Tenchu 4

Use your ninja sight

Radar wasn’t invented back in ninja times, so warriors had to rely on a mysterious sixth sense. Enter ‘ninja sight’ and enemies are bathed in red, light sources in blue and friendly shadowy places in purple. Aim the camera at your red foes and your hearing intensifies: their footsteps and mumblings emitted from the remote speaker. “What’s for tea?” they ponder. One of four context-sensitive kills, says Ninja Cat. This is particularly handy when guards are alerted, as you can gauge how curious they are by listening in.

You’re a (throwing) star!

Throwing stars are a ninja’s best friend. Well, technically, Ninja Cat is a ninja’s best friend. But throwing stars are far sharper. So sharp, in fact, that you can slice a candle wick in two and extinguish the flame. Aimed with the analogue stick and thrown with a flick, stars are best kept for guards silly enough to wander toward wells, precipices and the edges of watch towers. Stars will clip these guards and send them tumbling with a bloodcurdling scream. You’re only falling to your death, pull yourself together man.

Bring on the return of Red Steel

There’s little room for ninja failure. Get discovered once and your ninja coat explodes into feathers to enable an escape. Get caught again in your semi-undressed state and it’s game over. Unless you pack a sword, in which case it’s time to clash steel. In the defending phase you tilt your sword to guard from incoming swipes, while the attacking phase suggests an optimal chopping angle to attack with. A bit like the dotted line that tells you how to scissor open a sachet of microwavable soup. Only it lops off an ear.

Hide in many pots

Unsurprisingly, guards won’t be too happy to find their pals murdered in front of them. Can’t really blame them. Dumping bodies in bushes or off cliffs should do the job – it also denies the family any chance of a funeral – but there’s a quicker solution. Hop in a pot, wait for them to pass and yank them in like a chip wrapper tossed in a wastepaper bin. In head first, their legs follow down in comical fashion. Pull two guards into the same pot and try and work out how they fit.

Unleash the Ninja Cat

This cat’s 90% cute, 10% the most dangerous mind on the planet. Aptly described as “a powerful and destructive character”, Ninja Cat grew tired of mice at one day old and decided to hunt the most dangerous animal of all: man. Picked up in alarmingly rigid form, Ninja Cat can be waved around to convince suspicious guards that “it was just a cat” and can carry items in its mouth. Look at the kunai in its widdle mouth, ahhhh-arghhhh. Get it off. Get it off! *Dies.* Here endeth the lesson.

Jan 15, 2009