As in many games of the genre, the guard routines are relatively straightforward, and often easy to abuse, meaning that you’ll likely end up with a well organised pile bodies to dispose of. How you choose to use it will of course vary, as a more passive player may choose to sneak past unnoticed, while the aggressive player will create the perfect opportunity to strike. Everything in the environment that makes a noise emanates a ‘sound radius’ to provide you visual information on how loud it is, and therefore if the enemies can hear it, they’ll be drawn to it. Sight lines are hugely important here (as expected from a stealth game), though the concept of sound also plays a big part. Most commonly seen in the strategy genre, it’s a technique that’s used to only let you see what the character can see, with the unseen area coated in grey shadows. One of the most interesting aspects of Mark of the Ninja is in its use of a mechanic best described as Fog of War. The narrative may take a back seat to the action, but the fast paced fluid platforming provides an experience that is unlike anything else on the Xbox Live Arcade as you sneak in the shadows and plan your attack.
Where Mark of the Ninja differs however is in its core design, as the 2D aspect severely changes up the gameplay design, and at a first glance you might think it limits it. If you’ve been following the genre, it’s going to easy to initially throw up Mark of the Ninja as a ‘been there, done that’, since the undoubted king of the Ninja stealth game is Tenchu. Their stylistic charm returns, as well as a number of gameplay mechanics adapted from other games of the genre, though has this change of pace resulted in an entertaining experience?
Klei Entertainment, most well known for the Shank series, takes a shot at the stealth action genre with Mark of the Ninja.