by Jay "THE FLEA" Wade
The stealth ninjas Rikiharu and Ayane return to kill in silence in Tenchu 2 Birth of the Stealth Assassins. This is a prequal to the now classic Tenchu.
You play as Rikiharu, Ayane and a new secret character and just like the first Tenchu kill with out being seen. Unlike most games Tenchu's object is to take out your enemy with out him seeing you. Everything that made the first Tenchu great is still in Tenchu 2. Sneak along walls, grapple to roof tops and of course those surprise kills. Yes heads still roll along with other great kills.
But now your ninjas can swim, hide underwater, drag and hide bodies (so your enemy won't find your mess).
The characters each have their own levels and missions. About 29 total missions with all three ninjas in mission mode. But that's not all, you also have special custom missions to test your skill.
One of the best feature of Tenchu 2 is a Mission editor. You can build and create your own maps, objective and where you want the enemies to be. You and your friends can create a level and challenge each other to your custom mission. The only draw back to the editor, is it takes a lot of time to make a level. It will most likely take 2-3 hours just to create a really good mission.
The graphics in Tenchu 2 are better then part 1 but still not the best. While more colorful then Tenchu 1 was, it still has some break up and blocky polygons. The levels are flat and don't have the best of detail. When your running up stairs it more looks like a ramp. The computer AI is a little smarter then the last one. No more running around a corner and the bad guy has lost you. But they still can be a little stupid at times.
The sound is good, but the Americanized accents are a little out of place in a game that takes place in Japan. And some of the translation could have been done a little better.
The control is done vary well, but battles need a little fine tuning in targeting a enemy.
You slice and dice at a enemy and when he gets behind you, you do a quick spin slash and you can't see him due to the camera still on you. I would have liked to have seen a targeting feature like Soul Reaver and Zelda 64 has. This isn't a huge handicap, but it would have made the game a little easier to play.
Another annoyance is the constant loading of the story movies. You start or beat a level and it plays a couple seconds of the story then loads, play another few seconds of the story then loads, then shows the objectives and loads another few seconds of the story then loads the game.
If you loved the first Tenchu, Tenchu 2 is a must. And if you never played Tenchu, It's worth looking into if you want to play a true Ninja game where the object is to kill with out being seen and stay in the shadows.
PUBLISHER: ACTIVISION
GRAPHICS: 8 SOUND & MUSIC: 7 CONTROL: 8.5
SECRETS: 9.5 ORIGINALITY: 9 FUN & REPLAY: 10
OVERALL: 8.5