PS2 Review - Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

You guys have all seen the really funny commercial for Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. You know, the one where a guy is bragging to his friend about bringing home a hot blond the night before, then a blonde dude walks up and says in a deep-ass voice (much like Joey Creighton's), "Thanks for last night, call me." The commentator breaks in with "Ever wish you were invisible? Now you can..." The commercial cuts to game play of ninjas doing ninja things and annihilating some other ninja types. It looks pretty fucking sweet; that is why I rented it.

So, to the game. To do well at Tenchu, you need to be, or learn real fast to be, good at stealth. If you do, you are able to roll up to the "bad guys" and get a stealth attack, which is composed of you doing some sweet and gory as hell slicing/cutting maneuver in slow motion. Once completed, you fill one of the 9 Japanese letters/symbols at the bottom of the screen. Once you get all nine of these stealth kills on the same board, after yelling some stuff real loud in Japanese, you gain some special technique. Examples are some practical techniques like hanging on the ceiling, along with some ridiculously hard to hit moves during game play such as a grappling hook combo and the ninja mind control, which require multiple buttons in the middle of heated combat.

Joey Creighton will tell you in a heartbeat that I just can't do it because I have no hand-eye coordination and therefore cannot play video games, but ask him who won the last game of NCAA Hoops 2001. (Ed. Note: I honestly have absolutely no idea what he's talking about)

Anyway, there are other sweet moves that you can learn, but they are fucking hard to get sometimes. That's the beauty of this game, you can beat a level kinda cheap, as I did by sprinting past all the villains, then come back to attempt to earn your moves. That made this the only game that I really enjoyed playing after I had already beaten it. Adding to this is that there are two characters (Rikimaru and Ayame) who have to beat the same levels, but the layout and goals of each level are changed and sometimes reversed. For example, in one level with Rikimaru, I had to make my way into a castle to defeat the evil inventor. Later, when playing with Ayame, I had to defeat the inventor, then escape the castle before his poison potion bomb went off in the castle, killing me. Adds some flare to the game, especially since you have to be stealthy.

Ok, I've played "great" games like Halo and had fun, but would get bored with them because you spent endless hours killing the same fucking creatures over and over again. This is another great point for Tenchu, because practically every level has some new type of nemesis that is easiest to kill in its unique way, and has some power that you had better learn fast to avoid. Each level was unique, with different goals, traps and shortcuts. Each level, if you look hard enough, had a much easier path to take to the finish, but always took a while to find. Often, a grapping hook is your main method of transportation, which makes its difficult to look up, around and below all the time, but that adds to the challenge and fun.

The game play of Tenchu is the best I've ever played, along with Hitman II. The duel analog control, combined with every other button on the controller being used (15 functional in all), many, many things can be done to help you thwart the evil.

My one and only problem with this game is that the makers of Tenchu lie. They said openly that you can be invisible if you play Tenchu. Well I unlocked every special move in the game, and I found no invisibility. I'm sure it would have taken my life off, like the "Feign death" move where I stab myself in the heart, just to play dead. Of course that takes off 90% of my life. Even so, I wanted to be invisible. I feel like that might have made it easier to stealth the guard. We'll never know, and I'm left with a feeling of disappointment. That is until I hear and see the next slow-motion slash of the sword.

Game Rating:

Game play - 10 stars
Graphics - 9 stars
Variation - 10 stars
Overall- 10 stars

Bottom Line

I've played just about every new game for Xbox and PS2, and nothing's near this good (except Hitman).

• Overhand vs. Sidearm: The effects on ball velocity and elbow and shoulder joint angles (3-17-03)
• PS2 Review - Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (5-6-03)