't know where else it would fit in: you can loot enemy corpses by crouching over them, but it doesn't always work the first time and you need to do it several times. My inner 12-year-old loves that, because this might actually be the first game where you - albeit accidentally - teabag fallen enemies.
Coming out a full 2 and a half years after the original (quite a long time in those days), Tenchu 2 marks a big narrative upgrade from its predecessor.
In contrast to the first game's mission-based structure that eventually coalesced into a kill-the-big-bad plot at the end, Birth of the Stealth Assassins features a large-scale story arc that grabs you right from the start and is reasonably well-written. It's nice to be able to see a chronological prequel which reveals a more naive "young shounen protagonist" side to the stoic Rikimaru and a more vulnerable side to the prickly Ayame - and the ability to play through the story from the POV of three different characters (one unlockable) adds a good amount of depth and replayability.
From a gameplay point of view, there's a bigger range of cool stealth-kill animations, controls have been made slightly smoother I guess, but the big addition to this is the map-maker mode, which is bare-bones by today's standards but was a rarity in those days, and a very welcome addition.
These upgrades all come with a very big caveat though - and that is that the moment-to-moment gameplay in stealth and combat still feels extremely janky. The majority of levels here are set in wide open spaces, which exacerbates the problem of poor draw distance and makes 'stealth' more an exercise in "standing just outside your enemies' pitiful peripheral vision" rather than running around rooftops and generally using terrain to hide yourself. And don't get me started on the water levels!
Combat is alternately smooth and clunky depending on how the game feels like; one guy who I assume is supposed to be a climactic boss fight didn't land a hit on me because he spent the entire fight facing away from me (?!)
I can't be too harsh on this game for its shortcomings - I feel that this was about as far as the engine and the hardware could take it. Nevertheless, I had to tap out halfway through Tatsu's bonus missions and watch the cutscenes on YouTube because playing it was starting to become a chore.
Coming out a full 2 and a half years after the original (quite a long time in those days), Tenchu 2 marks a big narrative upgrade from its predecessor.
In contrast to the first game's mission-based structure that eventually coalesced into a kill-the-big-bad plot at the end, Birth of the Stealth Assassins features a large-scale story arc that grabs you right from the start and is reasonably well-written. It's nice to be able to see a chronological prequel which reveals a more naive "young shounen protagonist" side to the stoic Rikimaru and a more vulnerable side to the prickly Ayame - and the ability to play through the story from the POV of three different characters (one unlockable) adds a good amount of depth and replayability.
From a gameplay point of view, there's a bigger range of cool stealth-kill animations, controls have been made slightly smoother I guess, but the big addition to this is the map-maker mode, which is bare-bones by today's standards but was a rarity in those days, and a very welcome addition.
These upgrades all come with a very big caveat though - and that is that the moment-to-moment gameplay in stealth and combat still feels extremely janky. The majority of levels here are set in wide open spaces, which exacerbates the problem of poor draw distance and makes 'stealth' more an exercise in "standing just outside your enemies' pitiful peripheral vision" rather than running around rooftops and generally using terrain to hide yourself. And don't get me started on the water levels!
Combat is alternately smooth and clunky depending on how the game feels like; one guy who I assume is supposed to be a climactic boss fight didn't land a hit on me because he spent the entire fight facing away from me (?!)
I can't be too harsh on this game for its shortcomings - I feel that this was about as far as the engine and the hardware could take it. Nevertheless, I had to tap out halfway through Tatsu's bonus missions and watch the cutscenes on YouTube because playing it was starting to become a chore.