Refraction Reviews - Mark of the Ninja
Stealth is one of my favorite genres, so forgive any bias I hold with rating this well or not if I find it to be lacking in the actual need for stealth action.
I first heard of "Mark of the Ninja" when watching a YouTuber by the username Gaijin Goomba going through and looking at games that, supposedly, have "ninja" in them. His problem was, of course, that none of the ninja being shown off were real ninja. Ninja Gaiden, for all of the flashy material it shows, does not show Ryu Hyabusa doing anything remotely "ninja"-like. Instead it has him out in the open murdering hundreds of demons at a time, not using stealth and subtlety like real ninja were trained for. Other games feature ninja as a background ideal to an otherwise flashy and in the open character. Then he seems to stumble upon this gem, Mark of the Ninja, which is a quirky, stylized art, 2D stealth game featuring a ninja doing...actual ninja things: sticking to the shadows to remain undetected, trying not to draw attention to himself, and given the option between leaving his opponents untouched or killing them, but getting the highest bonus for leaving all enemies untouched wherever he goes.
Come late 2016, I finally pick this game up and play it for the very first time. It wasn't that I didn't want to, though, I just had other priorities and Mark of the Ninja continued to slip out of my priority list Hooray for bad excuses? Either way, Klei Entertainment was a company I had heard nothing but good about. Mark of the Ninja, Invisible Inc., and Don't Starve are the works that I had heard their name on primarily, so it wasn't like I was entirely unconvinced that the game I wanted so badly wasn't going to be a good game. I finally bought it, left it for a while, then started to play it once I had nothing better to do. Yay for faulty prioritizing, right?
What stuck out first to me is an art style reflecting old cartoons like Samurai Jack or Johnny Bravo. It was a strange thing to see a video game capture something of an older essence of cartoony style right away, along with mixing in some other elements of Japanese painting art when talking about the backstory behind the centerpiece to the whole game-. An older man talks about an "ink" that bestows upon its user a great power, and the more marks that are given, the more the power grows. But the power comes at a great cost, slowly draining the person of their very essence and being and turning them into a demon. Be it from the power or just the corrupting essence of the ink itself, who would know? All we do know, is that the player has received the mark, which marks him for great things. However, it also marks him for death, the honorable art of seppuku to be precise. After this bit of story, the player character is awoken by a female ninja who claims that she is here to help, then saying, "Rule number one? Don't get me killed." Way to show a trust in the player's ability, girl. From here, the game begins to introduce the mechanics, and there's a lot of things to go through.
The protagonist bears the "mark", which gives him the ability to focus and stop time temporarily. During this time, he can line up shots from his bamboo darts to take out lights, hit switches, hit guards to distract them, hit noise making objects in order to cause distractions, etc. This focus also applies to the ninja's distraction tools and thrown weaponry, allowing him to precisely aim where he want to drop his tool with all of the time in the world to do so. This allows for imaginative and creative ways of getting into position within a momentary window, lining up the shots, and getting the tools out before immediately falling out of the window of opportunity and back into safety, or harm if you messed up.
Staying in the darkness is a key factor to the game, as well as an interesting take on line-of-sight. The player character cannot see past walls, and this is shown off by the fact that the screen becomes muted and darkened beyond walls or objects that the character's eyes cannot see past. This affects guards too, as well as the darkness. Being in light means that guards can see the character from far away, even if only glimpses. While useful for distractions if used right, it can also be detrimental if the player accidentally steps into light while a guard is close by, as it will immediately raise an alarm because the player character has been caught. When in darkness, guards can still see, but it is limited to their short peripheral cone right in front of them. This is very possible, if risky, to hop right over and leave the guard completely unaware that you were ever there.
There are other ways of staying out of sight from guards other than just using the darkness. The game utilizes hiding spaces scattered about a map and the ninja is incredibly acrobatic. With good timing, the protagonist can leap above a guard's head to bypass them. Otherwise, there are plenty of different ways of bypassing guards, such as climbing around walls, creating a distraction to get them to look the other way or head somewhere else to investigate while the player makes his way through. In fact, the game has many situations that can all be handled in a multitude of different paths. A direct approach can be useful, but more often than not is more trouble than the route is worth. There are many other indirect paths, or ways of distracting guards to create an opening through which to slip by, and the list goes on.
