Compare your stats with friends and other players as you fight for the top of the leaderboards! Challenge Modes and Leaderboards: Feel the need to gloat? Challenge yourself in these specially crafted stages only for the masters.Ninja = Hardcore: Cleared the normal campaign? Prepare for the ?Hardcore? variation and if you dare, the ultimate ?Master Class? version awaiting only the foolhardy.A true ninja is ever vigilant, aware of any possibly hidden areas. Level Secrets: Raw speed doesn?t guarantee the highest rank.More than 50 Challenging Levels: Environmental hazards, rifle-toting warriors and many more challenges await a hardened warrior.Story Campaign: Fully voiced motion comics tell the story of Kuro?s plight to restore balance!.Shadow Ninja: Attack the guards before they see you and alert all other mobs.Vicious NINJA Combat: Kill your enemies with extreme prejudice through the mastery of the katana, shurikens and kusarigama!.Epic NINJA Platforming: Test your skills in fast-paced platforming, mastering the skills of the ninja to breeze through challenging levels.It’s a fun way to test skills and and frustrate friends with near-impossible levels – especially when so few are found in the game itself. All of the game’s assets, enemies, and traps are available for creators to come up with as hard of levels as possible before sending them out to friends. But the main reason to keep going back is the game’s “Dojo Editor” that allows players to create their own levels and share them online. Leaderboards, challenges, and collectibles scattered around levels are also fair incentives for players to keep booting up Shadow Blade. Once each level is beaten, a “hardcore” mode is unlocked, offering a better challenge, changing level layout, and giving the game some replayability. More often than not, levels begin to feel very similar and easy, never asking for much from the player and quickly becoming forgettable and tedious. There are some exceptions to this, when a platforming section will require special precision or rhythm, or during the game’s handful of boss battles, where the game does have a spike in difficulty but for the most part these instances are few and far between. Before too long, each level feels like a lot of the same – run, jump, attack, evade, and repeat. When each level can be beaten in only a couple of minutes, the game robs itself of creating a learning curve for players by staying around the same difficulty for the majority of the campaign. Chaining together attacks, evading the game’s numerous traps, and simply platforming around the game’s seven chapters can be exhilarating as the game never lets Kuro stand in one place for too long, but after awhile it can become monotonous as the game’s difficulty rarely ramps up. Taking a card from games such as the Hotline Miami series, Shadow Blade thrives on speed, violence, and quick thinking, requiring players to never stop moving, always being one step ahead, and ever-cognizant that death is merely a hit away – for enemy and self. The whole game feels like playing a cartoon – albeit a violent one – with bright colors catching the eye all around and quick, fluid movements giving the entire game a smooth feel while jumping around each level. Every level has a distinct look ranging from a feudal Japanese setting or a steampunk-esque city skyline, each has its own style and feel. Shadow Blade is a very good-looking game in motion. The delivery is dull and uninspired, and can often pull players out of the moment, detracting from otherwise great looking visuals. Their main shortcoming, though, is the game’s distractingly bad voice acting. Each panel is visually striking and well composed, making every scene fluid and appealing.
Cutscenes are presented in a moving comic panel style and a lot of care has been taken to make these a real draw. The story isn’t impressive, but it suffices enough to give the game context and purpose.
It isn’t long before Kuro uncovers a power struggle among clan leaders and becomes the world’s only hope from a millennia-old secret. When rival groups make an attack on Kuro’s dojo, taking his master as hostage, he sets out to defend his honor – avoiding enemies and traps along the way. Players assume the role of Kuro, the last remaining ninja of his clan. But too many missteps involving difficulty and poor voice acting create more than enough dull potholes to hold the game back from being very memorable once it’s all over. Indie developer Dead Mage’s recent 2D hack-and-slash, action platformer is a quick-moving, visually appealing trip through an interesting world. Each time Shadow Blade Reload takes one step forward, it also takes two steps back.
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