|
The mystical island of Tranquil Dreams is not the most
obvious place to find a monastery where monks devote
themselves to their god, Kwon, the supreme master of
unarmed combat. This is where you were brought as an
infant, and adopted by Naijishi, the most powerful of
them all. Through many years he trained you to become
a Ninja of perfection, and now it is time to prove your
worth. To do this you are required to battle your way
through three different combat routines, each with a
different weapon.
To
start with, a Master Program has to be loaded, and this
initiates the routines used in the other games. From
here you can then load any of the fighting sequences
in practise mode, or play the whole game through from
the beginning.
UNARMED
COMBAT
The
setting of the unarmed combat sequence is in the desert
sands of Orb, where you have to defeat whatever the
master chooses to send against you. These are not all
humanoid, and spring out from behind rocks and bushes
with malicious intent. You must be ready at all times
to do battle with them, or else you will fail your quest.
Luckily, you have several efficient forms of bashing,
some of the more intricate moves being the good old
neck-chop, the back high kick, and the devious low kick.
In total, the apprentice Ninja has a variety of 16 different
moves, accessed by the same command system as Way
of the Exploding Fist.
POLE
FIGHTING
Abandoned
on a slippery pole you have to protect Naijishi's mysterious
lake, complete with ducks and all. Again, you have access
to sixteen battle moves, this time geared towards stick
bashing. Apprentice Ninjas need to plan their moves
carefully, since the slippery pole has a nasty tendency
to leave you splashing about in the lake, and no matter
how mystical it is, it's still very wet!
SAMURAI
SWORD FIGHTING
Off
to the temple for the final piece of Ninja bashing,
as you take on the greatest warriors armed with Samurai
swords. The battle commences with the clanging of swords
as you attempt to battle through all of your challengers,
until you finally reach the point where you have to
battle against the master himself. This part of the
game poses a major new problem; previously your opponents
had the same capabilities as yourself, but now they
are capable of more than the standard sixteen moves
to which you are restricted.
Gremlin
have implemented a 'triple scroll' routine which makes
the movement on the screen work in parallax. On the
unarmed combat scene the clouds drift slowly across
the sky in the background, and reeds and fountains are
animated with accuracy in the foreground. All the biffing
remains in the 'middle' ground. The placing alters on
the various stages but the effect still remains.
|