On the topic of distractions, this game utilizes a clever system of indicating how far noise travels. When a sound occurs, a ring goes out on the screen that indicates how far the sound reached and who can hear it. If an enemy is within range of the circle, they will hear it and wonder what the heck just happened, creating a distraction, or potentially leading guards right to you if you made a mistake in your movement or working with the surroundings. Everything that you can do generates sound, and even background elements interacting with each other creates sound, cluing a player in on where a sound is coming from in some instances. If there had to be a "sound" system, this is the most clever way to do it I've ever seen, as it gives players a clear indication of how sound works and how to be aware of it.
Should the player character choose to murder enemies to eliminate them, a small "quick-time" action appears, forcing the player to carefully time their kill action. This adds an element of risk to assassination, but not because of what one might think. If you fail the mini QTE, the character still kills the guard, but in a far noisier fashion that is likely to draw attention. Succeeding the event earns the player a silent kill, and more points for the kill than would otherwise be rewarded. And speaking of points...
At the end of every level, the game scores the player and awards "honor" tokens based on how much work was achieved. There are three honor tokens in each of three categories. There is the general score, with the highest one being achievable through exceptional performance and use of the multipliers throughout the levels, then there are scrolls hidden throughout each level that subtlety add to the story and award honor tokens, and there are optional "seals" to complete in each level that require the ninja to handle situations in a specific fashion.
The score is tallied up throughout the level in various ways. Obtaining scrolls in the levels adds points, picking up "artifacts" adds points, creating distractions adds points, killing guards adds points as does hiding their bodies. Completing objectives, both optional and not, adds points. From there, however, the end of the level performs a final tally of four elements: Enemies that were passed by without detection, enemies distracted, and then whether or not enemies were killed or alarms were raised is checked. If neither one happened, a large boost of points is given, and the largest point multipliers come from passing by all the guards with either distractions or simply leaving them alone and not getting caught. It is possible to pass the level three score tier, however, simply by killing every single enemy in creative ways or performing a silent kill every time and then working to hide their bodies, if possible. This would mean that the ninja turned into an assassin from which no one was safe, which has graver implications in the story, but more on that later.
The seals contribute to more than just the honor points. Completion of three seals of four given types unlocks a new "path" for the ninja to use. These four paths are the Path of Might, Nightmare, Silence, and The Hunter. Each of these is balanced by the fact that, while they offer advantages, they also offer disadvantages. For example, my favorite path if Path of Silence. Killing enemies is not an option. Not even knocking them out is an option. Instead, the Path of Silence makes no noise when running and can use two different distraction items. The other paths are all similar in this regard, meaning there is no "best" costume, just one that suits a player's playstyle better than the rest, and all have to be earned through completing the challenges.
The scrolls are well hidden and hard to find, but offer more to the story when found and reward points and honor tokens. The implications range from mild and subtle, often in the forms of poems or proverbs, to borderline spelling out the reality of the ink and the history of the ninja clan. Sometimes scrolls are also hidden with an interesting mini-game, asking the player to think outside the box with their skills or use basic puzzle solving skills in order to achieve the scroll. These scrolls are the most related to the plot concerning the ink and the dangers, as well as the history of those who bore it.
Let's focus now on the story as well as the scenarios presented. The story opens up, like I mentioned, with the character being awoken by a female ninja concerning an alarm bell being rang. The ninja dojo is under attack by armed men and it's up to the player to gather his tools, save the other ninja, and most importantly, save the master of the dojo, Master Azai, from an untimely demise to these brutish thugs. This is a full tutorial level, but that doesn't stop it from punishing the player for mistakes. This game does not hold the player's hand at any point, allowing them much freedom...and also allowing for plenty of mistakes to be made that could cost the player dearly, and that much is shown in just the first level.
