The Retrospective 8.16.07: Tenchu (Part 2 of 2)
Posted by Sean McCabe on 08.16.2007
Finishing up with Tenchu, celebrating the coming of Fire Pro and talking about the best anime series ever, it’s all this week in The Retrospective
The Introspective
Well, the news broke just after I put in my column last week, so I guess I'll need to talk about it now. Fire Pro Returns, one of the greatest wrestling games of all time, is finally leaving the land of the rising sun, and receiving a full western release. This is tremendous news, and whilst it probably won't outsell the new Smackdown games, it will be better. That's just a fact of life.
My gaming lately has been pretty enjoyable. I got Trauma Centre 2nd Opinion last week, and it's definitely one of the better reasons to own a Wii currently, and I started FFXII again, this time intending to finish the game. Before, I played it for over 20 hours to review it, but I basically did really crap, upgrading my licenses in the wrong ways and missing out on the ultimate weapons (but come on, your not supposed to pick up certain chests, and given no indication what ones you should not take. Fucking bullshit!). Ahem, and of course I've been playing Tenchu Z, which prompted me to choose to cover Tenchu in the first place.
Also I watch with amusement at the reactions towards Tomonobu Itakagi's criticisms towards Heavenly Sword. Generally the opinion is that he had no right to say the things he said, and he should get back to designing virtual boobies. Alright, first, I believe that if anybody should have the right to criticise another game, a respected designer within the genre should you know, should be the one, and second, as far as the other comment goes, have any of you losers made one of the best action games ever? Thought not. The letters STFU were made for people like you.
Alright, moving on, here's something I've been wanting to write on for a while, and reading the Negative Edge's section on Claymore encouraged me to go all out on this.
The Devil Lady
Released by ADV films a few years ago, The Devil Lady (or Devilman Lady to give it its proper title) is beyond a shadow of a doubt my favourite anime series. There are many reasons for this. First is because of its distinctly dark tone. Although it's based on a Go Nagai work, it doesn't have the inherent comic book feel that comes with most of his pieces, but it has all the grandeur and macabre of them. Almost all animes, regardless of genre always seem to have moments of lightheartedness to "break the ice" and keep things from becoming too suffocating, but it's on this stifling of happiness that this anime thrives on. It's through the abject darkness of it's narrative that it celebrates the moments of light that it has, and in a way, makes these moments the opposite of what they should be, sad, not happy, because of their fleeting brevity.
The plot starts out simply, with Jun Fudo, a shy fashion model finding through the intervention of a blonde stranger, Lan Asuka, that she is not in actuality fully human. This realisation both horrifies and mystifies her, and her vulnerability allows for her to be manipulated into fighting other creatures like her for the Government agency Asuka works for. A pretty ordinary scenario in fantasy horror, but the realisation of events in the story feels very different from your typical fantasy story. Because in almost every situation Jun finds herself in, there is a private tragedy behind it. And also how things develop, goes in a pretty different direction than what you'd expect to. The fragility of the concept of good and evil is laid bare in it's epic finale, which questions the base assumptions we all make about our lives and what we see as true benevolence, and malevolence.
The end of episode 3, in which Jun begins to fully develop her power, but at the discovery of great cost.
The characterisation of Jun as the protagonist is more complex than any other show I've seen. She is a conflicted individual with temptations that her "civilised" human personality would always deny herself, she is a very repressed person whose deeper instincts begin to surface because of what she is. Also very sensitively handled is the relationship between her and her younger friend, Kazumi, with whom she clearly has an attraction to. Yes, this is a Yuri story, and Jun's bisexual tendencies are made pretty obvious. But at the same time, this is a deeply romantic, yet tragic story. It's use of sexuality is very mature and reminiscent of the movies of yesteryear that relied on sexual chemistry and tension because of the prevailing attitudes towards sex scenes on camera at the time. However, it remains by far one of the best ways to tell a story involving relationships, as proven here.
Frankly I could write a series of columns on the finer details of this anime. There's just not many others that even come close to the kind of detail and complexity with which this show tackles its themes. Of course, for those that just look for easy entertainment through anime, this show is not for you. It's challenging, quite depressing and is very much told on an extremely slow burn setting. The content of violence and nudity is quite high, although not too over the top. This is for people who want to watch something cerebral, and with multiple facets of meaning behind it. It helps to like horror to, since there's definitely a lot of horror tropes used in the first half.
I've been waiting to do this for a while. This show isn't just my favourite anime, it's my favourite show, period. This is because it's just some great, old fashioned storytelling in an age where everything seems to be apart of some gimmick or fad, a problem that is especially prevalent in anime. If reading this, and you think the best anime going is Naruto, One Piece, Haruhi Suzuyima or something like that, you really should hang your head in shame. The reason I initially took to anime was because I do like animation growing up and did not "grow out of it" as most people do since I see it as a legitimate art form, and here was a type that actually told mature stories for adults, but nowadays the most popular titles are glorified kids shows. And not even good kids shows, like the old school mecha anime that I can at least find some enjoyment in because of the sincere enthusiasm those shows had. Ah well, I suppose I better stop before this column turns into the "Angry anime fan". I'll bet Damian's got that copyrighted already anyways.
