Reviewed: October 6, 2001
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Stardock
Developer
Stardock
Released: August 2, 2001
Genre: Platform
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
7
6
4
5
4.7
System Requirements
Some of you may be old enough to remember the shareware era of software where companies like Apogee, 3D Realms, and yes, even iD released the first level or chapter of their games for free then charged you for the rest if you liked what you had already played. Lightweight Ninja smacks of those shareware days, offering a 3-level demo then having you pay for the rest of the game. Granted, the price of admission is only $19, but there have been other more recent releases in this budget price range that have far exceeded the scope and quality of this game.
Lightweight Ninja is being marketed as part of the Drengin Network and if you subscribe you can get this game and several others. Otherwise, be prepared to drop twenty bucks if you want the complete Episode 1 experience that includes three chapters on the CD and 2 bonus chapters you can get later. One of these is available now and Chapter 5 should be released soon. They can be found and downloaded at the Lightweight Ninja Website. Each chapter has multiple game levels for a reasonably lengthy gaming experience.
Stardock has slashed their marketing overhead by offering this game as shareware through their website and not bothering with fancy trimmings. You won't likely find this game in stores, and if you do buy it you get a simple CD in a DVD snapper case with no manual and a cover that looks like it was printed on a color DeskJet. The lackluster packaging only hints at the game inside.
Lightweight Ninja looks and plays like those mighty shareware games of yesteryear. Anyone who remembers Commander Keen or the earlier Duke Nukem games will know what I mean. If you aren't that old then just think of the 2D side scrolling Mario games for SNES.
Players take control of Ty, a nimble little ninja who looks about nine or ten years old. You maneuver him across large levels that extend in all directions with plenty of secret areas, item pick-ups, and cute, but deadly enemies.
Each mission is prefaced with an introductory movie presented in a comic book style that seems to be a growing trend these days. Just ask Max Payne. While most modern gamers will be shocked at the lack of pre-rendered cut-scenes remember this is "shareware" folks. It might not dazzle you with originality, but it does fit the overall comic theme of the game.
You can save your progress at several checkpoints throughout each level and the designers have made the bold move to allow you to also save at any time during the game. This is almost unheard of in the platform genre, and while it is a welcome change for people who don't like to die and repeat huge sections of a game, it could seriously weaken the overall playtime of this title.
The gameplay is plagued with all sorts of random bugs that range from annoying to debilitating. Collision detection is atrocious. Dodging incoming attacks or trying to jump over ground enemies is made exceedingly difficult by the fact that you are often HIT, even when the item clearly misses you, or you clearly leaped over that kitty cat yet still take damage. If you imagine an invisible force field that extends about 10 pixels in all directions around any enemy or thrown item you now know the true distance you must keep to avoid contact.
Anyway, back to Ty. Just like any platform character, he can run, jump, slide, kick and throw things. Strangely enough, this ninja has no combat abilities and if you try to use your down-kick or slide moves to attack you will suffer damage yourself. Armed with only three throwing stars (that he loses in the opening movie), at first you can find and throw acorns and other "items" at your enemies. Thrown items move at an impatiently slow speed and suffer from the same horrible collision detection as the rest of the game.
The design of the game begs you to explore each level to the fullest, locating all the secret nooks and crannies and collecting all the pick-ups. The enemies are plentiful and are a mix of critters on the ground and others perched high above on tree limbs or platforms dropping things on you - or at least trying to. You can either take the time and patience required to learn the timing and patrol patterns of the enemy or simply race through each level like a ninja on fire. Since the monsters are placed in almost unfair positions, usually just off screen or hiding in the foreground artwork, and are not activated until you are standing in their line of fire you will need lightning fast reflexes if you want to play this game at an accelerated pace.
Control is surprisingly good and responsive. Ty moves around with the arrow keys and the rest of his commands are handled with the CTRL, Spacebar, and other traditional command keys that you can configure as needed. Jumping is a crapshoot. Sometime you miss your landing area and other times it will "look" like you missed but magically be transported to the ledge, platform, or tree limb.
Graphically, this game is pretty good when compared with its shareware cousins of the 80's and early 90's. Next-gen gamers will scoff at the simplistic graphics and sprite-like characters that feature only a few frames of animation.
The level design is typical of the platform genre with parallax scrolling to give you the illusion of depth, but more often it serves to hide the enemies so they can ambush you. You can use the PGUP and PGDN keys to view areas out of your current view, and onscreen indicators will often hint at alternative routes.
Lightweight Ninja has some surprisingly good ninja-themed music that fuels the action, however the sound effects are laughingly bad. You've probably heard better sound effects coming out of your Atari 2600 or even your PC speaker. There are only a few (very few) effects mostly comprised of various beeps and buzzers that play when you get an item or take damage.
Depending on your skill, the difficulty level you choose for the game, and your overall patience with substandard platform games with sloppy collision detection, you can spend 10-30 hours with this game playing all the available chapters. Chapter 5 may breath a few more hours of enjoyment out of this title. Did I say "enjoyment" - I meant "gameplay".
Since the game is arcade-based there is a scoring system and an online ranking system that lets you compete with other lightweight ninjas around the world - hardly a valid excuse to play this game more than once unless you are extremely competitive and have no other games to play.
I really hate to bash this game, as I always try to support the Shareware philosophy whenever possible. As an ex-shareware author myself, I know how hard it is to make a game from scratch, let alone a "good one". Shareware seems to have all but vanished. With modern games having huge design teams and budgets in the millions it is hard for the college kids in the dorm room or even the small start-up companies to compete with the larger developers and their powerful titles.
I suppose the one good thing I can say about Lightweight Ninja is that it would be PERFECT for younger kids. Parents who are looking for a fun, charming, and colorful game with limited comic-violence can probably keep their kids mesmerized for hours with this game.
Otherwise, Lightweight Ninja truly lives up to its namesake, lacking enough substance to give you incentive to finish the shareware version, let alone drawing you in to purchase the full game.