Upon rescuing the master and the ninja, we learn about the story of the ninja mark, about the power is bestows, and also about the dangers it comes with. The first ninja ever to bear it did so with pride, before he fell to its corrupting power. He laid waste to all he had done and became as a demon, finally being felled...but his fall would serve as a warning to any who would accept the mark. It is now customary to have those who take the mark take it for one very dangerous mission before committing seppuku to preserve himself, and the clan. Then, our protagonist is tasked with killing his target, Karajan. Karajan led the attack on the ninja dojo, presumably because Azai attempted to steal from him. Because he transgressed on the clan, the protagonist will find him and kill him at whatever cost necessary.
The protagonist makes his way to Karajan's tower in the city through several levels, all of which lend a creative streak to the game. The first level centers around cutting power and making progress through a tall tower while the power is slowly brought back online by the technicians, all the while having to avoid guards through quick thinking and actions. It is followed by a small level introducing dogs as well as trailing a man with a tracking device that keeps track of Karajan's location, followed by a frantic escape. The protagonist then lights a building on fire right outside of Karajan's offices, to create a distraction by which to infiltrate, before chasing after Karajan himself.
The protagonist fails to catch Karajan thanks to the interference of his right hand man, Corporal Kelly. The time it takes to deal with this honor-bound and highly frustrated warrior lets Karajan escape by helicopter. However, one problem remains for the man: the ninja still have a tracking device with his name on it. The protagonist is given his second mark, which allows him the ability of "farsight". It allows him to see through walls, see people that sight alone cannot see, and see wiring to electronic devices, or just what device is attached to what trigger in general. Then come some more difficult levels as the ninja makes his way into Karajan's castle. The ninja finally gets to Karajan and ends his sad existence as a man marked for death and the protagonist makes his way home.
It is here the protagonist finds something terrifying. Azai has brought back armor, guns, and specialized tools from Karajan's collections. The female ninja convinces the protagonist, with help of a note left by a kind old man who was responsible for giving the marks, saying that Azai has lied to the more "true" of the ninja, in particular about the status of the ink flowers and the greenhouse they're kept in. The protagonist refuses to commit seppuku and instead flees to go find out the truth about the flowers. They are in the middle of a desert, guarded by bandits who wish to take the power of the ink themselves, and are holding the old man, Dosan, in hopes that he will tell them how to harness the power. The protagonist retrieves the key to Dosan's chains, as well as his tools and some of the remaining "sumi" and there the protagonist learns the truth. The flowers that have given the ink in the past are now dead. All of them. There are no seeds left to continue creating the sumi with. Azai, then, wished to capture the technology to replace the now faltering power of the mark.
Dosan, in a last ditch effort to allow the protagonist revenge upon Azai, gives the protagonist one final mark: the mark of serenity. With it, the protagonist can vanish and reappear in a spot in the blink of an eye, without ever triggering anything he passes. It is with this mark that the protagonist must now attempt to evade the stalkers, which have tracked him down and have killed Dosan after he gave the protagonist the last mark. The protagonist evades the stalkers, ninja armed with the technology that allows them vision, speed and combat ability nearly matching the protagonists, and then the protagonist makes his way back to the dojo. It is here that the mark finally begins to strongly take its toll and the protagonist must face the dangers of the mark. Hallucinations begin to occur, ones so strong that the ninja actually sees things that aren't there. Ninja walking around on patrol are seen as the thuggish guards of Karajan, but upon their death, their true nature is revealed. It is in this state that the ninja confronts Azai about the flowers, the ink, everything...only to learn a horrifying truth. It may be that the female ninja that has been guiding him is also a hallucination, the demonic side of the ink seeking to wrest control over him, altering reality around him at every turn, making the protagonist question his very own decisions from the very start of the game.
The ninja is finally given a choice. Kill master Azai and get revenge for Dosan, for being lied to...or, take the path of the greater good and end himself before he becomes a demon. Neither choice is a good choice. On the one hand, Azai is murdered, but the character becomes a demon and becomes something terrifying, and maybe even unstoppable now that there is no more ink to contest with him. Or, he kills himself, leaving Azai to reform the ninja in what may be viewed as a dishonorable way.
