Preview: Tale of Ninja: Fall of the Miyoshi

Tale of Ninja: Fall of the Miyoshi is a ninja role-playing game based on the history of the Japanese Sengoku period. It combines puzzles with action elements and is currently in Early Access on Steam. For just 4 Euros, you can help S.Y. Games finish this game by trying it out and providing feedback. I was quite excited to try out this game because it looked like it had potential. Spoiler alert: the excitement didn’t last long.

Let me start with what’s wrong with Tale of Ninja

I usually start with what I like about a game but Tale of Ninja managed to make me mainly focus on the bad parts of the game. First of all, when first launching the game, it started in Japanese (I think). Very confusing for a Dutch/English speaker. I was ready to give up immediately but clicked around a little trying to find the language settings and against all odds, I did. Luckily, the game is also available in English and other languages. However, I do feel that you’ll be losing a lot of players here if it is your goal to reach a worldwide audience. Second, the game crashed during the tutorial. I was playing for not even 5 minutes and bam, done. Let me tell you this wasn’t very encouraging. Let’s continue, shall we? The third thing I noticed was the tutorial itself. The UI is absolutely horrible. It looks super weird with sentences all over the place and just feels chaotic. Honestly, the overall UI feels cheap and too basic in the entire game. Fourth, there are the controls. You have your basic WASD to move, shift to run, and space to dodge. However, jumping is shift+space and I feel like that could be easier. As of right now, there is no controller option but they promised this will be added in the future. Fifth, there seemed to be some bugs in the game. For example, when I went inside a little house, everything got dark (inside the house and outside), so I thought that meant nightfall. But nope, as soon as I got outside again, everything got brighter. Also, why aren’t other guards noticing me or attacking me when I kill one of their own right in front of them?? Honestly, I could go on and on about the demerits in this game, but I think it’s pretty clear already that this isn’t going to be anyone’s new favorite game.

Any reasons you should invest in this game?

Honestly, I don’t think Tale of Ninja: Fall of the Miyoshi is worth your time or money. I don’t know what this developer is trying to achieve with this game, but even for an Early Access game, it’s absolute garbage. I guess it’s fun that there are multiple ways you can finish a level. There’s Swift as the Wind where you try to find a shortcut. Another one is Silent as the Forest where you gather clues in order to reduce the number of enemies. The next one is called Fierce as the Fire which is focused on combat and killing enemies. Your last option is Immovable as the Mountain. You’ll also be collecting clues here but try to reach the goal in a bloodless way. I guess I also kind of liked the hand-drawn map, but then again, I’m not sure if this is just because the developers were lazy. Overall, I like these options but they don’t outweigh the negatives.

Just a big no

I had some hopes for Tale of Ninja: Fall of the Miyoshi but unfortunately, this was one of the worst games I ever had to review. I hated every second of the gameplay and I don’t recommend trying this out. Maybe (and that’s a big ass maybe) this game will be better when it’s fully released, but I sincerely doubt it.