Ninja vs Alien

Although ninjas were not the super warriors everyone pictures them nowadays, they did have a pretty important role. Most of their tactics relied on dirty tricks and backstabbing, but espionage was also one of their favorite activities. Hence, governments and various other establishments used ninjas to acquire information and even assassinate high-profile targets.

Ninja vs Alien is a retro platformer that allows you to play as a crafty ninja trying to save Earth from being destroyed. Although he cannot use any of the signature ninja skills, such as throwing shurikens and the like, he is able to climb walls quite easily. On the other hand, his enemies are vicious alien monsters, so maybe his regular tactics wouldn’t work on them anyway.

There is not much of a story to keep track of, since you pretty much know everything there is to know right from the start. The planet is invaded by aliens, everyone else is either dead or in danger, and it is your duty to save Earth as quickly as possible. Obviously, it’s not much of a plot, but you do not really need a staggering story for a platformer based on reflex jumps and speedruns.

It should be mentioned that the game features a pretty intense difficulty level, and you don’t get enough time to get familiar with it. Only the first couple of levels are somewhat simple, while the rest really push your buttons and can cause significant amounts of frustration. Disappearing platforms, falling projectiles and all sorts of traps require almost perfect timing to be negotiated, which is quite annoying.

Platformer fans should welcome a challenge, on the other hand, since it’s the nature of the genre to cause an ulcer or two. However, the controls and the gameplay are not as smooth as they need to be for the effort to be worth it, because it’s not fun in any way to die because the character did not jump as intended. There’s just too little content right now to look forward to.

All things being equal, Ninja vs Alien still needs plenty of work in order to become something for the masses. Right now, the controls and the lack of imagination in the level design department make it difficult to enjoy for longer than a few minutes.