Either way, it is finally revealed through both the truth about the female ninja and it leads to far more questions than answers are available for. Just what was seen by the ninja? How much of what was seen was actually real? How much control over their own actions did the protagonist have from the beginning? The female ninja was, in fact, a manifestation of the ink attempting to coerce the player into giving in, in very subtle ways. It had a mind for self-preservation, often aiding the player rather than hindering the player, but ever on it urged for bloodshed, for trickery, for dishonest and dishonorable tactics. In the end, it may be viewed that she was more evil than Azai ever was, for Azai committed evil to save the ninja clan from falling into oblivion.
The way the story ends is incredibly thought provoking and exceptionally well done. There is no "good ending". It is simply a choice of what the player believes in. Committing revenge at the cost of falling prey to the ink? Or saving everyone, even the worst of people, by ending the ninja's life and preventing the demonic ink from manifesting itself? Either way, there are plenty of downsides and neither one is truly worse than the other, depending on the point of view that it is examined from.
I love this game, and I love how its designed, its levels, its gameplay, its story. That being said, I do take some issue with it as a whole. The freedom of choice is breathtaking and the punishment for failure is harsh, but there are times that the game feels too tight in what it demands. Seals often require the player to go out of their way for them and feel forced, rather than a natural progression through the level and offering themselves as possible options. The scrolls, while not always a bother, can be a terrible nuisance to obtain or require very strict timing or strategy that breaks from what the player wants to try and do in the level. A good example of this early on is a scroll that is in a room defended by a laser that, when tripped, brings a turret from the wall. To bypass this, the player either has to be fast enough to open the door, run in, grab the scroll, run back and close the door before the laser is tripped...take the alarm and just run from the room and wait out the alarm, or kill the guard below and bring him up so the laser turns off when it gets close to the dead body. One option is very difficult, the others simply break from what the player might want to try with the level, such as not tripping alarms, or not killing anyone.
However, overall, that's only one gripe and it's a nitpick of all things. This game is a masterful creation and a game worth the money spent for it. If you have not played this game, please, play it even just once. It is an experience worth enjoying, and one worth going back to again and again. This is a real gem and one that should be recognized as such.
I first heard of "Mark of the Ninja" when watching a YouTuber by the username Gaijin Goomba going through and looking at games that, supposedly, have "ninja" in them. His problem was, of course, that none of the ninja being shown off were real ninja. Ninja Gaiden, for all of the flashy material it shows, does not show Ryu Hyabusa doing anything remotely "ninja"-like. Instead it has him out in the open murdering hundreds of demons at a time, not using stealth and subtlety like real ninja were trained for. Other games feature ninja as a background ideal to an otherwise flashy and in the open character. Then he seems to stumble upon this gem, Mark of the Ninja, which is a quirky, stylized art, 2D stealth game featuring a ninja doing...actual ninja things: sticking to the shadows to remain undetected, trying not to draw attention to himself, and given the option between leaving his opponents untouched or killing them, but getting the highest bonus for leaving all enemies untouched wherever he goes.
Come late 2016, I finally pick this game up and play it for the very first time. It wasn't that I didn't want to, though, I just had other priorities and Mark of the Ninja continued to slip out of my priority list Hooray for bad excuses? Either way, Klei Entertainment was a company I had heard nothing but good about. Mark of the Ninja, Invisible Inc., and Don't Starve are the works that I had heard their name on primarily, so it wasn't like I was entirely unconvinced that the game I wanted so badly wasn't going to be a good game. I finally bought it, left it for a while, then started to play it once I had nothing better to do. Yay for faulty prioritizing, right?
What stuck out first to me is an art style reflecting old cartoons like Samurai Jack or Johnny Bravo. It was a strange thing to see a video game capture something of an older essence of cartoony style right away, along with mixing in some other elements of Japanese painting art when talking about the backstory behind the centerpiece to the whole game-. An older man talks about an "ink" that bestows upon its user a great power, and the more marks that are given, the more the power grows. But the power comes at a great cost, slowly draining the person of their very essence and being and turning them into a demon. Be it from the power or just the corrupting essence of the ink itself, who would know? All we do know, is that the player has received the mark, which marks him for great things. However, it also marks him for death, the honorable art of seppuku to be precise. After this bit of story, the player character is awoken by a female ninja who claims that she is here to help, then saying, "Rule number one? Don't get me killed." Way to show a trust in the player's ability, girl. From here, the game begins to introduce the mechanics, and there's a lot of things to go through.
