When I first pulled up the game Parasitus: Ninja Zero by Heart Attack Machine for the XBLIG Update I struggled with it a lot. It was difficult to control, and super easy to die. The user interface didn’t make much sense and the demo plopped me into various levels throughout the game. So it was fairly easy to understand when Brooks thought it odd of me to have taken away from it a positive impression. Unfazed by his voice of reason I trudged forward into the full version and played through it for full review purposes of course!
Gameplay
Parasitus: Ninja Zero is a side scrolling action platformer. Though to be honest with you, I say platformer very generously, as that aspect of the game only becomes realized in a handful of instances and are remarkably unsophisticated. Therefore the main theme of the game is obviously set squarely on the action element.
The instructions of the game more or less spoon feeds you abilities. However, just because the game progressively teaches you these moves doesn’t mean they aren’t available to you already. So if you happen to die a third of the way through the first stage, you are more than able to restart the stage and use all the abilities right from the start. This actually acts as a sort of a human associated progression system as you learn you become better at all parts of the game.
The penalty of death in Parasitus is being forced to restart the current stage. The game gives you only a handfull of lives and with the very classic style of combat you tend to use them a lot. The game even on its easiest level is quite difficult and will require some persistence to surmount. That said, the higher difficulties only appear to increase difficulty by raising damage done by enemies as well as their hit points. This really felt a bit unsatisfying but does seem to hold true to the classic style.
There is some semblance of a leveling system within the game. The more enemies you kill the greater your powers become. Upon death, your level is reset to one and you start building it up again. I don’t think I ever made it past the third or fourth level, simply because I did a considerable ammount of dying. That said, the leveling didn’t seem all that important. It was neat when your finishing slash would blast a fire ball across the screen but it never felt necessary. I think this system could have been signifigantly further explored and lead to a much more enriching experience.
With four large stages, the game feels pretty significant. That is assuming of course you don’t simply bypass much of the content. It is quite possible to behave exactly like a ninja and simply flash past many of the enemies and only kill those that are absolutely required. I personally greatly enjoyed this aspect of the game and would have loved further exploration of this as an intended mechanic.
Level designs, structurally speaking, were pretty adequate though intensively linear. There are a few instances where some exploration pays off and there is a few hidden things in the game. For the most part I found these little detours to be worthwhile and fun considering the amount of times I had to run through some of the various scenes.
Parasitus also has a boss encounter at the end of each stage, of which there are four. The actual boss fights are fairly unrewarding. They can more or less be killed with a high degree of cheese by simply abusing the high damage output of one of the abilities. This ability actually becomes the main way to get by many of the more obnoxious enemies and is somewhat easy to abuse. The most rewarding mobs to fight, in my opinion, where the various types of trash mobs. It was much more fun slashing my way through big groups of sluggish zombies.
I really ended up enjoying the mechanics and design of the game at a superficial level. As long as I wasn’t sitting there thinking critically about the game I am having fun, in which case I think the game is a success. I am disappointed by the lack of depth in the level system but ultimately that problem could have been resolved by simply removing it. The linear aspect of the level design is a bit replay value restrictive in that the lack of choice may decrease your mileage.
Audio/Visiual
Visually the game takes on a classic, I’d say Genesis era graphical sensibility. The colors are dark and moody, speaking to a sort of “dystopian Earth consumed in darkness” sort of atmosphere. The creatures, terrain, main character and much of the rest of the graphics use this aesthetic. The down side of this is that it made for some visual muddying during the games fast pace. There were many instances where objects simply melded into the background and objects from the background simply intruded visually on the foreground. While it was great to look at, it made for some complications during game play, specifically where there was any sort of platforming present.
The character sprites are very well detailed and animated. For some reason though, they felt very unnaturally sped up. It was almost as if the developer wanted to convey an unreasonable sense of speed. This visual effect more or less disappears as you progress further into the game and you tend to become more accepting of it, but I can’t help but feel there may have been a better way to convey the same sense of velocity.
The train sequence of the game shows off some of the best of its art.
On the audio front the game shines with only one note worthy complaint. The music is really great, I found myself humming along with it on numerous occasions. The sound effects for the most part were perfect with only one exception. That being the sound the red imps make when taking flight. It sounds like someone blowing on a mic. I would even be willing to make a $1 bet that that is exactly what it is. Fortunately they appear randomly in pretty limited supply, so it is more or less a crisis averted.
Summary
Well guys this is an easy one. If this is your style of game, you should totally pick up Parasitus: Ninja Zero. The game only costs three No Luca No’s and as you and I both know that “game” worth practically nothing. Parasitus is available now on XBLIG and while it does have some flaws but become accustom to it and start pulling off some nice ninja moves, it really starts to get some traction with you.