Practice Your Stealth Skills With 'Pixel Ninja!'

Pixel Ninja is a ninja game. What more is there to say? Well, a lot actually. The story begins as Pixel Ninja's protagonist Hanzo is summoned by the village master. An evil warlord has stolen a number of heirlooms of great value to the village. It is Hanzo's mission to bring them all back. Your adventure will take you through 4 main levels with 5 mini levels in each. You will run around the Markets street, sneak inside the Castle Keep, traverse a Darkened Cave, and out through the Magical Forest. You will face many enemy types including samurai, archers, guard dogs, and heavily armored versions of samurai. The presentation and graphics are outstanding. It has a sort of feudal Japan feel to it that extends to the soundtrack. The levels are similar but varied just enough to challenge your stealth skills. Levels will begin to get crowded with enemies and survival will depend on your sneaking and fighting abilities. There are items at your disposal to help in your quest including include bombs, ninja stars, dog bones, and food to replenish health. The items are limited to a certain amount per level so knowing when to use them is vital. Use a dog bone to stop a guard dog from chasing you, use a bomb on harder foes, throw ninja stars at distant enemies and after all is said and done, eat some chicken to replenish your health! The controls are simple. You control Hanzo with a virtual analog stick shaped like a shuriken (ninja star) and attack with a simple attack button, and the items are accessed by tapping the corresponding icon for the item. One-hit kills are performed by sneaking up behind an enemy and pressing the attack button when an dagger icon appears behind the enemy's head. As sick as it sounds, I found it satisfying when Hanzo plunges his sword into the enemy. The animation is pretty cute actually. Mini Ninja! My only complaint is that the virtual analog stick fails to be responsive at times. For instance, when I finished executing a one-hit kill on an enemy, I have to lift my thumb off the stick and swipe it in the direction I have to go to continue my movement. This proves to be impractical in those situations where enemies tend to be close to each other and you need to hurry to the next one in order not to get spotted. But it's not a big deal since it isn't game over if you're spotted. You just have to defeat the specific enemy that spotted you. This game is reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid with its stealth action and enemy fields of vision displayed as either cones or squares on screen. You use that to time your movements and attacks. You can even hide behind walls or miscellaneous objects obstructing your enemy's field of vision so even if one walks toward you, you aren't spotted since you're out of their line of sight. Pixel Ninja is a fun little time waster for when you're commuting to school or work or want something to cool to show off to your friends. So if you like stealth action games, or want to run around as a cool little Pixel Ninja, this is the app for you! AppPicker Rating: 4 / 5 Stars Pick It Up in the App Store: Pixel Ninja! Other apps by Triniti Interactive