Tenchu was already a strong brand on other consoles, beginning its life as a pretty cool stealth action game on the original PlayStation. A conversion of that game, or rather, a DS-ized version of that style of gameplay would have definitely been more welcome than the final product that managed to slip itself onto the dual-screen handheld. Instead we get a throwback design that feels like it was originally meant for the Game Boy Advance, and hastily rewritten in 3D for the DS hardware without adding anything that takes advantage of the 3D environments. At all.
Game Boy games that focus on "stealth" as its core game mechanic have proven that sometimes it's a concept that just doesn't work in a 2D environment. It's true that games such as Metal Gear Solid made for fun portable experiences even though their original gameplay elements had been anchored down into 2D because of the hardware restrictions - both the programmers and the gamers accepted the limitations and worked within them. But on a system where developers are managing better-than-PSX visuals on a regular basis, it's almost gut-wrenching to not only see a successful 3D game reduced to 2D gameplay, but also to see it reduced to a poorly designed 2D game with elements that wouldn't even fly on 2D-based systems.
Tenchu: Dark Secret tries to give the impression that there's a lot of meat to the design by beefing up the game's story to nearly boredom-inducing levels. Players will have to page through layers up on layers of text that accommodates only the basics of cutscene artwork. Even with this "extensive" tale, most of the missions require simply wandering around the open outdoor environments, sneaking up on guards on patrol and trying to take them out without being seen. It's essentially a ninja-based Metal Gear Solid design, but the problem in Tenchu: Dark Secret lies in execution - in a top-down view you're restricted to how far around your character you can see, which means you have to rely on watching the map and the arrow that represents the enemy you're trying to take down. Clearly this wasn't a good enough of a design for the testers, as From Software added this completely awkward numerical meter that rises as you get close to someone who can see you…even if you can't see where they are anywhere on the screen.
The game has a 3D environment, but since the camera pretty much stays in a locked top-down perspective its strengths are never exploited. You can never bring the view down to the character level to see how close or far away enemies are from their perspective. And one of the coolest elements of the classic Tenchu design - the grappling hook - is nowhere to be seen. To get on rooftops or ledges, you simply climb Tomb Raider style. But it definitely doesn't help that the game is absolutely nasty looking, as characters will get muddled up in the nasty texture work - there are lots of browns and grays in here.
Many of the problems lie within the level designs themselves. Not only are they repetitive and require the same tasks to complete, the ones that are different are so flawed in execution that the game is nearly broken. In one mission players must defend their fortress before enemies infiltrate it. You wander the area and wipe out the enemies you encounter, only to have the level end abruptly because somewhere on the map a bad guy got to a place he shouldn't have. No warning, no nothing. The level just ends.
This Nintendo DS game is a jumbled mess with almost no focus. It's almost as if the DS team didn't know what to do throughout the development, and had its design team simply run around the office trying everything to get the concept to work on the dual-screen handheld. The game attempts an authentic Japanese feel, what with there being Ninjas and all, but the dialogue written for them has been done in totally awkward English slang that doesn't fit the setting at all. On top of this, the game's soundtrack is all over the place, from the standard and expected Japanese-style strings and pipe flutes, all the way down to some completely out of place and repetitive funk. There's Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support, but it's just used for trading items with friends.
Verdict
Admittedly, the game isn’t entirely terrible, and there are far worse titles in the system library than Tenchu: Dark Secret. But don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s a familiar brand, that Nintendo published it, or that it’s a limited release: this game is a bad one.
