Tom Create, known for its contributions to the DSiWare GO Series, as well as games dating back to the Super Famicom era, has created a little gem in Ninja Battle Heroes, an action brawler bursting with adorable personality and surprisingly deep gameplay. Despite a generic title that describes little about the experience other than that it involves ninjas, battles, and heroes, this colourful, lively title will delight players from the first stage and keep them entertained throughout.
Ninja Battle Heroes stars Saizo Kirigakure, an anthropomorphic ninja who is part of the heroic Beast Brigade. When members of the Beast Brigade suddenly go missing, Saizo heads out to find his missing friends and learn the sinister truth behind their disappearance. The story, presented mainly by dialogue boxes during gameplay, is taken very seriously by the cute, chibi-styled characters, lending an anime charm to the game. With big, enthusiastic introduction screens for each Beast Brigade member and the excellent animations of each on-stage character, players will have no trouble getting to know the world and characters.
Gameplay in Ninja Battle Heroes is split into larger areas that are divided into a variety stages; each side-scrolling stage contains three optional objectives such as achieving a specific combo count or finishing within a time limit. Completing optional objectives gives the player rewards such as a new skill, a new skill slot (which, after a few stages, proves to be invaluable) or more spirit to spend on buying more skills. Saizo's default moves consist of throwing stars and a katana that activates itself when he gets close enough to an enemy.
Killing enemies releases spirit, which is collected by pressing the circle pad downward. Collecting enough spirit lets Saizo use his skills, which range from calling a Beast Brigade member you've rescued to perform a special power (such as healing or helping clear the screen of enemies) to stronger weapons and attacks; collecting this spirit is particularly important as some skills can also be upgraded this way. The light RPG skill elements, coupled with the multiple objectives, make for a surprisingly meaty experience that'll take several hours to play through.
Unlocking skill slots is important as you gain more skills — you can choose which skills to equip between stages, and while we found ourselves mostly equipping Beast Brigade companions, there are several categories from which to choose as you advance through the game. The optional objectives also do a good job getting the player used to completing each stage more effectively; getting high combo counts is absolutely pivotal, and the stages become intense quickly. Enemies appear from all directions, including the background; for this reason the 3D effect is used quite nicely, helping the player focus on the right areas at the right times. Each stage is fairly straightforward, but the enemy count is high and things never get dull.
Ninja Battle Heroes uses a combination of cartoon-inspired characters and 3D-styled stages. Character design, from the heroes to the enemies, are top-notch and nicely animated. Stages tend to use a more limited colour palette, but it seems this is intentional to showcase the fun characters. The music is feudal Japan-inspired, which isn't as unique or fun as the characters, but by no means painful. The presentation is largely solid, but we wish more attention would have been paid to telling the story, rather than mid-stage text boxes.
Conclusion
Don't let the generic title fool you — Ninja Battle Heroes is a nice surprise on the already-robust 3DS eShop. With an inexpensive asking price, this is a full-featured action game with plenty of replay value. While the limited storytelling is a letdown when compared with the rest of the experience, it shouldn't hold gamers back from going on this adventure with Saizo and his friends.
Comments 29
Spoke too soon! Glad you finally got the review up. It's a nice little game I've been enjoying immensely.
it looks fun lol 1st iv seen of it (just watched the trailer)
I like these games that don't use the excuse of "poor quality, but hey, it is cheap!"
I love the cute characters. I will pick this up.
Quickly becoming one of my distractions when I need a Smash Bros break.
So much charm and fun packed into this game, it's ridiculous. I bought it based on nothing but my experience with Smash Cat Heroes and I would not have been disappointed at even twice the asking price.
Man, this looks sweet! Come to Eu now!
Can you use the other characters or are they just summons?
This looks pretty fun, reminds me of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon 2
Well written review. I didn't care much for this game myself for many reasons, but I'm glad others seem to be enjoying it.
What a surprise! I'll see if I have some spare balance to get this... if it's ever coming to EU, that is.
@Dryden just summons.
And my eshop want list grows more. With this being on the cheap side may get this sooner than later. But man still need azure strikers gunvolt while mighty gunvolt is still a free add on, and on the wiiU eshop teslagrad, paper monsters, art of balance, stealth inc 2, still waiting for reviews for ballpoint universe and ping 1.5+
Nice! Add to Wishlist...
Great review, think I'll pick this up, I would have missed out it sounds like if not for the review. Thanks for doing them .
Great review. This game is great and to me is the next Gunman Clive. 8 is right on!
I'll look into this. Looks awesome.
Just got this and beat the first world. I am having a blast. Something that the review fails to mention is that you can block incoming attacks, which adds strategy and helps you to keep your combos intact.
