Getting Started
Everyone needs more ninjas right? Well hang on to your hats I got to play Negative: The Way of Shinobi! This game is made by Art Games Studio. The game advertises itself as a game for skilled or stubborn players. That is an understatement.
Graphics
This game does have an interesting art style. The art style looks like scribbles on a notebook in study hall. That isn’t a bad thing, but it is different.
The Story
The story is simple but compelling. You play as a Shinobi in training and had just come out of a conflict with a party of Mages. You credit your teams success to your skills, but your father doesn’t agree and shuts down your ego trip. Your character proposes to your father that the Shinobi include some magic in their training. That also gets shut down. You are sent away in shame, and that is when you start playing the game. The party of mages are coming back and you are now pursuing them, ultimately learning how to navigate different obstacles as you go.
Gameplay
I have a few problems with this game. The big one is that they don’t really tell you what you are supposed to do. It is a trial by death situation. Sometimes that is okay but in this game it really makes the game frustrating and not fun. The other problem I had were that the controls are not good. During one scene which was particularly frustrating by itself, my character would walk off the platform on his own. This is really bad because the load times are lengthy. This could be a fault with my Pro Controller, as it didn’t happen with my 8bitdo SN30pro, but I haven’t had any problems with other games, so I am not sure what is going on with that.
Conclusion
I thought that the Negative: The Way of Shinobi was a really neat idea. It looked like a project from a introduction to computer science course. A really good project mind you. But it is still very much unfinished. The good news about this game is that it is only $4.99 on the eShop and is definitely something to check out if you have $5.00 burning a hole in your pocket. I might suggest looking up some gameplay videos on Youtube if you are on the fence. Personally I didn’t enjoy the game because of my problems with the controls, but perhaps you might have more fun with it.
I would like to thank Art Games Studios for the review code, and you can pick Negative: The Way of Shinobi on the eShop for $4.99
