Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

Year: 2003
Developer: K2
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PS2 (originally); later ported to Xbox
Metacritic score: 79
VGChartz sales to date: 1.14 million

WHAT MADE IT GREAT
Ninjas are often viewed as the pinnacle of the badass hierarchy.  They're incredibly lethal, they strike without warning and they are masters of slipping back into the shadows undetected. It's no wonder that people often associate ninjas with mystical powers and abilities, even as far back as the Meiji Restoration when Japan underwent rapid modernization Japanese looked back on the shinobi as supernatural or mythical figures.  In many ways the shinobi clans responsible for training and contracting ninjas were the elite special forces of feudal Japan.  Their mission wasn't to lead troops into battle to fight and die honorably like the Samurai, instead their goal was to disrupt the enemy by conducting espionage, sabotage and assassinations.  Their training, their tools and their techniques were all designed to maintain secrecy and so an aura of mystery naturally developed around them.  In short, they make for some of the most compelling protagonists to play as which is why it's so depressing how few games let you take up that role.

Of course, the very things that make ninja so interesting are also what makes them so difficult to design a game around.  Stealth is a tricky mechanic to pull off effectively and swordplay is even harder.  It's no wonder that most games revolving around ninjas play more like beat 'em ups or platformers.  The Tenchu series was one of the few games to focus on ninjas are both mythical figures and still retain some semblance of realism in terms of the tools and tactics at your disposal.  Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, the third title in the series, is perhaps the high water mark even though it wasn't developed by series originator Acquire, who you may remember from our feature on Way of the Samurai.  The heavily mystical story picks up where the first game left off, continuing with series mainstays Rikimaru and Ayame while also introducing a 3rd playable character.  A cunning sorcerer named Tenrai is trying to collect three sacred jewels which are said to grant incredible power to whoever possesses them.  Fortunately Rikimaru, who was presumed dead after his battle with the Big Bad from the first game, has somehow returned to confront this new evil.  Like many great Japanese games the plot can be difficult to follow  at times and incredibly absorbed in its own mythology at others.  By the end of the game you'll no doubt be experiencing some confusion, or possibly nightmares from the potbellied demons or creepy wooden robots.  But maybe a game about magical ninjas doesn't need to always make sense.  

Seriously though, you need to mentally prepare yourself for this kind of shit

One of the features that makes Tenchu so much fun is the sandbox style of play.  You're able to select which character you want to play as and each one has there own style and abilities which makes them feel substantially different from one another.  Rikimaru relies on his single ninjato (a weapon that didn't actually exist at the time) on superior strength to overwhelm enemies while Ayame instead uses her greater speed and maneuverability in combination with her pair of smaller wakizashi.  Series newcomer Tesshu is the third playable character, unlocked after your first play through, and uses raw brute strength to pummel his enemies with his fists but also uses his knowledge of acupuncture to perform stealth kills.  Playing as each character unlocks alternate cutscenes, can alter boss fights and even effects the outcome of the story.  More importantly, because each character has such different controls it can allow for drastically different approaches on each subsequent play through.  The sandbox style level design also increases replay value as most levels include multiple paths to your goal.  Thanks to a massive toolset of over two dozen items that includes everything from throwing stars to poisoned rice there is always more then one solution to every problem.  Need to infiltrate a village?  You could run from rooftop to rooftop, singling out guards and leaping onto them from above to drive your sword through their spines.  Or you could engage in open combat to draw them away from your objective before dropping smoke and caltrops to make a hasty retreat to your now undefended target.  Perhaps making it through the village completely unseen is more your style, in which case you can stick to the shadows and slowly move between cover to reach your objective without even alerting the enemy you were ever there.

Knowing when to strike and when to remain unseen is one of the most critical aspects of the game.  Fortunately a (mostly) well-behaved camera with manual control makes this a little easier.

All of this adds up to provide a tremendous amount of replay value since there's no way to do and see everything in a single play through.  In addition, there's an excellent reward system built into the game that rewards you more points at the end of each level for remaining undetected, performing stealth kills, and otherwise being a total badass.  A high score at the end of a level nets you more items and equipment and also unlocks additional special moves and stealth kills.  This opens up even more possible approaches for you to take on future levels, but the strongest motivator to keep playing this game comes from the excellent stealth kill animations.  Trying to find all the different ways you can remove someone's head from their body is great fun, but setting up and then successfully pulling off the most complicated assassinations you can think of is the true reward for honing your skills.  One of my personal favorites is clinging to a ceiling rafter to wait for an unsuspecting guard to pass beneath you, then using your rope dart to silently hang them while you swing to the ground in one clean movement.  If that's not enough to keep you coming back, there's also split-screen multiplayer that lets two players take on missions together or hunt each other on a map populated with enemy AI.  You can choose from the main playable characters as well as many more you can unlock that include the bosses you face, complete with their unique special moves and abilities.  If you're a fan of ninjas (and honestly how can you not be?) then there's a lot in this game to love.

