Nightshade

Nightshade puts you in control of Hibana, a kunoichi (female ninja, and the Japanese title for the game, Nightshade adopted here because it obviously sounded cooler) out to stop evil demons from terrorizing a neo-Tokyo-like place and also find the parts of the akujiki, some evil sword thing. You know the song and dance of ninja games by now, they haven't broken new storyline ground sinceЕ.errЕwell I can't recall. Anyway, Hibana runs around killing stuff and gathering the piece so fhte akujiki while engaging in occasional plot twists with the opposing forces out to stop her. Predictability is the name of the game Ц I surely hope you didn't buy this for an epic adventure in storytelling.

Anyway, Nightshade is a pure action game, which includes many of the methods of Shinobi's madness. The Tate, a special move that lets you combo enemies and kill them all at once while posing like a fashion model ninja is back, and it's undeniably cool despite Hibana doing the same pose and saying the same stuff on a constant basis. It's all a game of time, as you have to strike all the enemies on screen before a special combo meter gives out, or you won't get the cool posing. The Tate is the main element of the game and essential to topple hordes of enemies before getting cornered and seeing Hibana get her ass kicked.

In response to the complaining about the game being a bit too tough for its own good, Sega implemented a beginner mode to help them along. The controls aren't any different, but there's an always-on auto-lock on that lets you target the closest enemy for easier Tate comboing. It doesn't help the awful level designs, but it at least makes battles against enemies a bit easier, though we're not talking about a cakewalk on any difficulty.

The level designs are the things that make or break Nightshade. While the game gets off to a great start, with Hibana fighting demons and baddies on an airplane while kicking missiles back at the planes firing at her the entire level, the generic feel kicks in right after that, with boring, repetitive levels that you slog through rather than get excited about. The second level is mere roof-to-roof crap, and it's so bad you feel like you're going in circles as nothing stands out or makes you think you've progressed. It doesn't get much better than that, and with the old-school "beat guys up, unlock next area afterwards" feel ripped out of Double Dragon combined with it, it feels old and tired.

It's when you hit a level where you're leaping from truck to truck in a tunnel that the game shows its awful game designs in full force. While the idea of leaping from a truck to another sounds cool, one misstep and miss the truck and you're dead. Seriously, Hibana can leap from a 50-story building without a scratch, yet she lands on the road instead of a truck and she dies? As the Chewbacca defense says, this does not make sense! And so often, you actually have to go back and forth on different trucks riding along side each other, fighting enemies. When this happens, while you lock on and fight, the game might lock onto the wrong enemy, and while you cycle to another, you fall off and die. СSup with that? Trial and error is one thing, but I got so ridiculously annoyed by this crap that it took a while to come back and finally clear it. Let it be known that while leaping from vehicle to vehicle is cool, the crap in Nightshade is NOT cool.

Still, Nightshade has some merit if you can get past the problems. The Tate system is cool and you'll be stealth dashing from target to target, flying through the air and laying smack down on demons. As repetitive as it gets, the style of Tate is evident and is at least worth plowing through the game to see all the cool stuff and engage in the fairly decent boss battles that can be pure hack and slash or highly strategic, Сduck and run' contests, depending on who you're fighting. The controls are solid enough and work well, though it takes a bit of time to get used to some unorthodox command placements. If you are patient enough to handle a lot of the silly design flaws and can handle the challenge of the game (it's still pretty tough if you don't have the reflexes down to handle it), Nightshade isn't a bad game to check out, though there's certainly better action games on the PlayStation 2.

Nightshade is a futuristic take on ninja action, though apparently the future looks a little on the bland side. While Hibana herself is well-animated and has lots of cool moves along with the whole Tate thing, most levels are full of lackluster design and textures, and seeing as this is not a non-stop action game, the repetitive areas catch up with the game fast as you start getting that funny feeling of dщjр vu pretty fast. A lack of enemy variety hurts too, though not as bad as the overall bland feel of each area. Like a lot of Nightshade, the visual area is seemingly uninspired, without a lot of focus on making it look like a current-era PS2 release.

The audio is fairly sharp, however, with good techno-rock music playing in a lot of levels and well-done sound effects. Nothing groundbreaking, mind you, but good enough to not be bad. Unfortunately, hammy, bored voice acting really brings Nightshade down a bit here, as everyone sounds either like they had no voice acting classes or are bored to tears with this lame-ass storyline of the game. Hibana herself sounds like she'd rather be tied up and tortured with burning coals and pissed off scorpions than doing her mission and beating up baddies. On the other hand, she does have some cool phrases when you complete a Tate combo.