Red Ninja: End of Honor

Gameplay

Red Ninja employs a third-person perspective with a limited rotatable camera, following the protagonist, Kurenai. Enemies are dispatched with either a kunai blade or fundo (a blunt iron weight) attachment to the tetsugen (鉄弦, "iron string", or "wire"). The tetsugen also has a hook attachment that allows Kurenai to swing to various places. Melee attacks can be performed with either the blade or fundo. By repeatedly annihilating enemies and avoiding injury, Kurenai can build her ninjutsu gauge, which allows her to enter a sort of "bullet time" in order to more efficiently eliminate enemies. When Kurenai is being chased by three or more enemies while targeting one of them, she can perform a powerful melee attack to annihilate all enemies in range.

However, as Kurenai is without armor and significant reach (enemies are armed with bows, spears, or katana), most battle encounters will either injure her seriously or kill her outright. It is best to avoid physical altercations either by sneaking, stealth-killing, or using Kurenai's feminine charm to eliminate threats. Stealth attacks are possible when Kurenai sneaks up on an enemy undetected or uses the blade to slice off an unaware enemy's head from a distance. A seduction stealth kill is also possible to perform on a single enemy: during such an attack, Kurenai will perform a vaguely suggestive activity and when the enemy approaches, will drag him down and kill him. Bodies of dead enemies can be dragged in order to conceal Kurenai's presence from the enemy, though only decapitated or defeated enemies can be dragged (in other words, Kurenai cannot pick up two separate halves of a body to hide them). The game is impossible to complete without killing people.

Kurenai has several different methods of moving. In addition to running, walking, and jumping, she can stealth walk in order to creep up on enemies or move behind low barriers. She will stealth run if an enemy is targeted, unaware of her presence, and she is being made to run. Kurenai can also wall-jump, that is to say jump from surface to surface, up to three times in order to surmount large obstacles. Kurenai can flatten herself against certain walls, cling to ledges, hang upside down from her tetsugen to kill people, and if she is running fast enough, can zoom straight up walls until she either runs out of momentum or smashes into something. Wall running cannot be done on all walls, and can only be done if Kurenai is running at full speed. If Kurenai is crouching, she can also roll rapidly. When faced with tight, narrow spaces, Kurenai can dislocate her right shoulder in order to go through.

Areas can be navigated by looking at the (anachronistic) sonar circle in the corner and colored icons signal caution, alert, and full-out alarm/attack modes. Enemies are represented by arrowheads, with the point of the arrow being their direction of vision, while a white X indicates the general direction Kurenai should go in order to complete the mission.

Plot

The game is set in 16th century Japan during the Sengoku period. After a young Kurenai witnessed the brutal execution of her father Ryo by the Black Lizard clan, the girl herself was brutally hung with a tetsugen from a tree and left to die. Miraculously, she survived and was rescued and adopted into a ninja clan where she obtains complete mastery of her adopted weapon, the tetsugen. Pledging her undying loyalty to her new family, Kurenai now lives to avenge her father's death and will go to any means necessary.

Characters

Release

A picture of Kurenai, wearing "her signature crimson miniskirt robe", appeared in the October 2004 issue of Playboy. In Japan, the promotional campaign included the use of the Cafe & Kitchen Cos-Cha maid cafe in Akihabara between February and June (decorations, special menu and waitresses dressed up as Kurenai), and the race queen Yuri Hashizume (Yuri Isakura) visiting editorial departments of various Japanese gaming magazines while cosplaying as Kurenai. The game was released in Japan on March 3, 2005; North American, European, and Australian releases followed in 2005.

Reception

The game received "generally unfavorable reviews" on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. A reviewer for Cheat Code Central wrote: "There's a lot of competition out there for ninja and samurai games. Although Red Ninja really tries to be different, it fails miserably. It hints at some Splinter Cell elements and if it were able to realize that direction then it would stand out from the pack." Ed Lewis of IGN wrote that "the only honor is in ending any thought of this game" as it is a proof that "a ninja game can scrape the bottom of the barrel". According to Lewis, "Red Ninja is a comedy of errors, but without the humor. From the camera to the movement to the over-powered tetsugen to the uninspired nature of pretty much everything this game disappoints in so many different ways." According to Alex Navarro of GameSpot, "even for those diehard ninja fans out there, Red Ninja is probably not a game that's worth your time or money." In Japan, Famitsu gave the PlayStation 2 version a score of two sevens, one six, and one seven for a total of 27 out of 40.

In 2009, GamesRadar included Red Ninja among the games "with untapped franchise potential", commenting: "In the hands of a proficient developer, Red Ninja could be so much more than a poorly-executed Tenchu knockoff. After all, who wouldn’t want to play a game that contained a properly executed ninja seduction/stealth kill mechanic?" FHM Philippines placed Kurenai second on their list of most memorable hitmen in gaming in 2009 and also included her among the nine "sexiest ninja babes in games" in 2012, comparing her to Misa Campo. UGO Networks featured her on their list of 25 "hot ninja girls" in 2011 and GameHall's Portal PlayGame ranked her as the 43rd game "chick" in 2014.