Hone your skills and you'll be regularly rewarded with some of the best stealth kill animations ever created

WHAT WENT WRONG
Nothing, really.  In just about every way, Wrath of Heaven was a major improvement on both the previous titles that had been released on PSX.  Being the first game in the series to transition to the PS2 era, significant improvements in graphics and audio were a given. The larger playable roster and surprisingly enjoyable multiplayer were both welcome additions to the series, and while the gameplay focus remained unchanged the increased inventory added new flavors to an already well-seasoned experience.  But there were two areas in particular where reviewers felt the series had a misstep.  Tenchu 2 introduced an extensive level editor that let players build their own arenas and design missions for them, a feature that was pretty ahead of it's time for a console game back in 2000 but this was axed from Wrath of Heaven.  

The other area reviews harped on was the enemy AI routines which, despite being improved upon from earlier entries, simply couldn't match the polish of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the long awaited next installment of the series that pretty much defines the action stealth genre.  Even though Tenchu was the first 3D stealth game, Metal Gear Solid became the gold standard when it launched later that same year and has held that position pretty much ever since.  In Wrath of Heaven, enemies have simplistic patterns and poor visual acuity (though their hearing is annoyingly accurate) which can make them easy picking for a stealthy player.  But get caught in the open and they'll gang up on you, showing sword handling skills far greater then their ability to patrol on guard duty.  Some enemies can even stealth kill you from behind if you're not watching your back in a melee, all of which makes for a big swing in difficulty the moment you break stealth.  

Right, so that's where that third demon was

Even with these concerns reviews were still predominately positive, though they may explain why it scores slightly below it's predecessors.  It didn't quite reach the 2 million sales accrued by the original, but did blow away sales of the second game (to be fair, that game was released just a month before the PS2 launched in North America).  Activision made the choice to sell the property to From Software, a small but talented Japanese studio we've featured before.  The series lived on and has produced a number of spin-off games and mobile ports along with another entry in the main storyline with 2009's Tenchu: Shadow Assassins for the Wii.  None of these have been particularly well received, but the mobile phone ports to Sony Erickson devices (remember those dark days before smartphone app stores?) deserve special scorn for how terrible they were.  Without big games to grab people's attention or Activision's deep pockets for marketing the series has mostly fallen into obscurity.

WILL WE SEE IT AGAIN
Hopefully we'll see the Tenchu series again someday, as From Software has been publishing new titles  developed by K2, Acquire and their own in-house people sporadically over the years.  The most recent releases have been Japan-only, but with a new console generate right around the corner the time might be right for Tenchu to start fresh.  The thought of scaling up the sandbox design to a whole cityscape is certainly an enticing prospect is the success of Assassin's Creed is any indication.  Being able to control Rikimaru, Ayame or a user created ninja as in Tenchu Z in an open world 15th century Kyoto or Osaka would offer up so many possibilities in terms of gameplay variety.  With a continued focus on stealth and missions that could include espionage, infiltrating secure castles, assassinating rival daimyo and more the game could fill a unique niche in the market.  Including mission editors, online multiplayer or co-op modes would further set the game apart and bring the series into the next console generation. 

Challenging boss fights and deep inventories are staples of the series, but there's no reason these can't make the jump to a truly open world setting

Complicating things, however, is that so many developers have worked on the series.  Tenchu progenitor Acquire developed the last game from the main storyline with Shadow Assassins for Wii in 2009.  But when they lost the rights to the series to From Software they developed the Shinobido series, a ninja stealth game that is (unsurprisingly) very similar to Tenchu.  Interestingly, Acquire had been developing Shinobido before (and after) doing Shadow Assassins for From Software so perhaps it's not an issue.  It's not entirely clear who should take the reigns if Acquire is unable or unwilling.  K2 did a great job with Wrath of Heaven, but their release of Tenchu Z for Xbox 360 was met with pretty harsh reviews for failing to improve over the previous title.  From Software's in-house studio is another option, but their only work in the series is an XBLA puzzle-style game that also failed to impress.  Whoever does it, it's not too hard to believe we haven't seen the last of Tenchu.  Sooner or later it will slip from the shadows, silently infiltrate our consoles and take us all by surprise with how incredible it is.

Look at how sweet this is!  How is more of this not being made right now?!

