You are Ken, a Ninja assassin and part of an elite team of ninjas in the year 2015. You have been sent out on a mission to deal with some mutant worms in the city that have been causing problems. After a short cutscene which introduces your fellow team mates it is straight into the action and wow, the action does not let up until this demo is over. 

 

Upon playing this title there is an immediate thought that springs to mind, this is Ninja Gaiden, but you should put those thoughts aside as from the very first moments of gameplay, Ninja Blade feels far superior.

 

 

The action is so fast that the best way is to explain the demo is scene by scene; after jumping out of a carrier plane. Ken gets confronted by winged beasts in the air, a Quick Time Event will come up, this is introduced by having a close up shot of Kens eye, press the correct button in time and he will dispose of the beast, miss and the action will rewind and let you try again. After a few air assaults you swing into a building block with a few more QTE's, only to be confronted by enemies in a large windowed walkway, here you get to try out some of the cool combos and switch through each of the swords available to see what you fancy. Once the grunts are dealt with a huge mutant worm bursts through the wall causing you to run away from it, using wall runs with the RT and swinging from poles to keep ahead, however you get cornered, the only way is down, so without hesitation, Ken takes a leap and starts running down the side of the skyscraper, again

fighting winged beasts on the way down. Out of nowhere the level boss makes it's appearance, a huge demonic looking spider. Once you have gotten past the ranged attacks you to need to bring some hurt to this ugly thing, using your ninja sight shows you the weak spots so all you need to do is learn the spiders attack pattern and work away at this huge boss. After a while you will ware the spiders life gauge down and will have the opportunity to finish it with another QTE, I won't spoil the cutscene but it was very satisfying after such a long battle. All of this happened in a very short demo level, each area and piece of action has you in control.

 

 

Whilst I understand this is only a demo, if the game can keep up the pace as shown here this could be a real gem. Pulling off large combos is easy and the graphics hold up really well with the speed and large variety of enemies. The various swords available allow you to play around and see what suits you and the situation, with a press of the d-pad you can choose from a heavy sword for slower more damaging moves to a lighter fast paced sword which is great for the faster combos. You also have a few extra tricks, hurricane shuriken can be thrown and you also have ninjitsu powers. As mentioned there are similarities to other games like Ninja Gaiden and even Devil May Cry, although Ninja Blade seems to have taken what was great about these games from the past generation of consoles and brought them into the HD Generation.

 

Rather than being a complete Gaiden clone, Ninja Blade is trying out new things, the seamless switching from fighting, QTE's and then running down a building is a heart skipping pleasure, if the rest of the game is of the same standard and pace as the demo then this could be the surprise hit of the year and I can't wait.