Ever heard of games developer, publisher and distributor, Square Enix? If you haven’t, they’re an awesome crowd, mainly known for creating and releasing Role Playing Video Games (RPG’s) such as the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and The Kingdom Hearts series, all amazing in their own ways. One game you may or may not be acquainted with is Mini Ninjas, released in 2009 by Eidos (now part of Square Enix Europe) across all platforms.
The game followed a band of Ninjas on a quest to defeat an evil ancient warlord so peace and prosperity could rule the lands once again. All characters had their owns traits & skills, all of which were playable once rescued and the title was well received across the board.
Then some clever person at Square Enix had a revelation, “Hey, why don’t we create an arcade version of Mini Ninjas?” Say hello to Mini Ninjas Adventures. Created exclusively for Xbox Kinect by the team, and currently available on Xbox Marketplace for a cool 800MSP or £6.80 in relative terms.
Following along from the original main title, ‘Adventures’ main protagonist Hiro, discovers a glowing orb in his masters quarters containing immense amounts of Kuji magic. Hiro absorbs this power to do good, but doesn’t realise its main function is to contain an evil Samurai Warlord.
As you can guess the Warlord escapes his talisman like prison, seeking to rule the world and kidnaps Hiro’ fellow ninjas. He also enslaves innocent animals transforming them into a cool array of enemies to fulfil his dark intentions. The worlds fate is now in Hiro’ hands or Blade, Bow and Shuriken to be precise. Learning new skills, from weapons to magic, earning upgrades through EXP coins to better Hiro’ attributes.
You, the player must be in harmony of mind, body and soul to rescue your friends through various great environments and defeat the Warlord. Alternately just fling your arms & legs about whilst running around the room and you might just do it as well.
I had great fun with the challenge of different moves for different foes, pulling combos, and really getting into the game. Six and a half hours later the game was over but the mini-games pulled me back into playing more the next day. Have a look, I’m currently on the leaderboard (12th in the world!!!) not bad eh?
‘Adventures’ is versatile and can be played with friends, the kids, parents or even if you just want to get fitter (have a towel at hand). The Mini Ninjas, Hiro and his chums are a great addition to the XBLA collection.
The question is now, who can beat me?
Mini Ninjas
Platform: Xbox live Arcade
Price: 800MSP (about £6.80)
For more info visit www.square-enix.com