Review: Shuriken Ninja
Score:
68%
Burst balloons. That's all you have to do. It's not the most glamorous role for a ninja and his throwing stars, but when you have a job to do, that's what you do, because you are a ninja. If you can't immerse yourself in this game, then you're bursting bubbles on well designed levels with a fair amount of physics going on. And it's a good distraction.
Version Reviewed: 1.17.0.0
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Part of the fun of Shuriken Ninja is the simplicity - much like Angry Birds, your ninja stands at a fixed point in the game level, and all you need to do is decide which direction you are going to throw your star - which you do by touching at an aiming point on the screen. One thing to point out is there are no gravity effects in the game - once you throw a star it will travel in a straight line until it reaches a wooden wall (where it will embed itself) or a metal wall (which it will bounce off in a new direction).
Which means that the terrain of the levels has to be navigated by your stars, as they bounce around some interesting paths to reach the balloons, and yes you do need to pop them all. Some balloons have power ups inside them, such as allowing you to throw a 'triple shot' of three stars, so deciding when to burst these power-ups adds another layer to the game.
Bundled into the game, you have three distinct level groups. The first are the so called classic levels, where your task is relatively easy, but still provides a challenge. These are a great introduction to the game. Following that you have the master levels, which ramp up the difficulty but still use the same format to play the game.
Last up is the target challenge, where you are given a fixed time to burst as many balloons as possible. This is a nice change to the gameplay in the majority of the title, and helps you get your eye in for throwing the stars around the screen.
You can work through the classic, master and target levels independently, as the game tracks your progress in each, so if you are stuck on one, switch to another style and come back to the tricky puzzle refreshed, and perhaps with some new ideas on how to solve it.
But like an infomercial on a shopping TV channel, that's not all. You have a level designer so you can create your own levels for the game, and upload these to a central server to challenge other ninjas - and download new levels for yourself. Sorted by user ratings, the date uploaded, or the number of downloads, Shuriken Ninja is not going to run out of levels in a short time.
This extend the original game in a good way, but you have to remember the core game play here is that of a very casual game - pick it up, play a few levels, move on to something else. There's nothing wrong with that, and there are times when you need a quick distraction. Shuriken Ninja certainly fills that role. It might not be detailed, or complicated, but it does what it set out to do, and does it very well.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at