This game is not very good. I had a very good time though. It’s flawed, but oozes charm. Like, the bizarre dialogue coupled with iffy voice acting with an extra dose of horrible sound mixing should be a recipe for a bad time. But I found it very endearing. The actual story is not good, though. It starts off interesting, but has absolutely zero pay-off in any way, shape, or form. I don’t know if this is a time or budget constraint or it’s just bad on its own. Either way, it doesn't really matter to me.
The gameplay is a mix of linear combat levels, with some minigames and exploration of the police station in between them. The minigames are fun on the first go, but I never went back for seconds. And exploring the station was fun the first time, but after that you just kinda mindlessly run around it looking for new intel pick-ups after every level. It’s nothing special, but offers a nice repose from the combat. The combat is pretty simple, but effective. You have a sword, and some guns. I mostly played aggressively, not using guns for the most part. Just slashing around, and finding it very fun. Attacking, and parrying. This being a game made by former Ninja Gaiden devs, I’m sure there’s plenty of secret techniques that deepen the combat. But I’m a scrub, and don’t know anything about that. I did discover block canceling tho, and felt like a genius. The actual game is pretty hard. Those ninjas, man… A nice challenge is a good thing, but the checkpoint placement really grinded my gears. Dying could mean having to repeat like 5 minutes of constant combat which gets pretty annoying. But other than that, I honestly had a fun time.

Reviewed on Mar 09, 2023


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