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I-Ninja

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I-Ninja is a video game developed by Argonaut and published by Namco. It was released for the PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. A Game Boy Advance version of the game was announced, but it has been canceled. The game was advertised with the tagline "No one's taller than the last man standing." Although not too popular with the general public, it has gained a cult following.

As a result of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe buying the exclusive distribution rights for Europe, that part of the world saw only the PlayStation 2 and PC versions released.

Game mechanics

The main character in I-Ninja, called simply "Ninja," has a variety of acrobatic abilities that are used throughout the game. In addition to basic skills such as running and jumping, Ninja can jump a second time in the air, although this second jump is less powerful than the first. Ninja can also spin his sword around while midair for a limited time and use it to fall slower than normal to bridge large gaps. This sword-spinning can be done immediately after jumping, but is delayed if performed after a double jump.

Ninja can also use the shape of the environment to his advantage. Throughout the game there are several uniquely designed walls that Ninja can run on, either up to reach a higher platform, or across to bridge a gap. Ninja can only run on walls for a limited time, and will fall off once this time is up. If he is running up a wall, then he will pull out the tip of his grappling hook and use it to slow his fall. Ninja can also jump off these walls and use his helicopter sword to reach a platform. Sometimes two walls are placed across from each other; Ninja can use these to jump back and forth to move upward.

Also placed around the world are halfpipes that Ninja can use to ascend. By running up one side, Ninja can use the speed from running back down to run farther up the other side, and so forth to reach the top.

Throughout the world there are points where Ninja can use his Grappling Hook to swing across a gap. When Ninja nears one of these points, he will hear a clinking sound, indicating that he can use his Grappling Hook. Another use for the Grappling Hook are short racetrack-like areas where Ninja must run faster than a mote of light chasing him. In these areas there are usually sharp curves that have a grappling point in the center, which Ninja can use to round the curve.

Some levels have bars that Ninja can grind on using his wooden sandals. Many times these bars have gaps in them which Ninja must jump over.

Certain levels also provide Ninja with explosive darts and ricocheting shuriken to use against his foes. Both of these can be aimed using a first-person view, but shuriken can also be thrown with an auto-aim feature.

Occasionally Ninja will encounter an enemy that will leap into the air with him (in classic anime fashion) to battle. The two will remain suspended in a sort of flying void until the foe is defeated. While in this void, Ninja flies around and can dash, slash with his sword, perform an unblockable but heavily delayed thrusting attack, and throw shuriken if he has them.

As Ninja attacks he will build an attack gauge that, when filled to certain levels, can be spent to temporarily enhance his abilities. As Ninja progresses through the game he will gain access to more of these abilities; using them he can increase his strength, heal his life bar, ride a giant shuriken to quickly slay foes, or even become invincible, which allows him to greatly harm enemies in his vicinity without even touching them. When Ninja becomes invincible, he says "I-Ninja!", which provides the game with its namesake.

postacie

I-Ninja

Ninja,bohater gry i nie tylko

Sensai

sensai.zwykły człowiek

Yang

47 Is A Cloned Assasins....

Ariel

She is the large and robust guardian of Bomb Bay. She is extremely dim-witted, and is heavily infatuated with Ninja. She keeps on goading him to hug her, especially when he rescues her from Ventis.

Her pet names for Ninja are "Love puppy" and "Tiger." She rarely calls him anything else.

Like all guardians, she wields a trademark weapon, namely, a large hook attached to her wrist, which is fitting, seeing as she lives on Bomb Bay.

Twilly

Twilly is the Guardian of the Jungle stage, and is practically afraid of his own shadow. He's a coward, a master of camouflage, and the first one to run from Ranx, whom he is Mortally afraid of. He supplies you with the gate-pass into the Mountain Gorge area, and information about the evil O-Dor's location.

Zerola

Zerola is very attractive, and catches the eye of Ninja at first sight. She is about half a foot taller than Ninja, and wears golden armor.

She tells Ninja, after defeating Malakai, about the last rage stone, and how its powers would make those who were dead alive again, and how it could make a living being immortal.

Her weapon is a Bow and arrows, which she used to fend off O-Dor's great army of Ranx at Mountain Gorge until her capture.

Enemies

Ranx

Ranx make up O-Dors army, and come in many varieties.

