Mini Ninjas
Mini Ninjas is a kids game done right
Tags: Mini Ninjas Categories: Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Nov 3rd, 2009
Mini Ninja’s should be on the Christmas purchase list for the parent of every sub-teen gamer out there. Every year around the holidays we see a plethora of “kids” games. These are barely games, and their development process seems to center on shoe horning a licensed product into a game that was aborted halfway through development and dropping into stores during the holiday rush. Ill-informed parents and grandparents, who mean well, get games for their kids no person would want to play. It’s exploitive and immoral, and Mini-Ninja shows great games can still be made for kids.
Actually I’m guilty of pigeonholing here, because Mini Ninjas can be quite fun for all ages, but more in the way that Toy Story era Pixar films are than Up or The Incredibles. Originality trumps here again, as Eidos took the risk to develop a wide age range in a medium that prides itself on splintered demographics for profitability.
The character design has to be one of the better parts of this game. The lead characters are straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and it brings that same feel to the world. Everything is in a softened pastel that is in contrast to the grays and browns that over-saturate almost every big title. The best analogy for Mini-Ninja’s color pallet is the Cel-Shaded Zelda games, or the 3D Mario titles. Though they may only be analogous because of Nintendo’s family streak. The lead character has little spells that he casts, punctuated by a very cartoonish Japanese voice, it’s cute enough have been made by Sanrio.
They also bothered crafting a story line. An evil samurai has started kidnapping animals and turning them into his army, and then kidnapping all of the friendly ninjas. Okay so it isn’t Shakespeare but it will do. The whole “animals inside the enemies” thing is really reminiscent of Sonic, and that retro feeling is welcome.
There are still some issues with the game. It relies on a hint system pretty heavily to navigate the world. The levels are rather small, but the paths through them aren’t very clear, and for an adventure/platformer there is a lot of wasted space. There are some plotting issues as well, as the game’s pacing is a little off, and the story sort of reels up and slows down, giving an uneven experience.
Mini-Ninjas is an unassuming title that manages to do everything well enough that it manages to become a must have game. The fact that this is something kids can play that doesn’t involve a license makes this a great game. Development for kids has become so terrible, that Mini-Ninjas is a breath of fresh air.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Kid friendly yet not intolerable to older players + Nice graphics + Great character design |
8.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- A lot of wasted space in the game world - Heavy reliance on an in game hint system |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This game is a breath of Fresh Air, and really delivers for an underserved audience. | |
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Tags: Mini Ninjas
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Nov 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
