Review - Mini Ninjas Adventures

Released back in 2009, the original Mini Ninjas was a well-presented and fun filled adventure that allowed casual gamers to quite easily pick-up-and-play without the need to engage the brain. In fact, the only criticism you could fling at Mini Ninjas was that it had been built on a foundation of massively stereotypical dialogue and an overly familiar storyline. Still, that was the decision IO Interactive was willing to take and you’d have to say that it certainly paid off, with the game attaining fairly positive reviews.

With a charming concept, great visuals and a reasonable fan-base already behind it then, you’d think that Mini Ninja Adventures should (in principal) make a great little addition to Xbox Live Arcade. Plus, it brings with it something completely new thanks to the Kinect, meaning you can pretend to be a proper ninja from the comfort of your own living room (and all without the need to scale giant Pagodas or wear a figure-hugging shinobi shozoko). You play as Hiro, a young and inexperienced ninja whose friends are abundantly stronger, faster and stealthier than our tiny hero. However, one day whilst snooping around his master’s study, Hiro discovers a mysterious talisman that he’s inexplicably drawn to; he seizes the trinket and retires to bed, unaware that the mystery item was in fact keeping a great evil trapped inside. The next day Hiro awakens to discover that the country is under attack and that his friends have all vanished, leaving Hiro to venture out into the big bad world and rescue everyone while also rectifying his own mistake. Yes, so it’s a fluffy, dull and otherwise pretty uninspiring story that’s been done countless times before but if we’re being honest, it was always going to take a backseat to the motion-controlled gameplay…



As seems to increasingly be the case with Kinect games, the core gameplay revolves around you using your body to defend waves of things – in this case, an assortment of enemies that attack in groups. These enemies require you to use the full range of weapons at your disposal in order to stop them; swords and kicks for close range, throwing stars for mid-range opponents and your trusty bow to attack anyone significantly further away.

The first weapon, the sword, is pretty easy to use and fairly good fun too. Slash left and right with your right hand to attack and after three successful attacks in a row, Hiro will utilize a powerful spinning slash that inflicts extra damage. Using throwing stars is almost as easy and can be used in either hand to rapid effect by slicing towards the screen, while the bow sees you outstretching your left hand and pulling back with your right, just as if you were using a real bow. As the story progresses, you’ll also gain the ability to use magic in order to slow time and an ability to summon help from more ninjas simply by yelling “NINJA” at your TV, which is a pretty handy should you get overrun with enemies.



Unfortunately, and as is also the case with most Kinect games, the responsiveness and tracking just isn’t up to speed. On quite a few occasions, bow movements aren’t recognised which leaves you pretty much exposed against the constant onslaught of enemies, while the process of changing between weapons is also deeply flawed. If you want to switch, you need to reach over your right shoulder with your right hand to equip the sword and the left hand over the left shoulder to equip the bow. In principal it’s a great idea, but the game often refuses to recognise the right movement. In my own experience, I was left wildly waving my arms and reaching behind my back while enemies senselessly beat poor little Hiro black and blue. Worst of all however was that my ninja ability was also wasted on more than one occasion not by me yelling ‘NINJA!’, but instead by the sounds coming from the TV as I defeated the various enemies.

It’s a shame, really. Mini Ninja Adventures looks great and is pretty good fun in patches, but it’s also deeply flawed in the one area that it should excel. Actually scratch that: it’s heavily flawed in the one area where it is expected to work as it’s supposed to, at the very least.



The question then really becomes: do you want to spend 800MSP on Mini Ninja Adventures when you could get something wholly more entertaining and reliable like Trine 2 for just 600MSP? It’s your decision; but if you do decide to take a punt on it then don’t say we didn’t warn you…