Told ya guys they'd give this an 8!
My favorite budget-priced 3DS eShop game I've played so far, and that's including Gunman Clive!
@Seanmyster6 I feel the same way. Both Gunman Clive and Ninja Battle Heroes are both great. Ninja Battle Heroes just plays better and deeper. But I don't have to tell you that.
I guess my point is. If your looking for a good budget title that's retail quality. Pick up Ninja Battle Heroes you will not be disappointed
Chose the Witch game over this and I don't regret it, but I might pick this up sometime. Just not very into furries to care about the characters. Only exceptions are the cast from Star Fox 64.
Europe also needs something Ninja and Hero that's not disappointing this year.
It looks like I need to head to the eshop and put a bunch of games on my wish list. They keep adding up!
@Spoony_Tech I love this game and Gunman Clive 2 is coming soon. Can't wait. The 3ds is on another roll. Now if Dragon Quest X gets a port , that would really be something.
This game was fun up until the world 5 stages. I quite playing it for the same reason I stopped playing Azure Strike Gunvolt...fighting all of the bosses all over again. I always HATED games that made you do that. It's the laziest most uncreative "thing" a programmer can put in a game. Literally, what is the point of it? To waste time. To make you think you're getting your money's worth. Well, fighting the bosses again (two of the same boss at a time no less) pretty much killed it for me. Deleting.
Downloaded this game now, because it was on sale, and... I'm very disappointed. It's very hard for me to call this game good at all.
Sure, it looks nice, and the controls are good, and the fact that you can equip different abilities is fun, but that's about it.
There are like 3 songs in the whole game, there are about 5 kinds of enemies, so you've met all of them after playing for 5 minutes, and the gameplay is the exact same throughout the whole thing. Just get to the end, and there are some enemies that slow you down and take tons of hits. Probably the worst thing is that there's absolutely no point of exploring, because you literally can't find anything other than more enemies. There are no powerups, no collectibles, no nothing. It becomes especially painful at the 4th world, when you have to find the exit in gigantic, maze-like castles. Even the story doesn't really make much sense.
Oh, and the extra challenges? They are okay at first, but later you have ones like where you have to defeat 1000 enemies before exiting the stage, which is not challenging at all, but you will be pretty much grinding for 40 minutes to do this. It's just not fun at all.
So yeah, it definitely has some charm and has some really interesting ideas, but it doesn't really work as a game.
Downloaded this game now, because it was on sale, and... I'm very disappointed. It's very hard for me to call this game good at all.
Sure, it looks nice, and the controls are good, and the fact that you can equip different abilities is fun, but that's about it.
There are like 3 songs in the whole game, there are about 5 kinds of enemies, so you've met all of them after playing for 5 minutes, and the gameplay is the exact same throughout the whole thing. Just get to the end, and there are some enemies that slow you down and take tons of hits. Probably the worst thing is that there's absolutely no point of exploring, because you literally can't find anything other than more enemies. There are no powerups, no collectibles, no nothing. It becomes especially painful at the 4th world, when you have to find the exit in gigantic, maze-like castles. Even the story doesn't really make much sense.
Oh, and the extra challenges? They are okay at first, but later you have ones like where you have to defeat 1000 enemies before exiting the stage, which is not challenging at all, but you will be pretty much grinding for 40 minutes to do this. It's just not fun at all.
So yeah, it definitely has some charm and has some really interesting ideas, but it doesn't really work as a game.
Downloaded this game now, because it was on sale, and... I'm very disappointed. It's very hard for me to call this game good at all.
Sure, it looks nice, and the controls are good, and the fact that you can equip different abilities is fun, but that's about it.
There are like 3 songs in the whole game, there are about 5 kinds of enemies, so you've met all of them after playing for 5 minutes, and the gameplay is the exact same throughout the whole thing. Just get to the end, and there are some enemies that slow you down and take tons of hits. Probably the worst thing is that there's absolutely no point of exploring, because you literally can't find anything other than more enemies. There are no powerups, no collectibles, no nothing. It becomes especially painful at the 4th world, when you have to find the exit in gigantic, maze-like castles. Even the story doesn't really make much sense.
Oh, and the extra challenges? They are okay at first, but later you have ones like where you have to defeat 1000 enemies before exiting the stage, which is not challenging at all, but you will be pretty much grinding for 40 minutes to do this. It's just not fun at all.
So yeah, it definitely has some charm and has some really interesting ideas, but it doesn't really work as a game.
@Krisi third times the charm?
@StraTTtheRipper just out of interest dose this meen you dont like mega man games?
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