A Tales of Two Ninjas: A Review of N+ for the PSP and DS

As a fan of these titles, I spent much more time with the construction sets than playing the actual games. Gradually, one would learn what made a compelling level, and what didn’t work. As the player became aware of these design methods; a second diversion appeared- constructing the ideal level was the goal of this meta-game. Based upon the success of the previously mentioned two games, gamers soon saw applications that let them build music compositions, adventure games, racing tracks, and even firework displays on their limited hardware.

  A screenshot from the PSP Version. Those little red things are mines; from our experiences, a ninja’s worst enemy.

While prevalent on the PC gaming platform, the incorporation of construction set fell out of vogue on consoles, until the industry took recent notice of Little Big Planet. Recently, Bangai-O Spirits for the DS, Boom Blox for the Wii, and Halo 3 all shipped with level editors. Although N+ was a recent addition to the Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft inexplicable pulled the level editor at the last moment.
 
N+’s gameplay consists of moving a diminutive but reasonably well-animated ninja, through various 2D single-screen environments, to an exit door. Players use only the digital pad and jump button to control the protagonist in a nod to the days on simpler gaming. Two additions separate N+ from the myriad of 80’s based platformers: the ability to scale walls, and the incorporation of a minor physics system. Players, especially in later levels, must use momentum to access required areas of the screen. Although N+ starts at a level of difficultly accessible by all, it soon becomes an exercise in frustration. (Episode Nine, Level One on the DS in an early aggravation) Later levels demand multiple retries- a single contact with an enemy object causes a quick death for our ninja.

                   Dual-screen Ninja action. We use the word ‘action’ loosely, as this Ninja assinates no one.
 
While both games only have a handful of enemies, ranging from stationary mines to raving drones, their placement and behavior is modified to make this continually interesting. N+ contains a bit of a risk/reward system for repeat play: there are gold squares scattered throughout the level. Initially, players will want to focus on making it to the exit in one piece, later gamers can top their scores by replaying to level to strip the stage of all treasure.
 
While play is identical on both handhelds, there are a few differences that separate the two versions. On the DS, the top screen shows the complete map of the level, while the bottom screen shows a scrolling, zoomed-in area immediately surrounding the player. The PSP version, on the other hand, shows the whole playfield on the screen, although strangely, the screen will scroll a few pixels. Level selection is completely different across both platforms, obviously the designers wanted to take advantage of the PSP’s widescreen output.

The level creator, while powerful, is not as intuitive as it should be. For example, enemy rovers have four different AI patterns, and can start in four different cardinal directions. Instead of allowing the player to select the placed enemy and alter the variation via a simple menu of check boxes, a ‘shift’ key must be pressed, while the player awkwardly maneuvers from the various options- that is if the player is in the right mode. Moving the initial location of the players starting point took us about ten minutes to figure out, and no information was available in the game’s manual. While we did get the hang of things after a half-hour, the interface never felt innate.

At an MSRP of twenty dollars, some of the N+’s faults can possible be overlooked. For fans of old fashioned, pre-narrative gameplay, the title may be worth a look, especially if you factor into the nearly limitless amount of levels that can be created and downloaded.

Final Grade: B-