Review

Developed by:Venan Entertainment Published by:SouthPeak Games Genre(s):
  • Tower Defense
  • Platform:
  • Handhelds
  • Cost:$29.99 ESRB Rating:EVERYONE Players:1 (2 Online) Release date:October 28, 2008 Reviewed on:DS
    8.6

    Ninjatown

    Ninjatown is a game that, upon first observations, didn’t strike me as an amazing play for anyone except a child. If you only observe it, there’s nothing particularly striking about it, but if you play through three or four levels, it actually becomes quite addictive. The word “story” fits Ninjatown pretty loosely. Scenario fits this game better and Ninjatown’s scenario is that Mr. Demon, a longtime enemy of the Wee Ninja and such, is up to no good again. Mr. Demon sends out wave after wave of Wee Devils to try to invade Ninjatown, and you must thwart these sieges. And what is Mr. Demon after? Why cookies!…or a cookie recipe, to be more precise. Mr. Demon is causing general chaos and mayhem to get hold of the Wee Ninja’s ninja star cookies. These cookies must just be the bomb-diggity, because they can apparently wreak havoc upon the world in the wrong hands, and Mr. Demon is trying his darndest to get at them.

    The game starts at the world map, which only has one district open initially. The game has nine districts and Mr. Demon hovers over the areas that you have not cleared yet. Once you choose your district, it opens into four maps for each district. Once you’ve cleared a map, the next one opens up, and once you’ve cleared the district, the next district is accessible. You are always on the defensive in this game, defending the town, the cookies, and anything else that needs defending. The top screen shows the overhead map of the area you’re playing in with icons of your ninja, huts, and the enemies, goal, and pathways. It will also bring up stats for your ninjas and huts if you tap them. The bottom screen is a closer view of the action and where you will start building. You use the stylus for all of the selections and the directional buttons to navigate around the field. The very bottom of the top screen has a timer and band where it shows you what type of enemy is approaching, when he will arrive, and what level he is. The top map shows where the enemy will enter from by a blinking Wee Devil head and a red flag shows where the enemy is trying to get to. At the very top of the top screen are the counts of your cookies and hearts.

    You play as Master Ninja who directs the ninja forces and begin each map with ten hearts. If you let an enemy get to the red flag then you lose a heart for every one that gets in. If you get down to zero hearts, then you lose that area and must begin it again. The cookies are the currency for building your huts and upgrading your ninja. There are a certain amount of lots scattered around each area and you can only build huts on a lot. To earn more cookies for building huts and upgrading ninja, your ninja must defeat enemies. Ninjatown really requires you to evaluate the landscape and enemies well in order to use your resources to the best efficiency. You only start with a finite number of cookies, but if you’re in a pinch and low on cookies, you can demolish a hut and get about three-quarters of its cookie worth back to use toward something else.

    The game has two types of ninja, which are melee and ranged ninja. You begin the game with just two melee ninja, wee ninja and anti-ninja. The wee ninja are pretty well-rounded with decent attack, speed and range. Anti-ninja have high attack but are pretty slow. Each hut dispenses two ninja of whatever kind of hut it is. By tapping a hut you can choose to sell it, have your ninja rest and recover HP, or upgrade it. When you upgrade your hut, the ninja disappear off of the field for a few seconds, so you must time upgrades well so as not to leave a key area completely undefended. Upgrading will raise the ninja’s attack, speed, range and HP, but five is the highest level that any ninja can be upgraded to. As you progress, other kinds of ninja will join the fight, and to round off the melee ninja are business ninja and mountain ninja. Business ninja are pretty fast and have decent attack while mountain ninja have a really strong ground attack tat reduces enemy HP pretty significantly. Later in the game you will acquire ranged ninja, as well. Flying devils cannot be attacked by the melee ninja and so you must have good ranged ninja and enough of them because you can have the best placement of ninja at decent levels but if flying devils come, they will blow right past your melee ninja with no hint at opposition. Your ranged ninja are sniper ninja, white ninja, forest ninja and lava ninja. Inversely similar to melee ninja, the sniper ninja are great against airborne, but not too good against ground ninja, though they will do some damage. White ninja use freeze attacks that can slow the enemy down, freeze them, and do a little bit of damage. Forest ninja do decent damage against ground and airborne devils, and the lava ninja are the best ninja by far. Lava ninja throw fireballs at the enemy which can do decent damage and will continue to burn the enemy for a few more seconds after impact.

