I Wish I Left After-Images When I Run

I've been struggling for a few hours over what to post. All those Buffy and Spider-Man related posts came to mind within the same general time period last week, as thinking of one somehow naturally (in my mind at least) lead to the next. But yesterday was the last of them, and I find myself without much in the way of inspiration. Might as well fall back on a video game post.

Shinobi's an old game. I suppose it's really old as video games go, since the original was an NES game I believe, but I'm referring to the version that was released on the Playstation 2 in either 2001 or 2002. Sort of old. Tokyo (for what must be, between comics, video games, and anime the 7 millionth time) is being destroyed by various demons and evil spirits, and you have to run around and kill them. There appears to be a subplot in there about a revenge scheme involving the person you fought for leadership of your clan, but I haven't gotten far enough into the game to confirm that. Seems pretty likely, since I've already had one fight with a fairly powerful guy with hair very similar to that fellow.

As for the gameplay, within a level you run through streets, hallways, or over rooftops. Periodically, your way will be blocked by a seal. At that time, you have to kill all the baddies in the enclosed area. Do that, the seal vanishes, you keep moving until you reach the next enclosed area. There's a bit of searching for hidden items and power-ups, but it's very much a hack and slash game. That's how you deal with your enemies, you cut them up with your super awesome sword. Sure you can paralyze them temporarily with shuriken, or unleash some ninjustu if you're so inclined (I'm partial to the giant fireball when I'm facing bosses*), but it's really all about the slicing and dicing. Oh, did I mention the sword absorbs the life forces of the creatures you kill, and uses them to grow stronger? And that if you don't kill some monsters in a certain period of time, it'll start eating away at your life force? Yeah, I'm not so enamored of that feature. See, I like to kill everything in an area, then look for hidden stuff, but when you see the sword getting closer to gobbling up your health, it discourages the thourough seeking I prefer, 'cause I get panicked and start scrambling for the next available horde of baddies, and you aren't always allowed to back track.

The game is like that, frequently alternating between glorious fun and agonizing frustration. There are all kinds of nifty maneuvers you can use during your fights, like running along walls, doing a dash move that leaves after-images to confuse your opponents, backflips, leaping in the air, then striking downward swiftly. When things are going well, I can mow through those baddies, taking several out in a matter of moments, which triggers the cool cut scenes where they show all the enemies you just killed standing frozen in place, then you do some sort of calm, minor thing like sheathing your sword, or rapping your heel against it lightly, and they burst apart. Sure, that's a bit cliche, but it seems much less so when you are the architect of it, rather than an observer.

Then there are times the wall gripping doesn't work so well, or the camera won't turn the way you need it to (accursed camera, my most visceral, despised foe), or your enemies seem able to switch between blocking and attacking more easily than they ought to. Since the gameplay is fairly repeptitive, the only things that can really change are that you fight new creatures, and the difficulty goes up. For a week or so, I was stuck on a boss battle with a giant spider, coming close to victory a few times, but always having something go wrong at a certain moment. It began to feel like victory requires an extremely precise set of movements, executed with perfect timing and precision, which is not something I can bring forth on command. It's similar to the problems I had when I purchased Ninja Gaiden for the XBox (or Devil May Cry 3 for the PS2) where I begin to think this is a game for people with better reflexes than I**.

So a bit aggravating. Not as bad as sports games with their stupid "elastic" A.I.***, and, if we focus on the positive, it rewards frequent gameplay, since you learn from your failures more readily. Really, I bought it, and enjoy it, for stylistic reasons. The after-image dash effect, the long scarf trailing behind, marking your path of destruction as you flow through your befuddled enemies like water. Plus, you get to destroy tanks possessed by demons. They basically look like a normal tank, except I think they have veins, or a surface that looks vaguely like Deadpool's face (bumpy and pockmarked). Still, you kill tanks with a sword. That's cool, right?

* OK, not so much partial to as, I can't spare the concentration to switch to one of the other options.

** Or, in the case of Devil May Cry 3, stronger thumbs. It felt like I was doing nothing but hitting the same button over and over, as fast as I could, and my thumb really got tired of that rather quickly, at in opportune moments.

*** Like Madden. Oh gamer, you're winning by three touchdowns with 2 minutes to go? We'll fix that! First, your guy will fumble when hit by only one player, then we'll complete an 80 yard pass into triple coverage, then you'll fumble the onside. . . Then I'll rip the game out of the console and break it in half. What? It was the previous year's Madden, it cost 4 bucks. I can break it if I feel like it. And it did make me feel better.