Have you played this game?  Is there a game you remember being great but no one else has heard of it?  Sound off in the comments below, and be sure to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter!       

X-Men: Next Dimension

Year: 2002
Developer: Paradox Development
Publisher: Activision, Marvel
Platform: PS2, Xbox, GameCube
Metacritic score: 60 (cross-platform avg)
VGChartz sales to date: 710,000

WHAT MADE IT GREAT
Until now we've held firm (more or lessto a self-imposed rule that in order to be considered a game must hold at least a 75 average on Metacritic, when scores are available.  While it's possible the individual preferences (or drinking habit) of a single critic can miss a game's hidden potential, it's not likely the entire collective field of video game journalism could all undervalue the same game?  Or is it possible that a confluence of seemingly disjointed variables cause a group of distinct writers to all view a game more harshly then it deserves?  I'm going to try and argue just that and hopefully by doing so convince you that while X-Men: Next Dimension may not be the one of the best games ever, it is one of The Best Games (You Never Played).

X-Men: Next Dimension could actually be considered the third in a trilogy of fighting games based on Marvel Comics' mutant superheroes.  X-Men: Mutant Academy 1 & 2 both shipped for the PSX to generally positive reviews, but the name was changed to reflect the shifts brought on with the move to the next console gen.  The name change was fitting, because the early 2000's brought some big shifts to the fighting genre.  3D polygon games have been around since at least 1983's I, Robot for the arcade and Atari 2600, but was still seen as a rare and exotic feature when Star Fox released for the SNES nearly a decade later.  But Sega changed all that in 1993 with the gorgeous (for the times) 3D rendered polygon characters in the arcade crowd-drawing classic Virtua Fighter.  The game still relied on the same standard 2D plane of motion that's defined fighting games from the beginning, but it's sharp, crystal clear graphics were a noticeable improvement over the 3D pixelated graphics being used the nascent 1st-person shooter genre in id Games' Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Sega triggered the polygon count wars and a race towards realism that would come to define the next era of gaming.  It was a war Sega would badly bungle with the release of 1994's Sega Saturn, evidently taking their success with Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing as a sign that traditional 2D environments using 3D models was the endgame rather then just the first step.  But the importance of that breakthrough game can't be overlooked and most fighting developers spent the rest of the 90's toying with how to mesh the rise of 3D games with the 2D principles their genre was based in.

There was a good selection of characters available from the start with a few unlockable ones waiting for you to beat the various modes.

One series in particular, Team Ninja's Dead or Alive, took the foundation set by Virtua Fighter and incorporated a full 3D plane of motion.  Unlike the free roaming Power Stone, fighters in DoA still locked onto each other in 2D planes, but players were now free to attack, dodge and counter in 360 degrees within intricately detailed stages.  The Tekken series had used elements of this before, but Team Ninja put a much greater focus on 3D movement by making it more fluid and also using it as a trigger to shift to different parts of the stage.  Paradox Development was no doubt influenced by these games in using 3D range of motion, fast-paced combat and detailed multi-part stages to take Mutant Academy to the Next Dimension.  The evolution was completed by the fullest roster yet, 3D stages based on familiar locales, and an interesting new story mode drawn from the comics themselves.     

Yeah Beast, we were stunned also to see Bishop and Forge in this game.

The story mode derives from the Operation: Zero Tolerance crossover storyline (spoilers) from the late 90's and puts a unique twist on the mode.  The X-Men and the Brotherhood are forced to team up when hyper-sentinel Bastion threatens to wipe out mutant-kind.  Instead of choosing from the total roster and then receiving that fighter's unique backstory, Next Dimension's story mode unfolds as a series of cut scenes (voiced by Prof. X himself, Captain Jean-Luc Picard).  Interspersed between these are matches that play out according to the plot, sometimes limiting your picks to a few characters while other matches are preset depending on who's involved in the story's current battle.  There's also the standard Arcade and 2-player Versus modes along with a Survivor mode that pits you against an unending string of opponents.  The GameCube version also gets Practice and Team modes as an exclusive feature.  The Xbox version gets a bonus stage and Pyro as a playable character, but the poor PS2 version only got coal in its stocking.  