Ranx are extremely dim-witted, not being capable of human speech, and only able to utter squeaks, grunts, and occasionally raucous laughter. Don't worry about these dumb little things. They are defenseless.

Apparently, they are a type of Machine or cross-bred race created by O-Dor, because you can usually see them in storage tanks in his labs.

Patrol Ranx

The types of Ranx you usually see are Patrol Ranx. They are about Ninja's size, and have the same shaped heads. They carry Katana like broadswords and wear armor in different shades of color, depending on what belt level ninja is, and how hard they are to defeat.

These types of Ranx always attack head on.

Buzz-saw Ranx

Often attack by ambush, these Ranx have a very long reach, about 2 times Ninja's height, and instead of wielding blades, their whole hands are powerful saws.

Ambush Ranx

These guerilla fighters always attack from the surrounding environment, various crates, boxes, plants, and even up in trees. Their ambush attempts are usually very obvious.

Stenchu Ranx

O-Dor's personal guards, unlike other Ranx, they are females, and don't carry weapons. They fight using martial arts moves against Ninja, and are extremely advanced.

They are the most difficult Ranx to defeat because they move so quickly.

They are only seen in one mission on the moon base level.

Guard Dog

A bad dog with a bad bite. They will generally come in packs, and will do nothing but lunge at Ninja with snapping jaws. Swords, shurikens, darts, or anything else Ninja can get his hands on are handy tools for getting rid of these evil canines.

Ranx Captain

Leaders of the ranx army. Ninja has to fight these tough fellows (who have a strong resemblance to Darth Vader for some reason) in sub-space, where there are endless boundaries and Ninja will have to do some good mid-air floating to avoid the captain. He'll try to slice, lunge at, counter, and even throw his sword like a boomerang at Ninja, so Ninja will have to be on his toes to fight these guys.

Kappa

Turtle-like monsters that enjoy stomping on Ninja, but cower in their shells when attacked. Enough hits can bring these giants down.

Kappa Captain

O-Dor's most trusted henchmen, these goons also fight Ninja in sub-space. In addition to swipes and lunges, Kappa captains can release missiles from a compartment in their chest. Once again, it's time for Ninja to put his ninja skills to the test and chop up some turtle trash.

Chopper Ranx

Ranx that fly mini helicopters and shoot missiles at Ninja. Makes for good dart and shuriken practice.

Ranx sentinels

Big robots piloted by ranx. Slow and lumbering, but if they catch ninja with their laserscopes, Ninja will get warped back to the beginning of the level (or save point) and take damage. Ninja really wants to go ape on these things, but they are indestructible unfortunately. Ninja can still use darts and shurikens to distract the sentinels and sneak past, which he will be forced to do in later levels.

Rocket Launcher Ranx

Name says it all. These guys have a good eye too and will fire homed shots at Ninja from almost any distance, as long as he is visible. Run at him and he runs away while still firing. It makes you wanna chop him even more.

Bosses

Kyza

A gigantic robot, similar to Tekayama, who guards the rage stone on Robot Beach.

You battle Kyza using Tekayama (controlling his body) in a arena-like bay next ot Robot-beach. To defeat him, you have to use different combinations of punches, knocking various body-parts from him, especially around his face and nasal area.

At several points in your fight, Kyza will step away, and fire missiles at you from his knuckles. These projectiles, however, hardly do any damage, and can be easily dodged or blocked.

Ventis

A large and powerful robotic fish or eel like creature. You fight him submerged under water inside a gigantic bomb capsule on Bomb Bay. Luckily, you are able to combat him with a missile operated mini-submarine.

His primary attacks are to shoot spring-loaded explosives at your submarine, most of which are simple to avoid, by barrel rolling to the left or right. Once in a while, Ventis will take a snap at you, but he's quite easy to avoid.

Various pickups allow you to change your variety of missiles, such as homing-style missiles, automatic-fire missiles, and missiles with heavier damage and impact. Shooting Ventis in his mouth when he opens up to attack, is the best way to kill him quickly.

When you kill ventis, you gain the Ninja Shuriken from out of his mouth.

Psyamon

The evil, and very frightening scourge of the Jungle Falls level, he is a demon from the underworld. He resembles a gigantic jellyfish, with a huge Ranx helmet.

You defeat him by using the MK-2, a battle robot, equipped with powerful miniguns.

