Somewhere along the lines of history, the ancient art of ninja with its dark pasts, forbidden secrets, and lethal techniques gave way to the “cute ninja” style of arts and characters.  And I have to say, when it gives us games that look like Dot Zo Games Ninja Bros., I’m totally cool with that.  But looks aren’t everything, and behind the cutesy ninja you’ll find some problems.

Gameplay

Ninja Bros. is a puzzle-platformer that centers around the mechanic of moving multiple characters on screen at the same time.  Each level has you controlling between 1 to 4 of the eponymous brothers.  Any movement performed moves all of the ninja.  However each of them has their own jump button, conveniently color co-ordinated with the xbox controller’s A-B-X-Y buttons as Green, Red, Blue and Yellow respectively.  From there, it’s a matter of co-ordinating your efforts in moving to get all the ninja to their matching exit door.  The game lists four “difficulties,” but they aren’t difficulty levels so much as groups of stages that get progressively harder.

Controls

Normally I wouldn’t break this off into its own category, but really controls can make or break a game.  In this case, they completely break Ninja Bros.  Because the central mechanic involves control specifically, it would be extremely important to make sure those controls work as fluidly and finely as possible.  Ninja Bros. unfortunately fails at this.  I found the jumping to be a constant source of anguish in manipulating the ninja.  I’m not talking about the mental disconnect of working out which button is which ninja, I’m talking about jumps not executing at all when the button is pressed.  This can be attributed mostly to the choice to make it so that a ninja who is in mid-jump will not move laterally, allowing you to reposition other ninja.  While this is necessary to make the system work, it has the unfortunate side effect of making ninja unresponsive.  Attempts at a level are very often fouled by a jump that simply never responds to input.

Audio/Visual

In spite of the problems with controls and gameplay, the graphics and sound are actually quite a treat.

The stylistically cute pixel ninjas are well crafted and animated, the font is large and highly readable, in glorious 8 bit throwback style, and the “single screen” ethic is alive and well.  The use of the xbox button colors is a solid design decision that brings a coherency to the look, as well as making for good user interface sense in visually connecting your actions to a specific ninja.  It helps Microsoft brought the idea of color coded buttons to the table to begin with, something I hope someone very smart made a lot of money coming up with.

The audio is perfectly suited to the game.  Sound effects accompany jumping, button pushing and shuriken cannon firing.  The music is light, jazzy, and pleasant to listen to while you’re wringing the controller in your hands, cursing the jump button for not working.

Summary

From the moment I saw the first screenshots I wanted to like Ninja Bros. and up until the “hard” difficulty, I really did.  That’s the point, however, that its flaws began to shine brightly through.  I really like the idea of controlling multiple characters on screen at once, and it works out fantastically for Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story (which everyone with a DS should play), but the unfortunate problems with jumping make it hard to swallow.

Honestly, I haven’t yet finished Ninja Bros. I got to level 3-9 and could not for the life of me, manage to get anything more than 2 of the 4 ninja into their color-coded cubbies.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind this, relishing the opportunity to come back and best the level at a later date to continue.  But Ninja Bros. doesn’t remember your place!  After quitting for the night and coming back I found no method of returning directly to that particular level, finding instead I would have to work my way through the other eight punishing hard mode screens.  Do I even want to dare face the as-of-now still locked Nightmare levels, knowing I have to complete them all in a single sitting?

In spite of all that, Ninja Bros. is a fun little diversion that will only set you back 80 Microsoft Quatloos on XBLIG.  If you like the cute ninja aesthetic and throwing-your-controller-at-the-screen difficulty, you’ll adore it.