The protagonist bears the "mark", which gives him the ability to focus and stop time temporarily. During this time, he can line up shots from his bamboo darts to take out lights, hit switches, hit guards to distract them, hit noise making objects in order to cause distractions, etc. This focus also applies to the ninja's distraction tools and thrown weaponry, allowing him to precisely aim where he want to drop his tool with all of the time in the world to do so. This allows for imaginative and creative ways of getting into position within a momentary window, lining up the shots, and getting the tools out before immediately falling out of the window of opportunity and back into safety, or harm if you messed up.
Staying in the darkness is a key factor to the game, as well as an interesting take on line-of-sight. The player character cannot see past walls, and this is shown off by the fact that the screen becomes muted and darkened beyond walls or objects that the character's eyes cannot see past. This affects guards too, as well as the darkness. Being in light means that guards can see the character from far away, even if only glimpses. While useful for distractions if used right, it can also be detrimental if the player accidentally steps into light while a guard is close by, as it will immediately raise an alarm because the player character has been caught. When in darkness, guards can still see, but it is limited to their short peripheral cone right in front of them. This is very possible, if risky, to hop right over and leave the guard completely unaware that you were ever there.
There are other ways of staying out of sight from guards other than just using the darkness. The game utilizes hiding spaces scattered about a map and the ninja is incredibly acrobatic. With good timing, the protagonist can leap above a guard's head to bypass them. Otherwise, there are plenty of different ways of bypassing guards, such as climbing around walls, creating a distraction to get them to look the other way or head somewhere else to investigate while the player makes his way through. In fact, the game has many situations that can all be handled in a multitude of different paths. A direct approach can be useful, but more often than not is more trouble than the route is worth. There are many other indirect paths, or ways of distracting guards to create an opening through which to slip by, and the list goes on.
On the topic of distractions, this game utilizes a clever system of indicating how far noise travels. When a sound occurs, a ring goes out on the screen that indicates how far the sound reached and who can hear it. If an enemy is within range of the circle, they will hear it and wonder what the heck just happened, creating a distraction, or potentially leading guards right to you if you made a mistake in your movement or working with the surroundings. Everything that you can do generates sound, and even background elements interacting with each other creates sound, cluing a player in on where a sound is coming from in some instances. If there had to be a "sound" system, this is the most clever way to do it I've ever seen, as it gives players a clear indication of how sound works and how to be aware of it.
Should the player character choose to murder enemies to eliminate them, a small "quick-time" action appears, forcing the player to carefully time their kill action. This adds an element of risk to assassination, but not because of what one might think. If you fail the mini QTE, the character still kills the guard, but in a far noisier fashion that is likely to draw attention. Succeeding the event earns the player a silent kill, and more points for the kill than would otherwise be rewarded. And speaking of points...
At the end of every level, the game scores the player and awards "honor" tokens based on how much work was achieved. There are three honor tokens in each of three categories. There is the general score, with the highest one being achievable through exceptional performance and use of the multipliers throughout the levels, then there are scrolls hidden throughout each level that subtlety add to the story and award honor tokens, and there are optional "seals" to complete in each level that require the ninja to handle situations in a specific fashion.
The score is tallied up throughout the level in various ways. Obtaining scrolls in the levels adds points, picking up "artifacts" adds points, creating distractions adds points, killing guards adds points as does hiding their bodies. Completing objectives, both optional and not, adds points. From there, however, the end of the level performs a final tally of four elements: Enemies that were passed by without detection, enemies distracted, and then whether or not enemies were killed or alarms were raised is checked. If neither one happened, a large boost of points is given, and the largest point multipliers come from passing by all the guards with either distractions or simply leaving them alone and not getting caught. It is possible to pass the level three score tier, however, simply by killing every single enemy in creative ways or performing a silent kill every time and then working to hide their bodies, if possible. This would mean that the ninja turned into an assassin from which no one was safe, which has graver implications in the story, but more on that later.
