The life of an adorable redheaded ninja is not an easy one. Oh sure you look great in the outfit but if anyone actually sees you in it, it’s game over. It’s a profession that requires absolute perfection at every step of the way. At least that’s how developer Winglay’s stealthy platformer Ninja Sneaking harshly portrays it.

Gameplay

Ninja Sneaking is a platformer focused on the element of stealth. Your objective is to sneak your way through a heavily fortified Japanese style mansion. You’ll be running, crawling, scaling, and double jumping your way past four floors of what are essentially generic platformer obstacles.

Really the primary differentiating mechanics of the game are its sneaking design and austere death system. The sneaking system is similar to what you’d get if you smashed Metal Gear into a two-dimensional side-scroller. All the enemy guards have a field of vision represented by a cone of light extending out from their peepers. The idea is obvious, don’t get in their line of sight. This stealth concept isn’t original or innovative in its implementation, but it is fairly underrepresented in the must kill everything world of gaming. So it isn’t terribly hard to say it’s a welcome change of pace.

The death system on the other hand makes this game a real punch in the nuts. Sure, your ninja is adorable, even the enemy ninja are adorable. You know what’s not adorable? Dying and having to restart the whole fucking game. The overly generous part of me wants very much to say this was to present a sense of required perfection and absolute execution. However, it’s difficult to give any further consideration to this notion once you realize there’s less than half an hour of actual content in the game. The remainder of the playtime is created by you sucking and dying and having to restart, from the top. As you progress to a new floor, you’ll unlock a training mode for it. This is so you can train on each level until you perfect it just so you can earn the privelage of restarting from the very beginning of the game to make actual progress.

The controls are fine with one minor acception, which is the jump. The jump is completely static in power, regardless of press time. It feels really rigid at times — especially when you’ve spent the last decade or two playing games that evolved beyond this. Other than that, they’re responsive and function well enough. With regards to the collision, which is integral to a good platformer, Ninja Sneaking wasn’t great. Particularly on parts of the game where you need to precisely drop off a ledge only to find yourself seemingly standing in mid air. On top of that your characters exagurated head and other obstacle assets seemed as though their visuals didn’t exactly line up with the actual collision.

If it weren’t for the punative nature of Ninja Sneaking I would be here to sing its praises as a fun little platformer. Unfortunately, its fun is punched in the face and the deficated upon by my rage once I fail ten minutes into an otherwise flawless run.

Audio/Visual

The cute hand drawn art of the game and all of its assets are delightful. I found myself regularly enjoying just looking at the characters and their animations. The “caught” game over screen in particular is hilarious, and will almost keep you from tossing your controller and firing at it wildly like some sort of skeet shooting target. Even the little ninja girl’s run is adorable — I really can’t stress the cute element enough here.

From a musical perspective the sound is not only thematically appropriate, but it’s catchy too. The sound effects are all quite well done and communicate a considerable amount of information as to what’s going on on and off screen. It’s all very top notch and stands out in contrast to poorly executed gameplay.

Summery

Being an adorable redheaded ninja will really only get you so far in life. Ninja Sneaking shows up with a lot of potential, but don’t let that demo fool you. This game lacks content, and hides it beneath the shroud of an audaciously punitive death penalty. The result is a game you should keep the 80 Microsoft Points in your pocket for, and then keep your eyes on that ninja, she’s a thief.