mr_chupon99's Full Review: Tenchu 3: Wrath of Heaven for PlayStation 2
The first Tenchu was a great ninja game. The enemies seemed almost random in their looking about, and fought with honor (aka, some were quite tough to kill).
The second one weakened the grappling hook so you were no longer Spider-man, and made the enemy follow very specific, unrealistic patterns, making them easy to kill. It also added a lot of new ways to kill people silently, as well as a third character.
The third one takes the best from both games and combines them. The enemies move in patterns, but they are quite complicated, and the game's difficulty has been seriously spiced up, with enemies clustered together far more often than in the previous games. Alas, one of the problems with the game is you can no longer move bodies, so guards will get alerted fairly regularly when on a killing spree.
The story takes place after the first game, and explains why Rikimaru is still alive and kicking, and progresses to be a story less soapy and catchy than the second game, and more like the first one. Thankfully, the missions that you go on are unique to each character, though the map is pretty much the same. To increase the game's overall play time, each level has three layouts you can play, where enemies are placed in different areas. I personally wanted a map maker. To balance out my disappointment, there is a 2 player Vs and Co-op mode. Now, this co-op isn't going through the story mode together, but going through the 2 player levels together, generally just killing people without plot. Though it is fun to double team the enemy for a change.
The controls are much the same, with a few new moves added in at the begining, and more attention to combat was put into Tenchu 3. When you get enough stealth kills in a level, you gain a new ability. It's pretty easy to meet the kill requirement, which is a shame, and you can only get one special ability per level. The camera will drive you absolutely crazy until you learn to control it with the look (L1) button, and the right trigger. Within about 30 minutes to an hour, it should no longer be an issue in most cases.
The music is a lot like the 1st game, only I found it less haunting. You can play with the music off, if hearing footsteps helps you out a lot in the game. Speaking of sound, the game offers you english or japanese with subtitles, which improves the game dramatically in my opinion. Ninjas don't speak english where I come from, so it adds some authenticity to the whole experience.
Overall, in the video game slump we seem to be in at the time of writing this, Tenchu is a welcome addition to the PS2 line, and will keep you entertained for a few weeks. If you have never played a Tenchu game before, try renting the first two and if you really enjoy them, then chances are you might want to buy it (and the PS1 games too for that matter).
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