The seals contribute to more than just the honor points. Completion of three seals of four given types unlocks a new "path" for the ninja to use. These four paths are the Path of Might, Nightmare, Silence, and The Hunter. Each of these is balanced by the fact that, while they offer advantages, they also offer disadvantages. For example, my favorite path if Path of Silence. Killing enemies is not an option. Not even knocking them out is an option. Instead, the Path of Silence makes no noise when running and can use two different distraction items. The other paths are all similar in this regard, meaning there is no "best" costume, just one that suits a player's playstyle better than the rest, and all have to be earned through completing the challenges.
The scrolls are well hidden and hard to find, but offer more to the story when found and reward points and honor tokens. The implications range from mild and subtle, often in the forms of poems or proverbs, to borderline spelling out the reality of the ink and the history of the ninja clan. Sometimes scrolls are also hidden with an interesting mini-game, asking the player to think outside the box with their skills or use basic puzzle solving skills in order to achieve the scroll. These scrolls are the most related to the plot concerning the ink and the dangers, as well as the history of those who bore it.
Let's focus now on the story as well as the scenarios presented. The story opens up, like I mentioned, with the character being awoken by a female ninja concerning an alarm bell being rang. The ninja dojo is under attack by armed men and it's up to the player to gather his tools, save the other ninja, and most importantly, save the master of the dojo, Master Azai, from an untimely demise to these brutish thugs. This is a full tutorial level, but that doesn't stop it from punishing the player for mistakes. This game does not hold the player's hand at any point, allowing them much freedom...and also allowing for plenty of mistakes to be made that could cost the player dearly, and that much is shown in just the first level.
Upon rescuing the master and the ninja, we learn about the story of the ninja mark, about the power is bestows, and also about the dangers it comes with. The first ninja ever to bear it did so with pride, before he fell to its corrupting power. He laid waste to all he had done and became as a demon, finally being felled...but his fall would serve as a warning to any who would accept the mark. It is now customary to have those who take the mark take it for one very dangerous mission before committing seppuku to preserve himself, and the clan. Then, our protagonist is tasked with killing his target, Karajan. Karajan led the attack on the ninja dojo, presumably because Azai attempted to steal from him. Because he transgressed on the clan, the protagonist will find him and kill him at whatever cost necessary.
The protagonist makes his way to Karajan's tower in the city through several levels, all of which lend a creative streak to the game. The first level centers around cutting power and making progress through a tall tower while the power is slowly brought back online by the technicians, all the while having to avoid guards through quick thinking and actions. It is followed by a small level introducing dogs as well as trailing a man with a tracking device that keeps track of Karajan's location, followed by a frantic escape. The protagonist then lights a building on fire right outside of Karajan's offices, to create a distraction by which to infiltrate, before chasing after Karajan himself.
The protagonist fails to catch Karajan thanks to the interference of his right hand man, Corporal Kelly. The time it takes to deal with this honor-bound and highly frustrated warrior lets Karajan escape by helicopter. However, one problem remains for the man: the ninja still have a tracking device with his name on it. The protagonist is given his second mark, which allows him the ability of "farsight". It allows him to see through walls, see people that sight alone cannot see, and see wiring to electronic devices, or just what device is attached to what trigger in general. Then come some more difficult levels as the ninja makes his way into Karajan's castle. The ninja finally gets to Karajan and ends his sad existence as a man marked for death and the protagonist makes his way home.
It is here the protagonist finds something terrifying. Azai has brought back armor, guns, and specialized tools from Karajan's collections. The female ninja convinces the protagonist, with help of a note left by a kind old man who was responsible for giving the marks, saying that Azai has lied to the more "true" of the ninja, in particular about the status of the ink flowers and the greenhouse they're kept in. The protagonist refuses to commit seppuku and instead flees to go find out the truth about the flowers. They are in the middle of a desert, guarded by bandits who wish to take the power of the ink themselves, and are holding the old man, Dosan, in hopes that he will tell them how to harness the power. The protagonist retrieves the key to Dosan's chains, as well as his tools and some of the remaining "sumi" and there the protagonist learns the truth. The flowers that have given the ink in the past are now dead. All of them. There are no seeds left to continue creating the sumi with. Azai, then, wished to capture the technology to replace the now faltering power of the mark.
