With the recent news of F.E.3.R Multiplayer coming to OnLive’s Playpack Bundle, joining Homefront Multiplayer – and the announcement of Saints Row 3 being available for pre-order (and coming with a free Microconsole or Full Playpass), we will try a new series of articles focusing on some of the not-so-high-profile things on OnLive.

Often times OnLive users will browse through the Marketplace, their PlayPack, or their owned games, while in search of a specific title or genre and incidentally skip over some great titles. Many times it’s because they’ve never heard of them or they’re a little older. Other times it’s because they may not fit a person’s personal graphical standards. Far too often, however, it results in some really fun games being left alone, floating in the cloud with nobody to play them. This series of articles is dedicated to those games; the misfits of the OnLive Game Service…the Diamonds in the Rough. Hopefully these articles will help to enlighten you about some of these misfit games which are begging for your attention and, quite honestly, rightfully deserve it.

Today’s Diamond in the Rough is Mini Ninjas! Mini Ninjas is a game from IO Interactive that was released on September 8th, 2009 but found its way to the $9.99/month all-you-can-play OnLive PlayPack bundle on March 29th, 2011.

The Plot:

Mini Ninjas takes place in feudal Japan where the power hungry Evil Samurai Warlord, using his dark Kuji magic, has ended a 300 year period of peace across the land.  With this evil magic power he has transformed the animals of the forest into Samurai minions to do his bidding. Nature is displeased with the gross imbalance caused by the Warlord’s magic and it tries to regain balance with great storms and other natural disasters.

Enter our hero, ever so appropriately named, Hiro! Hiro is one of the two remaining Ninjas left under the tutelage of the Great Ninja Master, who has already sent the rest of his Ninja clan one-by-one on a mission to discover the source of the storms so that they may uphold their oath to maintain the balance of nature. These other Ninjas never returned, however, leaving the Master with no choice but to send Hiro out into the world to track down these missing Ninjas and, more importantly, destroy the Evil Samurai Warlord and return nature to its proper balance. Prior to leaving his home village, Hiro discovers that he too has the Kuji magic flowing through him – the only one of his clan with such powers. The Kuji magic within Hiro would turn out to be the key to balancing nature and completing his mission of destroying the Evil Samurai Warlord and his army of Samurai minions.

Art Direction / Graphics:

The first thing you may notice about Mini Ninjas is its interesting art style. The entire game is water-color shaded, reminiscent of Nintendo’s 2002 title, “The Legend of Zelda:  The Wind Waker.” While some may find this off putting, I implore you high-end graphics lovers to give it more than a few minutes and I promise you’ll soon be seeing past the shading and possibly even begin to like it. The light pastel color palette contrasted with rich darker areas create a fun world that is easy on the eyes and a pleasure to continue exploring.

The character models are all quite simplistic, but don’t confuse that statement to mean that they aren’t well done. In fact, each character from Hiro himself, to the Tengu – a race of bird-like warriors that offer missions and trading throughout the game, to the Samurai warriors – complete with bulky Samurai armor and a darker color scheme to match their evil agenda, all come across beautifully and succeed in giving each faction, race, and species their own identity. Each of the Ninjas that you rescue and add to your party (more on that later) each have a unique flavor and style to match their different skills and personalities.

Environments feel sprawling, even if the game itself has a rather linear path (it is a platformer after all). It’s not uncommon to come across large open areas of fields or an imposing river with raging rapids that you must traverse using your Ninja Hat (again, more on that later). Constant environmental changes from wooded areas to fortified castle towns to creepy graveyards with fog and ghosts help every level feel fresh and I did not once find myself bored of the level design.

The last thing artistically that I’d like to commend is the effects. Every spell I cast had a nice animation, and in some cases they were fairly impressive considering the game I was playing. No matter if I was summoning a whirlwind to sweep my foes off the ground or if I cast a lightning spell to strike them down where they stand it was done with beautiful effects that really add something to the experience. Even the deaths are attractive as your enemies vanish in a plume of smoke and dust.

Gameplay

This game plays very well. There is practically no learning curve for someone brand new to the game, provided you start from the beginning of course. It is very much a throwback to earlier titles in the genre with a heavy focus on fun. Your character is controlled with the left thumbstick and camera movement is controlled with the right. The left bumper brings up a quick menu wheel (think Assassin’s Creed) allowing you to change characters within your party on the fly. Your right bumper button brings up another quick menu wheel; this one giving you access to any spells, bombs, or shuriken you have equipped. Left trigger allows your ninja to block attacks while the right trigger uses the Kuji spell or item you have equipped.

