3 Ninjas Kick Back
or
3 Ninjas Suck Ass
So for my first attempt at one of these reviews, I have gone with 3 Ninjas Kick Back for the SNES. I knew I wanted to play a Super Nintendo game, but I didn't know which one, so I just went with the first one in the folder. Oh boy.
3 Ninjas Kick Back is presumably based on the movie of the same name, which would presumably be the sequel to an original 3 Ninjas. I barely remember the movies, so I have no recollection of how this actually compares to the movies. All I really remember is them using a Game Gear to do.. something.
In this game, you control one of the three brothers as they set off to do stuff for their grandpa.. or something.
Eh, screw it, I'm not really looking to write full-fledged reviews considering I'm really looking to just play a game briefly and review it briefly. I will just get into what I thought.
The music is the first thing you notice. And instantly wish it would go away. It's just hectic, and repetitive. And it doesn't get better. Each song is the same 4 bars repeated over and over and over. It's obviously meant to get your heart racing, but all it did was irritate me.
Graphics - 3/5
The graphics are actually probably the best part about this game, and they aren't even anything special. The only reason it's even rating so high is probably because it's relative to the rest of the crap. It's pretty colorful, and the animations are surprisingly.. animated.. The parallax scrolling in the first level works pretty well, though the background, like the music, is just the same 4 tiles repeated. Also, the screen can get pretty cluttered with foreground scenery getting in the way of what you are trying to do. Also the "regular" ground looks very similar to the "spiky" ground, leading to confusing life lost.
Controls - 1/5
The controls are probably where this game falters the most. I know they are kids, but if they are supposed to be ninjas, they have some work to do. The controls are just clunky and awkward. Lots of bad design choices. You have to grab ledges and things to swing on and such, but you need to hold directly Up to grab. This is while you are trying to also control your distance, which is not easy. Then to boost your jump upwards from the ledge, you also hold directly up, despite the need to also press Left or Right to actually get the distance needed to complete the jump. When you crouch, and start crawling Left or Right, it toggles you to crawl, so you must completely stop, or jump before you can leave the crouch. The pixel-perfect grab you have to make several times often just causes you to fall into the spikes. Overall, again, just awkward and really not cohesive to most "normal" control schemes, for no apparent reason.
Overall Experience - 30-40 minutes played
You can choose to be one of the three brothers, but they all seem to be exactly the same, other than height and character design. All of the controls are the same, no special differences or abilities that I could see. Maybe the height difference makes things easier or harder to dodge or affects something I am unaware of, but in the 40 minutes, and 5 or so stages I played, I saw nothing that would make anything different. The controls were clunky, the fighting just wasn't fun, the levels and music were chaos. It just wasn't fun. The only reason I even played it as long as I did was because there are infinite continues, and starting each level over wasn't a huge deal. Otherwise, there was so much dying, I probably would have given up after about 10 minutes. Just wouldn't have been worth it.
From ShortTerm to LongTerm, this is a NoTermGame. Just don't play it.
-------------------------------------------------
And with that, I complete my first review. It's not very pretty, and I could go on about certain things, but I'm still getting the feel for this. I don't even know if I'm looking to dive this deep into my reviews to everything anyways. I'm trying to keep them short to maximize the chance that I will actually type them up after I've played something. Maybe I will just work on a template I can fill out real quick. Hit some main bullet points and call it good. Save the real reviews for another time.. or someone else all together. I really just want a reason to play a bunch of random games, while also have some level of tracking on what I thought. Maybe a blog like this isn't necessary when I could just track my plays and ratings on one of a dozen websites. Even video or screenshots, while nice and attractive, would even counter the quick turn-around I am looking for here. So.. I don't know what this will evolve into yet. I also overthink, and try to pre-plan these things too much. I guess I will just see what happens with the next one!
No comments:
Post a Comment