There's a full cast of characters and alternate outfits showing plenty of love to fan favorites with the likes of Gambit, Sabertooth, Nightcrawler and Rogue joining regulars like Magneto, Wolverine and Cyclops.  Moves for each character are well suited to their abilities, for instance Beast has longer, more agile combos of powerful basic strikes whereas Storm uses ranged lightning attacks, wind traps and flight to overwhelm her opponents.  The controls are like a simplified version of the button combos used in most Capcom fighters.  Basic strikes are assigned to individual buttons while pushing two or more trigger special attacks.  Special attacks can be charged up to greater levels by dealing or receiving damage, though one route is more ideal the the other.  Since you're using the joystick to maneuver rather then input complex movements for combos the game lends itself better to button mashing, but someone familiar with the controls and characters moves will still have a definite advantage.  Duking it out around the Savage Land or Asteroid M is made all the more fun by pummeling your opponent into different areas.  There's a special joy in watching Toad connect an air juggle combo to knock Blob through the X-Mansion's second floor window only to land a tongue-based special attack that sends him further flying into the underground hangar.

Getting kicked off a skyscraper sucks.  The fact it was Toad who kicked you just makes it depressing.

WHAT WENT WRONG
It's pretty clear that mixed reviews, including some rather negative ones, might have played a role in the game's underwhelming sales.  Releasing the week before Grand Theft Auto: Vice City also was probably not helpful in getting the mass market's attention.  Despite being mostly uniform in scoring the game in the poor to fair range, critics disagreed with each other over what exactly made the game so displeasing.  Some complained that there wasn't enough depth to the combo system while others appreciated the ability for less skilled players to learn big flashy combos while still leaving room for more experienced fighters to toy with their techniques.  There was also some confusion over whether the graphics were typical for the time or noticeably outdated, but with the benefit of time on our side we'd say the visuals have held up better then other games from 2002.

I've seen worse versions of Psylocke

But what really stands out is how favorably it's viewed by the gamers who played it.  While the critic reviews on Metacritic average out to a fairly mediocre 60, the user reviews sit at a significantly more favorable 8.9 out of 10.  That's a pretty big spread between then and now, and it's unlikely to be explained by mere nostalgia for a game that was never too popular in the first place.  It's surprising that critics who liked 2001's Dead or Alive 3 were so turned off by Next Dimension, particularly since some of them cited the strong similarities between the two as a weakness.  One critique which does still stand out as true is the imprecision in the game's hit animations which can give the characters a clunky feel.  The animations themselves are smooth and gratifying, but connecting them feels a bit disjointed compared to most fighting games.  But does the game's unsuitability for the pro fighting tournaments make it mediocre?

Maybe DoA3 raised expectations too high by the time Next Dimension released.  The game did have more realistic graphics and prettier visuals combined with an enjoyable combo system.  X-Men: Next Dimension certainly couldn't match it's dedicated breast physics algorithm, for what that's worth.  Perhaps X-Men fans were afraid the game's visual connection to the Bryan Singer film's would another lazy movie tie-in game.  Who knows, maybe everyone was just burned out on fighting games as scores for most series seemed to decline during this period.  Whatever the reasoning, the reviews weren't going to motivate a lot of people to give a new game a chance the week before a blockbuster like GTA: Vice City hits.  Most gamers let this one pass them by, but those lucky enough to get a copy on discount later could enjoy a fun fighter suitable for both game nights with friends and mastering on your own.

The Juggernaut appropriately towers over the ol' Canucklehead, but if those claws actually retracted into Wolvie's hands they'd go all the way up to his shoulders.

WILL WE SEE IT AGAIN
Not looking good for this one.  Paradox Development was bought by Midway in 2004 and went defunct in 2008.  Activision still has the publishing rights to X-Men along with the rest of Marvel's properties, but has shown no interest in bringing an HD remake or even straight port to Xbox Live or PSN.  Mobile platforms, a prime target for re-releasing older niche games, is not exactly an ideal outlet for the fighting genre.  Neither the Xbox or PS2 versions are on the backwards compatibility list for their respective consoles, and as for the GameCube version... yeah that's not gonna show up in the Wii Shop channel anytime soon.  

As far as hopes for a sequel go, well those are pretty dim too.  Activision has published other X-Men games from various developers since 2002, but none of them in the fighting genre.  It really feels like a wasted opportunity, since so much of what makes the X-Men a great property translates well to fighting games.  The huge cast of heroes and villains provide for a large, well-rounded roster while their mutant abilities lend themselves perfectly to unique and exciting move sets.  Marvel vs. Capcom 3 provides a tantalizing tease of what could be, but stops far short of delivering on 3D mechanics or a fleshed out story and leaves many favorite characters on the sideline.  Fortunately for those wanting to give it a try, old copies can be had for quite cheap online.    

In Next Dimension Wolverine may not quite be the best there is at what he does, but he's still pretty damn good at it.

Have you played this game?  Is there a game you remember being great that no one else has heard of?  Sound off in the comments below, and be sure to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter!