Ninja Saviours for the PS4 is a remake of a classic 1994 SNES
title Ninja Warriors and while it is completely faithful to the original there
is such a thing as too faithful. Ninja Saviours is a side scrolling beat em up
in a similar vein to Street of Rage and besides the pedigree of the genre you
don’t see games like this much anymore.
I’m going to make it pretty clear before I go further into
this review that I’m not the target audience for this type of game, I wasn’t
around in the days of the arcade and the side scrolling beat em up was already
phased out by the time I was playing games so instead of looking at this game
and reviewing it in the eyes of someone who this would be targeted towards I’m
going to give you a more modern insight into the game.
The art style is your standard sprite animation similar to
Street Fighter 2, its colourful and it’s always nice to look at and despite the
fact that we as a community collectively associate this style with retro it’s
hard to deny that this style is timeless, no matter when you play these games
they will always look pleasing to the eye. Despite its retro style the movement
and animations of the characters in this is really smooth, there’s no janky
movements that make it look like a stop motion Lego video on YouTube.
Another feather to this game’s cap is the variation between
the characters, the levels and the enemies with each character having their own
move sets and their own limitations, for example the larger character ‘Ninja’
can’t jump but he is the only character that can move while carrying heavy
objects so it forces you to switch up your play style with each one making the
game have an element of replayability to it which is good because there are
only 8 levels in total.
The issue with a faithful remake of an old title however is
it also brings back the old problems with it, Ninja Saviours is styled as an
old arcade game which were designed to be both enjoyable but with enough
unfairness to ensure that you keep pumping money into those machines and Ninja
Saviours also has this unfairness which causes plenty of deaths forcing you
back to checkpoints which is beyond frustrating. I enjoy challenging games and
I really enjoy the sense of satisfaction you get when you finish one but Ninja
Saviours isn’t challenging, it’s hard and there is a difference.
Most of the challenge comes from the fact that this game
doesn’t teach you anything, you get the basics really quickly with square being
attack and X is to jump but this game does have a semi complex combat system
with holding up and pressing square triggering a power attack that’s unique to
each character and most annoyingly holding the attack button is your block
which is beyond stupid for me as this game uses a total of 3 buttons for
gameplay which means that the other 5 buttons, most namely the triangle button,
don’t seem to do anything. Having such an important function not only failed to
be taught to you but being mapped to the same button as your attack when the
majority of the controller isn’t being utilised is not only counter intuitive
but it’s also poor design. If I were to remap the controls it would have been
square for attack, X to jump, circle for block and triangle for special which
would have made getting to grips with this game easier from the start as
failing because you are not told how to do something isn’t making something challenging,
it’s making it unfair.
I also wouldn’t go into Ninja Saviours looking for a story as
there isn’t one, the game starts with you being attacked by a bunch of guys and
you make your way through the levels until you reach the boss, it doesn’t go any
deeper than that.
The remake does include some new features that will give more
modern audiences a chance to enjoy it more with the inclusion of local co-op
which is something that this generation has been missing out on massively and
an online leader board for the more competitive people out there because no
matter what game it is there will always be someone out there who has dedicated
themselves to being the best at it.
One thing a beat em up game must always get right is the
sound track which Ninja Saviours completely nails it, the last thing you want
when you’re going to be playing the same levels again and again is a sound
track that will irritate you to your core so thankfully I was spared that kind
of pain.
Additionally there’s 2 unlockable characters that expand the player roster in the form of Yaksha and Raiden with their own move sets and abilities, I recommend giving Raiden a go because his ability to transform in a flying mode called Blaster is astoundingly fun.
Ninja Saviours return of the Warriors was released in Europe on August 30th with the US release coming later on October 15th that gave our friends across the pond a chance to experience some retro combat.
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Connor Beckinsale
He's a simple man, He sees a game, he plays the game, sometimes he might even like the game but if he were to pick the one thing that will always wrap him in a thick blanket of immersion and hook him until the end of the game its a game with a good story. Though best not speak to him about Mass Effect 3. He's a little sore.