VG Babe of the Week: Kitana
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the better things about Mortal Kombat. And she does continue the Ninja theme we got going here.
The Breakdown
Tenchu: Fatal Shadows
Developer: K2
Format: PS2
Release: 2005
Notes: Fatal Shadows, or Tenchu: Kurenai in Japan, is a prequel to Wrath of Heaven, set between it and Stealth Assassins, in the period in which Rikimaru is still believed to be dead.
Of course, therefore, Rikimaru would not be playable in this game, giving Ayame and a new character, Rin, centre stage, making this the only "all female" Tenchu. This would also be the first and only Tenchu game to be published by Sega. The story goes that Ayame travels across Japan, searching for Rikimaru in the hope she may find him alive. However, she comes across a village on the business end of a massacre and takes the blame for it when the lone survivor, Rin, turns up after being away training for a few days. Eventually the two work out their obvious miss-accusation issues and team up to track down those responsible.
I only spent a short time playing this one, and there was a few issues it had. The camera work had changed a bit and was quite annoying to use. Also the graphics and AI were about on par with Wrath of Heaven, so there wasn't much improvement considering this game was a sequel. Also the multiplayer modes were completely removed and there was no map editor. This game was stripped quite bare. Add to that, a quite horrible framerate and slowdown issues and basically, you have a pretty feeble attempt here overall. It was also something of a missed opportunity that they did not choose to use this game as the explanation for how Rikimaru survived and returned to Godha.
In Retrospect: This was, to put it bluntly, the first bad Tenchu. And unfortunately, it wouldn't be the only one, as the portable incantations released later… well see below.
Tenchu: Time of the Assassins
Developer: FROM software
Format: PSP
Release: 2005
Notes: Time of the Assassins has been released in Japan and Europe, but not in the US at the time of writing.
Time of the Assassins is an interesting addition to the series. It is very fully featured with multiplayer, map editor, custom missions, and just about every character from the series, both playable and non-playable, be selectable for these extra modes. Certainly, it's the anti-thesis of the bare bones Fatal Shadows. But of course, it's not free of problems.
Whilst the camera work isn't too bad, the PSP controls definitely take some getting used to. Also, the levels had awful draw distance making it difficult to plan out attacks from afar. The original game had this issue somewhat, but not as bad. One would expect more from the PSP.
In Retrospect: I never played it, it got mediocre reviews but some fanbase approval, probably making it a stronger entry overall then Fatal Shadows, but not as good a debut on the PSP as anyone would want.
Tenchu : Dark Secret
Developer: FROM software
Format: DS
Release: 2006
Notes: Dark Secret would not try and ape the gameplay of the previous games but instead try and do it's own thing, to rather poor results.
Dark Secret allowed you to control, once again one of the two characters of Ayame and Rikimaru. The gameplay had changed to a top down perspective not that unlike Metal Gear Solid, and as a result, the aerial aspects of the series such as the grappling hook and the sneaking over roofs was removed. This definitely nerfs the appeal of Tenchu's stealth quite a bit. The graphics and sound were poor, and under par of what the DS could produce. Still, it did have some interesting ideas; such as being able to create your own items through stylus based mingames. Also the game had wireless multiplayer and 40 odd missions.
In Retrospect: Generally considered to be the poorest game in the entire series, although reader reviews on the net suggest some people found enjoyment in it.
Now as for Tenchu Z, I'm going to be lazy and direct you to my full review for you to judge for yourself. It's a decent entry and a return to form in my estimation, although some areas still need more work such as presentation and enemy AI.
Links? I got links!
Tommy Coloma continues to bring the desktops, the anime, and the understated gaming news in this weeks Negative Edge
Damian Sarcuni talks LAN gaming in Angry Gaming, and also has to deal with feedback from a friend of mine.
Owain J. Brimfield scores major points with me in The Wonder Years, Streets of Rage 2 was the game that got me into gaming in the first place. People always tell me that that makes my overall tastes make a lot more sense.
Fact or Fiction covers a set of interesting topics this week. Anyway, never mind the negatives, buy Fire Pro! If everybody interested in it does so, I'm sure it'll make a dent in the SvR sales.
The Code News Report has a heartfelt tribute in this week, I offer Shawn Struck my condolences on his loss.
And Theo brings the new Wii news inNintendophiles. His column is great to check out if you have any doubts about Nintendo's direction as of late.
That's all from The Retrospective this week. I know I kinda wrote more on anime than I did on games this week, but since Devilman Lady is really the only show that stirs such strong feelings in me, it's probably won't happen again. I use the word probably of course, to cover my ass in future.
Oh well, I have yet to decide what to cover for next week. I did receive an email asking about the possibility of covering all the games that featured Drizzt Do'Urden, which would be an interesting idea except other than reading a few books about him, I've never played any games at all featuring him. Still, it is an idea I'll keep in mind, but if anybody wants to send me any ideas, feel free. It doesn't just have to be games series, as I could cover the history of a gaming company, or indeed, the idea of games featuring off of specific licenses and universes, or maybe even look in detail at a specific games console.
Keep things in perspective, and go watch Devilman Lady, like, now!