    Unfortunately, it seems that for every great ninja you have, the enemy has something to counter it. You throw fireballs and peas at the enemy, they have flying devils that drop fireballs on you, dark forest ninja that poison you, speedy ninja to blow past your defenses, zombie ninja that will turn your ninja to zombies, and bosses that will pulverize your poor ninja. Luckily you have special modifier buildings to help your forces and depending on the type of building you put in a lot can increase your ninja’s attack, defense, attack speed, range, have a ninja return to battle more quickly after ko’ing, or increase the amount of cookies you get from defeating enemies. There are also tokens that you accrue at the end of each area beaten. When you win a slot machine with the token types on it will spin and you tap to stop it and get a new token. The tokens can turn the tide of battle depending on how you employ it. A baby ninja token puts a baby ninja on the screen that will slow down enemies in range for a few seconds. A ninja dropping will drain enemy health in its range for a few seconds, super ninja will stun enemies within range for a few seconds, and ninja consultant will increase your movement speed for a few seconds.

    If you really want to get your hands dirty, then you can use an Ol’ Master Ninja power. There is a cane in the left top corner of the bottom screen and as your ninja defeat enemies, your happiness increases, filling the cane and allowing you to execute an Ol’ Master Ninja power. You can tap any ninja to speed him up for a few seconds, or you can use any of the other powers including get off my lawn, magnifryer glass, stop! ninja time!, wake up call, hickory lunge, or wheel of efficiency. Get off my lawn let you use the stylus to indicate a direction, and by blowing on the mic, you can push enemies back; Magnifryer glass let you fry up devils like ants; stop! Ninja time! lets you stop time and build and upgrade huts; wake up call wake up any ko’ed ninja and restores all ninja’s health by yelling into the mic, hickory lunge lets you tap as many enemies as you can reach before time runs out to mark them for a master ninja smackdown; and wheel of efficiency spins a wheel (a la wheel of fortune) and whatever it lands on gives you some type of bonus like invulnerable ninja, 100 cookies, or great damage to all enemies. I found myself using get off my lawn the most because it costs the least and is really useful for getting enemies back into picking off range.

    Ninjatown is addictive and actually very, very fun, especially since you are not always directly participating in battle. It’s also a great game for getting crazy looks from family and friends by way of you blowing on your DS frantically to keep the devils off of your turf.

    Gameplay:

    10

    I really just don’t see how the gameplay could be improved on. Really! Ninjatown is intuitive, well designed, and definitely a lot of fun And addictive. Very addictive!

    Graphics:

    8

    The ninja are cute and the graphics on the DS suit this game very well. But actually the ninja would be even cuter if they weren’t so sure of just how cute they are.

    Sound:

    7

    The sound was very much an afterthought to me in this game. It’s pretty good but not so good that I would even take notice of it if I were not reviewing the game. But since I am reviewing it and I did take notice, then it’s not very far above average but nowhere near below average either.

    What's New:

    8

    I think Venan has made excellent use of the touch screen and mic. But I really love the hands on approach to this tactical game. Where if I watching my units all the time and just building and upgrading huts, I think I would have been bored. But it’s got a very intense and frantic pacing at times. The Ol’ Master Ninja powers are great and definitely elevated this game above average.

    Replay Value:

    10

    If I went back to a level, it never played the same, it seemed. Where I would remember it being not too difficult to beat the first time, it doesn’t become easier a second time around. You can’t always remember where you placed your huts, much less do everything the same as when you first beat that level, so it’s always a challenge and that makes it easy to always come back for more.

    Final Score:

    8.6

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