The first time I heard of Mini Ninjas I laughed so hard I feel of my chair. Afterwards the idea didn't sound so dumb. Since it's basically one out of 2,3 games in September I'm interested in I had to play it. You play the role of Hiro, a young ninja who is the last warrior who must deffend his village. The game starts with a cool cinematic explaining what actually happened to the land, and what you must do to defend it.
In the first 15 minutes or so you will already be buried under a pile of fetch quests, which get very repetitive. From the beginning, you are accompanied with your lifelong friend, Futo, who is one of the biggest ninjas in the village, but still talented. The graphics don't exceed what a normal Xbox can take, actually you can say the graphcis are on quite low level, but it suits the game extremelly well. Often you will be thrown in a pile of enemies, which you must take down in a repetitive way - bashing X for a slice, or Y if the opponent is guarding, to stun them. Then, you bash X. There are curtain special moves which help you take out more enemies at once, but after doing that a few times it get's boring. You can take down enemies as a stealth ninja, without them even knowing, or you can run in the circle and beat 'em all up.
The missions don't warry much. Go get that, get him, take that, and use this. You will probably get sick of these quests, which is what makes the whole story mode. Playing as Futo doesn't get you anything revolutionary, just different moves, same damage. By holding RB you can see that there are 6 Ninjas in total, which you must unlock one by one. The colors in the game are beautiful. It's everything but not dark, and it's just eye-candy. You don't get much music, just voice acting which is nothing more then enjoyable. This is one of those games which don't offer any replay value, you beat it [I doubt anyone will even beat it] once, and you leave it on a shelf for the rest of your life. This is not a game for everyone, it's not even for kids. Those who want to play it better rent for a small amount of money, just to check it out, but nothing more then that.
Cod3r
