Ninjabreadman

Rating Everyone Genre adventure Publisher Conspiracy Entertainment External Links Official Conspiracy Entertainment Website

What is in a title? Well, with one like Ninjabreadman, you pretty much have a fantastical idea of what to expect, or at the very least you will be dealing with a Gingerbread man who happens to be a ninja. It is truly unfortunate that the idea that accompanies the title is the best thing this whole game has to offer. It started off simply enough: load disc into Wii, sit back, enjoy. About ten seconds into the tutorial level I felt my first, world shaking quake of doubt. They wanted me to jump with the not-so-motion-sensitive Nunchuck. Egads. After a few minuets of trying to decode the seemingly secret art of the Wii ninja double-jump, I completed the tutorial and found myself on level one of four, yes four, facing down my first “real” opponent, a monstrous cupcake.

After failing to kill it with errant, choppy, and difficult to perform swings, I forever after opted for the ranged gumdrop attack. After defeating the now jam cupcake, I soon realized that he was one of six different enemies. But never the less, I followed my gamer-ninja instincts and played on. Several grueling failed jumps later, I found myself collecting blue vials, dubbed “teleporter juice.” The goal of each level was to collect the set amount hovering around the stage and power up the teleporter to continue. Perhaps the best thing I can say about running around Candyland as a ginger bread ninja is that at least the short and repetitive music that haunted me in the tutorial and first level finally gave me a break in the monotony by granting me a second sugar-coated action theme.

About thirty minutes into the game I found myself on the last level, jumping near impossible jumps over pits of candy lava and the same enemies I’d been fighting on each stage before. Beating the game offers little for the replay hungry game fan. With its completion, each level becomes a collection-get adventure, then a timed race, then a timed collection-get adventure. Blech. The Ninja Codex states the following: “Should one or a group ever produce a game that in anyway defames the nature of the ninja, that group should probably be killed in their sleep.” Dear team of ninja, you have my blessing. Now, I am all for small companies releasing indy games with awesome titles and strange but enjoyable concepts, but the jolly-old brits who cranked this Anubis II clone, really should have put more than two or three days into this soon-to-be drink coaster.

By my completely made up math, if a handful of suckers buy this game, then the Redcoats at Data Design Interactive have made their profit. The pros of this game, has a ninja in it; the cons, everything else. Perhaps everyone who played Ninjabreadman knew, just knew there was no hope, and all threw up their hands and said, “Meh, good enough.” Any viable game play would be just too much effort. Best possible future for the game, aside for a potential sequel done right, there’s always skeet-shooting, invisible Frisbee extreme, and play-throughs for speed. If anyone out there can beat this game in under ten minuets, record that not-so-epic victory and we’ll send you a free shirt. If you want a shirt, it’s an easy task, but probably just like purchasing the game itself, it’s just not worth the effort.