Sunday, January 30, 2011

Shinobi Sunday!

忍者日曜日!

So, I said back at the end of December there'd be more ninja on WaHNtHaC.  This is a new, possibly weekly (we'll see how busy I get) feature, that ties in with my old Oriental Accents series--Shinobi Sunday!  (Ninja Nichiyoubi! in Japanese)

Starting off, here's the cover to one of my favorite games on the Playstation 1, Tenchu.

Being in Japan at the time, I of course had the Japanese version.  It was a fun game which rewarded exploration, cleverness, and patience, rather than just button-smashing violence (like another PS2 series I enjoyed, the Shin-Sangoku Muso (Dynasty Warriors) series).  Sorta like Old School D&D.

And it really helped me with improving my Japanese, too.  I wanted to know the storyline, so I'd play the levels over and over again to try and catch things I missed in the cut-scenes.  And learning all the kanji (Chinese characters) for things I wouldn't need to use in everyday life, but were useful for gaming (both video and tabletop) was fun, too.

Now, I'm regretting selling my PS1, PS2, and all my games when I left Japan.  Oh well, when my son's older and we can play this sort of game together, I'll see about reacquiring some of them.

2 comments:

  1. !!! I was fan, I remember i did masterize all the man path... was it Great Master or something ?
    Spent soooo much time hidden on roofs to wait for the good assassination timing... XD

    I was disappointed in Tenchu 2 tho... even if they had implemented nice new tricks to do... but, imo, somehow the spirit of this first episode was missing in the sequel...
    Now, i never played the following episodes on new consoles... May worth a try someday...

    Ne, ne, saigo no cho-hidoi level to ano bakayaro no boss ga honmani dai-kirai datta wa... datte sa, makeruto, mata level wo zenbu shinakereba ikenakatta naa... nagasugi datta naaaaa XD

    O_oV

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  2. Kuronons, merci and ようこそ. Tenchu 2 was alright, but I mostly completed it as a challenge from my friend who couldn't beat that last boss. I finally managed it, but it wasn't easy. Like you said, having to replay the whole level just to fight the boss again made it more difficult, but that much more rewarding when I finally beat her (the Rikimaru story boss, that is).

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