I am going to do a top Light gun Games list soon, and to do that I want to get a few games out of the way. So apologies to the many people who don’t like On-Rails shooters as much as me.

I found another Light Gun Game on the PS2!

Gameplay

Light gun… On-rails. Shoot things. Shoot off screen to reload.

What Ninja Assault does that makes it stand out a little, is that it has added a story mode.

There are 4 modes, Arcade will take you through all the levels. But the individual stories for each character (Guren, Aoi, and Gunja) and from their perspective. In this mode you to do slightly different missions, and each character has different abilities. Aoi is a female Ninja, she has more ammo. Guren is thin and male, he does more damage. Gunja is fat and male, and can take more damage. They also get a different animation for their special move (but the moves do the same thing).

It adds a little more life to the game, as it at least gives you a reason to play 4 times as some of the story missions do not appear in arcade.

Once you beat the story/arcade missions, you can do a slightly harder Mission Mode, where you can choose levels and go for scores/times/learn all the secrets.

I hate these little things

Story

Presented in super scrolly text-o-vision:

“Once upon a time in feudal Japan, a brutal war raged. No one foresaw its conclusion, at least not in the manner in which it unfolded. And now…the evil Shogun Kigai has kidnapped Princess Koto in order to sacrifice her for his resurrection ritual. But there is hope…. Two courageous ninjas (Guren and Gunjo) have stepped forward. The battle among humans has ceased. And in its place, a new battle has begun: humans against demons.”

Aoi doesn’t appear in the arcade mode, but has her story woven in to the storymodes.

The final boss takes more then a little inspiration from Lylat Wars/ Starwing and that is it.

Cheap hit alert

Conclusion

Ninja Assault is a decent shooter, the shooting is accurate and the story is enough to get you to the end. Don’t expect Shakespeare, just shoot things.

The one flaw is that the game has a habit of not registering shots. Having played many light gun games on the PS2 I know my plastic guns work, on Ninja Assault it will occasionally think you’re reloading. It will mean the screen will flash like you’re reloading (and your bullets reload) but you’re trying to shoot the enemy. It means you will take cheap damage, and stops the game scoring in the low 80s. It isn’t as bad as a Mad Dog McCree or Lethal Enforcers, but the bugs stop it being a Time Crisis II. Instead, it is more on a par with Crypt Killer.

Pros: Fun enough, accurate shooting. The story isn’t hot steaming garbage.

Cons: Shooting is flawed

75%

Not Andross…

Back in the Day

Because games journalists are lazy Ninja Assault was compared to House of the Dead 2. This is like saying Sonic and Mario are the same game…

Anyway, Ninja Assault scored badly and holds a Metacritic score of 60%

About Van Rockingham

I'm awesome. I write about videogames and play bass guitar.