You fight him atop a ledge, shooting at the ghost-like minions he regurgitates up at you from his mouth, which seems to be some sort of portal.

When your bombers are fully charged (you can tell because of the blinking missiles on your guns) you shoot them at him, blowing off different parts of your body at intervals. All-in-all, he's not that hard to defeat.

Malakai

Malakai is easily the hardest enemy you battle in the game. Unlike most bosses, you fight him using your own skill, without the aid of any special machinery.

Malakai resembles a shepard, wearing a straw Japanese Kasa hat. His face is obscured, excluding is one large eye. He also carries a powerful staff, to go with his shepard image.

You fight him in his domain, a first, being an arena of pahoehoe lava, with small, floating rocks you leap on, one to another, so as not to get hit by the powerful bolts of energy Malakai shoots at you. You gather up shurikens from each rock you land on. Malakai will be suspended in the center of the arena, so you have a clear target. If you hit him with enough shurikens, he'll become frustrated, and turn the lava surrounding you into a true arena. There, you and him with fight hand-to-hand, your sword against his staff.

His primary attacks, when airborne, are to shoot bolts of energy and electricity at you. When you fight him on the ground, he'll attack with various slashes, leap attacks, and jabs with his staff. Although, sometimes he will shoot blast at you if you are far away.

Also, you have an advantage in this fight because of the fact that you are able to use your rage powers to gather energy.

O-Dor

There's a reason they call him "O-Dor." The supreme evil, and ruler of the Ranx army...O-Dor is laughably easy to defeat, and is most definitely one of the weakest bosses in the game. Prone to flatulence, he uses his uncontrollable farts to his advantage. When you attack, he'll shoot darts at you, easy enough to dodge. When close by to him, attack him with your sword. He will fart on you, though its easy to dodge, and doesn't do any heavy damage.

When he has had enough of this, he'll transport you to his own personal moon-based arena, similar to subspace. The same attacks are used by both you and O-Dor. After a few sword combos, presto, the supreme evil is done-for.

Rage power-ups

Ninja uses bursts of power, used both for attacks and life energy, brought on by the Rage Stones.

Ninja Berzerka

This attack was brought on by the first Rage Stone Ninja touched. It is used mainly for bringing up your health bar, although it does cause Ninja's attack power to raise astoundingly high, and cause almost any enemy to be killed almost twice as fast. During the Rage power transition, Ninja raises his arms to the ceiling, and roars, "NINJA BERZERKA!" Amid a spherical inferno.

Ninja Revived

Almost the exact same attack as the Berzerka, only the Revived attack gives you double the health points, and double the attack points. It is also used mainly for healing. During this transition, Ninja will cry "NINJA REVIVED!" Then he will raise his arms, his body emanating a blue glow.

Ninja Shuriken

This attack is far different from any other. It is definitely used for attacks, rather than health. Ninja raises his arms, and screams, "NINJA SHURIKEN" and a huge shuriken will appear beneath him. It will levitate to where ever you want it to, and kill every enemy in your way. This only lasts a few seconds, so don't miss any enemies.

Ninja Rage

This is by far the most powerful Rage attack. Ninja raises his arms, and screams, "I-NINJA!" Amid a furious sphere of electricity. Ninja can go anywhere, and any enemy, and any obstacle in your way, will immediately explode. This offers little health however, but is good when attacking large numbers of Ranx.

Machines

I-Ninja's usual action-platformer gameplay is kicked to the sidelines in more than a handful of the game's sections, as certain levels require I-Ninja to use machines he finds to achieve his goals. Sometimes this is as brief and simple as hopping into a missile turret to blast open a door before hopping off for more Ninja action, but in a few instances an entire level will be devoted to an alternate form of gameplay.

Ninja's full arsenal consists of 6 blades. The fist being a regular Katana sword, the next, a heavy and powerful Gold blade. The third, a swift and light Jade sword, the fourth, a blade made of blue aquatic crystal. The second most powerful blade made of a mystical fire or magma, the last, a devastating sword built of soul destroying metal.

You can also use long distance weapons. Machine guns, missiles, tanks, turrets, miniguns, cannons, sniper rifles, shurikens,darts and attack vehicles.

Trivia

External links



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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 06:17:46 PDT (GMT -0700)
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