We’d all love to be ninjas. The lightning-quick reflexes, the weird but sexy apparel, the thrilling sense of self-importance – all traits that would suit us perfectly. After all, surely these are all attributes associated with games journalists anyway? Yup, we’d make great assassins, but for now we’re going to have to live out our dreams through games like Tenchu Z, the latest entry in the series.

And we have to admit that if it weren’t for games like this, we’d never have realised the downsides to being a super stealthy samurai. For example, little did we know that ninjas spent their years completing an endless array of tedious missions and that greater adversaries can be found at an armless JuJitsu event. That’s right, the enemies in Tenchu Z are incredibly stupid and while this might be forgivable in certain action games, in a title that relies on stealth and cunning, it’s entirely inexcusable.

It’s a recognised convention in modern stealth games that the player will go unnoticed when stationary and bathed in shadow, but Tenchu Z takes this one step further and seems to make you invisible most of the time. The foes only react to massive sounds and movement – so much so that even Jabba the Hutt might stand a chance of sneaking his way to the end of some of these missions. Not only that, but when you are caught, it’s usually possible to run towards the nearest cover and wait for the numerous guards and patrolmen to forget all about it. It’s almost as if you’re trying to break into the headquarters of the ‘Japanese Amnesia Sufferers’ Society’, or something. Naturally, you are rewarded for playing in the true ninjitsu spirit and not just exploiting the many flaws in the game’s AI – via a higher score at the end of each mission – but how many gamers will be disciplined enough to play as they’re supposed to?

This is actually quite a shame because Tenchu Z isn’t actually a broken game; in fact, it can still be quite enjoyable. This is largely down to what we’ve already discussed – that it’s cool to be a ninja. In this respect, From Software has done a pretty decent job of including many of the things we lust for. The first of these is the character-creation screen, which allows players to swap gender, clothing and character model. After all, there’s no point in being an assassin if you don’t have a menacing look and a suitable outfit. Of course, none of this actually makes any difference to the game, but it’s good to have a say in these matters.

More importantly, the combat makes use of nearly all the weaponry and moves that you could hope for. Players can impale foes with their katana, dispatch guards with a well-placed shuriken or even sneak up on opponents before initiating a wholesome spell of disembowelment. Admittedly, the combat doesn’t possess the depth of Ninja Gaiden, usually requiring nothing more than a well-timed press of a button, but nevertheless it’s satisfying to creep up on an unsuspecting guard and trigger a decent array of so-called stealth kills.

The problem then, isn’t that Tenchu Z doesn’t cover the ninja basics, it’s that it doesn’t aim for anything other than mere mediocrity. This is especially apparent as soon as you load up the tutorial and notice the hugely disappointing visuals. Most gamers don’t expect every new release to be as artistically important as Édouard Manet or Henri Matisse but they do hope for something that looks better than a ported over PS2 game. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened and it’s not a pleasing sight.

Furthermore, the mission-based structure fails to incorporate either variety – most missions simply involve assassinating a particular enemy or retrieving a valuable artefact – or a decent storyline. All that exists here is a half-baked plot involving a Japanese civil war and our hero’s supposed ability to resolve it. Again, excusable if everything else wasn’t so distressingly average. Certainly, when you add to this the aforementioned problems with the AI, you might understand why Tenchu Z fails to light up our bonfires.

This all leads us to one inevitable conclusion: Tenchu Z is a far from essential release that fails to meet the expectations of the next-generation on nearly every single level. Yet strangely – and surely almost entirely due to its theme and setting – it remains a playable game. So while the majority of 360 owners shouldn’t be rushing down to their local games emporium for a copy of Tenchu Z, fans of the series, or indeed ninja games in general, shouldn’t be put off entirely – especially if they find a copy at a reduced price.

Adam Harrold