Scribble Jam: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword is Kinda Sketchy (REVIEW)
Posted by Nate Patrin at 12:56 PM Apr 17, 2008
On the list of things that aren't as cool as the internet thinks they are -- 300, Dragonforce, anti-gay slurs -- ninjas have to be somewhere near the top. Granted, I'm saying this as a movie geek: samurai have Toshiro Mifune, Shaolin monks have Jet Li, karate masters have Sonny Chiba, and ninjas have... a whole bunch of Golan-Globus garbage starring Sho Kosugi and/or some random dopey American. What you've got left are things like Naruto, that funny-once Real Ultimate Power website and a few webcomics like White Ninja and Dr. McNinja that, while reliably funny, are more goofy than badass. (DISCLAIMER: I don't give a shit about pirates, either. Zombies I can take or leave.) There's only one media where I've really found ninjas to be as awesome as everyone says they are, and that's video games.
Which brings us to the Ninja Gaiden series. Tecmo's Team Ninja -- headed by game designer Tomonobu Itagaki, who apparently moonlights as a roadie for Loudness -- has the tendency to sprinkle their ninja-centric series with stuff that covers both the adolescently-minded notions of badass (slobbering hell-demons; women with mad retarded huge bosoms) and actual real legit badassery in the form of a punishing difficulty curve that makes Ghosts 'n' Goblins look like flOw. But Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword is a bit different: for one thing, it's not horrendously difficult, at least not in the traditional sense of having your lifebar drained enough that you plow through ten "game over" screens in half an hour. That could have a little something to do with its platform, the DS, which is often (erroneously) associated in the minds of developers with the kind of gamer who doesn't like to be challenged. But let's face it, if you're schlepping around on the LRT and you only have a half hour to kill, it's good to have an action game that's just about easy enough to plow your way through that it gives you a serious sense of advancement in a short period of time.
You can jump into the fire, but you'll never be free
Unfortunately, the problem I've had with this game has nothing to do with its lack of challenge or the relatively short playing time (roughly six hours). In fact, it has everything to do with the aspect I was looking forward to the most: the stylus control. Dragon Sword's layout has you holding the DS like a book, with the touchscreen on the right, and you swipe your stylus across the screen to cut the hell out of your enemies. It's a fantastic idea in theory, and eventually with a lot of practice it'll feel natural, but for a long while it meant that I engaged in the unprecedented stylus-equivalent of button-mashing. (I guess that'd be "scribbling".) This occasionally meant I did devastating maneuvers like the Izuna Drop without even really trying, but when my little teeny Ryu Hayabusa got surrounded by enemies -- especially in one of the levels where he runs to the background and gets all super-tiny -- it just proved to a bit confusing at best and panic-inducing at worst. It got a bit more frustrating when I hit the stylus a little too hard against the screen and it registered as a tap instead of a swipe, which meant I'd spend a second or so tossing shurikens by mistake.
And not only is all the swordfighting handled by the stylus, so's all the movement, aside from dodging (which most people will use the d-pad for). This means that if you're not careful, you'll stumble into a trap when you meant to hold your ground and defend yourself; one level featured a bunch of little insect bastards accosting me in a hallway with spikes shooting out of the floor in timed intervals and I kept stumbling forward into said spikes when I just meant to bisect the assailants with my katana. I'm not a huge dork for ninjas, but I know damn well they're not clumsy. Even more frustrating: even with the special (and wicked-as-hell) sword stylus that came with my copy, the fact that every attack is done with the stylus means I had to move my hand in places that blocked a portion of the screen, which often meant that I couldn't entirely see who was going after me. I'm considering stowing the stylus for this and incorporating something that'll let me hold my hand a bit further out of the way of the action. (Scenario: me at the Yarnery, buying only one knitting needle, and claiming it's for ninja purposes.)
Figure C: Flipping Out/Killing People
Still, frustrating as the controls can be, they're mostly frustrating out of unfamiliarity, and getting used to them just means a little adjustment that should eventually pay off. Given how well-detailed and gorgeous Dragon Sword is -- one of the prettiest on the DS, thanks to its seamless integration of 3D character models and rendered backgrounds -- there's plenty of detailed and eye-catching scenery, enough to prove solid motivation for easily-irritated flailing neurotics like me to pick it back up after initially being discouraged by some supposedly cheap stylus-movement screwup. Maybe I'll take some calligraphy classes and come back later to kick this game's ass.
