- Publisher: Activision
- Release Date: Mar 3, 2003
- Also On: Mobile
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100If you’re the kind of guy who likes to chop his prey into Sizzlean before he gets a whiff of your bad man musk, then the ninjas of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven are right up your dojo.
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100The best stealth game and ninja game on the market today. This is my choice for 2003's Game Of The Year. [Grade = A+]
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The perfect example of how to update a classic game without losing the spark of sheer enjoyment that made it great in the first place. This is the first must-buy game of 2003.
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A real beauty in gameplay, graphics and sound. I cannot imagine any Tenchu fan out there not being overjoyed with the overall experience this game has to offer.
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The ninja game the world has been waiting for. It fights with honor, but still handily slays the competition. [Apr 2003, p.80]
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Spectacular kill sequences, a cool plot, cooler weapons and great levels all contribute to make this game the best of the Tenchu series, and one of the best first-person stealth games on the market.
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88The main thrust of the gameplay is thoroughly mesmerizing, and there's a bundle of replay value here too. Despite glitches, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is ace.
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86Perhaps the most puzzling thing of all is what happens when an enemy gets really, really confused. Most commonly you'll see them walk into a wall or some other barrier.
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85The combat engine is solid, the new moves are great, and the stealth-reward system is an excellent, tried-and-true technique that works perfectly here.
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A solid storyline, the inclusion of co-op play and plenty of unlockable items and abilities go a long way in extending the life of this game. However, the contradictory AI and sometimes abysmal camera angles can complicate the gaming experience.
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85Even without the open-ended level design, it was every bit as absorbing as the first game was at its very best and then some. And because of its mission-based structure that allows for quick access to all unlocked levels, it became a very hard game to put down.
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Does a marvelous job of bringing the tension and suspense of being a silent device of death to the PS2.
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83Not only lives up to its predecessors' own high standards, but also to the generally high standards of this popular style of gaming.
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83Gone are cumbersome mechanics like hiding bodies and sheathing swords to run faster; back are gruesome one-hit kills, fun grappling hooks and those lovely poisoned rice balls.
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While the PS2-level graphics make the game prettier than its PSone predecessors, the basics of gameplay remain essentially unchanged since the debut of the first title.
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80The framerate is also speedy-slick, and your ninjas feel and move as light as a feather. [Apr 2003, p.69]
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80This is all fairly familiar, but the key thing is that it's new content, there are new challenges, it all looks spectacular and it'll last you for ages.
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And oh my brothers, does the red, red krovvy flow real horrorshow under Tenchu's ultraviolence. That's A Clockwork Orange speak for "there's a lot of blood, too."
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80Good graphics, solid controls, decent sound (including purposefully-campy English dialogue) and mucho replayability (especially from its two-player mode) make Wrath of Heaven the best Tenchu game of the trilogy.
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Although its plot didn’t captivate me, its exciting gameplay did. Gameplay is covert, yet exciting and had my heart beating rapidly each time I crept up on an enemy for a stealth kill.
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80May not be the perfect ninja sim, but it's a ton of fun, and that's far more important than some minor flaws.
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The game's core mechanisms, a mixture of platforming, grappling, sliding along walls, creeping in the shadows, and hand-to-hand combat, are tuned to near-perfection. [Apr 2003, p.54]
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The story is confusing and as far as I'm concerned you might as well forget trying to figure out the whole picture. Just concentrate on completing your current mission and everything will take care of itself.
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Substitute the words Mildly Frustrating and Ninja into the title of the old Geto Boyz song "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta" and you’ve roughly got a statement of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven.
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If nothing else, Wrath of Heaven succeeds where it absolutely must - executing stealth-kills as a ninja is simply exhilarating, and the animations rock. [Apr 2003, p.118]
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70An uninspired co-operative mode, frustrating camera, and incompetent AI prevent it from achieving videogame Zen. [Apr 2003, p.26]
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70You'll play through the same environments in each campaign, and despite multiple enemy layouts, that lack of level variety lessens the replay value.
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The graphics aren't particularly innovative and the sound effects are merely a step up from mediocre. However, Wrath of Heaven succeeds where it counts - in providing an enjoyable experience with plenty of replayability.
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70The control is satisfyingly tight and responsive, and the stealth kills (spookily augmented by the controller's vibration function) are right on that clinical line between gratifying and, well, a bit disturbing.
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Tenchu's disjointed mission structure, temperamental camera and disappointing enemy AI will leave new gamers looking for something a bit more polished and sophisticated.
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67Ultimately entertaining but also jarringly frustrating. [Apr 2003, p.49]
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Rather than fixing what was broken, they just offer tips, which themselves are faulty... Wrath has "rush job" written all over it. [Apr 2003, p.92]
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58The needy camera and the almost forced replaying of the levels frustrated me. I also wish the manual (no item descriptions) and the tutorial (all text) weren't so atrocious.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 17
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Mixed: 0 out of 17
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Negative: 1 out of 17
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DavidN.10
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AndrewJ.8A great fun ninja game.
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NinjaMafia9