GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Excellent
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 11/18/2008
- Released on: 10/28/2008
- Originally published on GameSpot: Ninjatown (DS) Review
While depicting ninja as anything other than silent, throat-cutting assassins generally means a game is headed in the wrong direction, SouthPeak Games' DS adaptation of the Shawnimals line of toys proves that preconception false. With an intuitive interface and some addictive strategic battles, Ninjatown is one of the better licensed games released this year.
The story revolves around the attempted invasion of Ninjatown by the nefarious Mr. Demon and his gang of Wee Devils. As the powerful Ol' Master Ninja, you are in charge of defending Ninjatown's most precious secret, the recipe for your world-famous ninja cookies. The story, as one would expect, is there merely to set up the actual game and serves to relay key objectives such as protecting a bridge, factory, or other key locations. The dialogue is hammy and unintentionally funny, but can easily be skipped or watched without having an impact on your overall experience.
Ninjatown is a straightforward endeavor. Your objective in every map is to protect a location from being invaded or destroyed by Wee Devils. To do so, you have to construct buildings that house various types of ninja with different attributes that help you fight off the waves of enemies. There are both melee and long-range ninja including black ninja, which are well balanced in speed and strength; business ninja, which are fast but not particularly strong; sniper ninja, which are balanced long-range units; and white ninja, which can shoot snowballs at enemies and momentarily freeze them.
The game features even more ninja classes, some of which are available from the beginning and others that are unlocked over time. All of your buildings can be upgraded during battle to raise the maximum health, strength, and other attributes of your ninja, and you can even set up "modifier buildings" that improve the strength, speed, or attack range of neighboring ninja buildings.
You'll start each battle with an adequate enough number of ninja cookies--Ninjatown's currency--so that you can get at least a few buildings set up. The ninja do all the work once the buildings have been constructed, and you earn more ninja cookies that can be used to build new buildings or upgrade existing ones for a more powerful overall defense. The system works incredibly well; each map usually features around 10 waves of enemies, and the later waves often include not only more enemies, but varying types. There are business Wee Devils that are fast and tough to halt unless you have an equally fast defense; large, blob-shaped enemies that are slow but extremely powerful; flying enemies; and even zombies.
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