Combat is very easy to get the hang of and you’ll be taking out large quantities of baddies in no time due in part to the Power Attack. As you progress through the game and defeat enemies they will drop different colored orbs: Blue ones that restore your Ki energy (used for spell casting), yellow ones that give you XP, and red orbs which will fill up one spot each on your Power Attack bar. Each Ninja in your group will have a different Power Attack ability that uses one red orb each time it is used by pressing and holding the Y button. For instance, Hiro’s Power Attack allows you to freeze time mid-air in order to target several opposing units by marking them with a yellow beacon and once the Y button is released he unleashes a lighting quick flurry of attacks dispatching them all almost instantly. Basic combat is a two-button affair, three if you include the left trigger for blocking. X will activate your Ninja’s primary weapon and a tap of the Y button will break through an enemy’s defenses if they’re giving you a hard time, stunning them and allowing you to continue your domination of the evil Samurai forces.

There is a healthy selection of 12 Kuji magic spells available over the course of the entire game, which must be found and unlocked at shrines placed in secluded areas in most of the levels. As I mentioned before; Hiro is the only Ninja able to use Kuji magic. One of my personal favorites is the Lighting spell which has a pretty nice area of effect from where you cast it bringing bolts of electricity down from the heavens to bring your enemies to justice. One other spell which I thought was interesting was the Spirit Form spell which turns Hiro into a spectre capable of taking over the bodies of freed woodland animals ( including bears, cranes, rabbits, cats, and more ) for as long as your Ki power lasts. This power lets you sometimes pass by enemies undetected – but hey, when you’re in the body of a bear you might as well just attack them, right?

Boss fights tend to be a mix of real-time action and quick-time events. For instance, the first boss of the game is defeated by running away behind pillars inside his dojo causing him to swing his sword into them. This allows you to climb up on to his sword and from there the quick-time event starts. If you’ve ever played God of War or Just Cause 2, you’re familiar with these sequences. A quick-time event prompts you with a series of buttons that you must either press or continue to tap in order for your character to continue on doing their big attack or action. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of them but it works in Mini Ninjas as it lets you see your little Hiro (see what I did there?) unleash a disproportionate amount of bad-assery onto his foes that isn’t practical through other controls.

There’s a small crafting mechanic to the game where you may take flowers and spices you’ve pulled from the ground and mash them together via a menu screen at any time to create new potions. Some of them are for health, others for Ki energy. Then there are others which will grant you specific defenses; like one which causes all arrows shot in your direction to be deflected off of a magical bubble created around you after drinking the potion. The effect is temporary, but can be infinitely useful for helping you traverse a pesky wire while being shot at by a team of archers at a distance.

I feel like I have to give a nod to the Ninja Hat before I wrap this up. The Hat not only protects you from incoming arrows, it also flips over and doubles as a boat for all your water-based traveling needs. I got a decent little chuckle out of it the first time I saw it, but it really is a useful tool for when you’re all out of fancy magic potions to keep you from getting speared by a renegade arrow sailing through the skies. You can even take your hat out on a nice calm lake or pond and fish. Fishing is easy and fun, much like the rest of the game, and grants you with one serving of sushi (restores health) for each fish you catch. Pretty nifty.

Wrap-Up

Mini Ninjas packs a king-sized punch. The story takes several hours to complete and it’s a whole lot of fun along the way. The voice acting in the parts where there is talking is well done and the cut scenes where defeated Samurai captains must report to the Evil Samurai Warlord are humorous more often than not. An attractive art style backs up a game where the mechanics are solid and the story is coherent, if slightly simplistic. In closing, I suppose the key word here is FUN. They piled it on in heaps, and it keeps on delivering the longer and longer you play. Not only that, but it’s a fun game the whole family can play as it’s rated E by the ESRB here in the ‘States.

This Diamond in the Rough is available in the PlayPack Bundle which is $9.99 monthly on the OnLive Game Service. Unfortunately, Mini Ninjas isn’t available as an individual purchase for those of you who aren’t keen on monthly fees but take my word for it, it is well worth the $9.99 alone if you decide to try out the PlayPack Bundle for just one month. If you STILL aren’t sold, or would simply like to try it out first, click right here to be taken to the Mini Ninjas 30-minute demo via OnLive.

Let us know what you think about this game, and the review at OnLiveFans.com Forum

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again soon right here on OnLiveFans.com with another Diamond in the Rough.

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