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Ninja Blade isn’t a game that’s entirely original. It kind of comes off as Ninja Gaiden 2.0 but without as much ferocity as that other ninja game.

In the game you are Ken Ogawu, a part of an elite ninja police force that is brought in when things are a little too nasty for the normal police. Ogawu is sent in with his unit to destroy a giant parasitic outbreak that is going to ravage Tokyo and the rest of the world. Naturally Ogawu is a bit of a badass. He’s got some mean Ninja moves and overall he’s a strong main character. The errors with Ninja Blade don’t lie with the main character, just the plot, the gameplay, and the cut scenes.

With the plot of the game… it’s expected to be far-fetched. But when a giant mutated spider is attacking Tokyo our first reaction is to drop 12 dudes from a helicopter with swords. Really? Why wouldn’t you just bomb the damn thing? And there are more problems in the cut-scenes- they keep switching back and forth between English and Chinese. That’s extremely weird- especially when it’s between two Japanese characters in Tokyo. And why have the American guy in there in the first place when he dies 10 minutes into the game? That’s a little weird too right? Ninja Blade is plagued by this type of stuff. It’s kind of a rough game to get through because of all the button prompts used in cut scenes, and the gameplay/button controls are kind of lousy too. Licensed movie games are better than this.

Ninja Blade isn’t a total loss, the graphics in the game are actually exceptional and while the button prompts are obnoxious- the movement as Ken from building to building and enemy to enemy is captured extremely well.  It’s just hindered too much by button-prompts and lousy cut-scenes. Ninja Blade is a decent disc if you were into Ninja Gaiden, but it’s not Ninja Gaiden. Expect to be a little disappointed when you first start the game, but also expect to get over it pretty fast. It’s a decent title, just not as good as it probably could have been.