Dosan, in a last ditch effort to allow the protagonist revenge upon Azai, gives the protagonist one final mark: the mark of serenity. With it, the protagonist can vanish and reappear in a spot in the blink of an eye, without ever triggering anything he passes. It is with this mark that the protagonist must now attempt to evade the stalkers, which have tracked him down and have killed Dosan after he gave the protagonist the last mark. The protagonist evades the stalkers, ninja armed with the technology that allows them vision, speed and combat ability nearly matching the protagonists, and then the protagonist makes his way back to the dojo. It is here that the mark finally begins to strongly take its toll and the protagonist must face the dangers of the mark. Hallucinations begin to occur, ones so strong that the ninja actually sees things that aren't there. Ninja walking around on patrol are seen as the thuggish guards of Karajan, but upon their death, their true nature is revealed. It is in this state that the ninja confronts Azai about the flowers, the ink, everything...only to learn a horrifying truth. It may be that the female ninja that has been guiding him is also a hallucination, the demonic side of the ink seeking to wrest control over him, altering reality around him at every turn, making the protagonist question his very own decisions from the very start of the game.
The ninja is finally given a choice. Kill master Azai and get revenge for Dosan, for being lied to...or, take the path of the greater good and end himself before he becomes a demon. Neither choice is a good choice. On the one hand, Azai is murdered, but the character becomes a demon and becomes something terrifying, and maybe even unstoppable now that there is no more ink to contest with him. Or, he kills himself, leaving Azai to reform the ninja in what may be viewed as a dishonorable way.
Either way, it is finally revealed through both the truth about the female ninja and it leads to far more questions than answers are available for. Just what was seen by the ninja? How much of what was seen was actually real? How much control over their own actions did the protagonist have from the beginning? The female ninja was, in fact, a manifestation of the ink attempting to coerce the player into giving in, in very subtle ways. It had a mind for self-preservation, often aiding the player rather than hindering the player, but ever on it urged for bloodshed, for trickery, for dishonest and dishonorable tactics. In the end, it may be viewed that she was more evil than Azai ever was, for Azai committed evil to save the ninja clan from falling into oblivion.
The way the story ends is incredibly thought provoking and exceptionally well done. There is no "good ending". It is simply a choice of what the player believes in. Committing revenge at the cost of falling prey to the ink? Or saving everyone, even the worst of people, by ending the ninja's life and preventing the demonic ink from manifesting itself? Either way, there are plenty of downsides and neither one is truly worse than the other, depending on the point of view that it is examined from.
I love this game, and I love how its designed, its levels, its gameplay, its story. That being said, I do take some issue with it as a whole. The freedom of choice is breathtaking and the punishment for failure is harsh, but there are times that the game feels too tight in what it demands. Seals often require the player to go out of their way for them and feel forced, rather than a natural progression through the level and offering themselves as possible options. The scrolls, while not always a bother, can be a terrible nuisance to obtain or require very strict timing or strategy that breaks from what the player wants to try and do in the level. A good example of this early on is a scroll that is in a room defended by a laser that, when tripped, brings a turret from the wall. To bypass this, the player either has to be fast enough to open the door, run in, grab the scroll, run back and close the door before the laser is tripped...take the alarm and just run from the room and wait out the alarm, or kill the guard below and bring him up so the laser turns off when it gets close to the dead body. One option is very difficult, the others simply break from what the player might want to try with the level, such as not tripping alarms, or not killing anyone.
However, overall, that's only one gripe and it's a nitpick of all things. This game is a masterful creation and a game worth the money spent for it. If you have not played this game, please, play it even just once. It is an experience worth enjoying, and one worth going back to again and again. This is a real gem and one that should be recognized as such.
Comments
Post a Comment