Yeah, it's that cute.

I’ve been playing Mini Ninjas for the past couple of days.  I’ve reviewed it for Resolution Magazine.  Go read.

Some further thoughts, though: when I played a demo of this a while back, I was certain it was going to be game of the year material.  It exuded this wonderful charm, and had an incredibly strong sense of identity.  Indeed, when I started playing the full game yesterday morning, I was still pretty sure we would be talking about a 9 out of 10.  Then I played more, and it became an 8.  Then more still, and it became a 7.  Then… well, you’ll have a look at the mark, I’m sure.

It just can’t keep up with any of its brilliant ideas.  Or, as I rather suspect, Io Interactive didn’t quite realise how brilliant some of the earlier section’s incidental bits are.  It thought it was making a family-friendly action game.  What it almost made was something vivid, artful and often evocative and beautiful.  But no.  It went for the action game.

That’s a real shame.  Parts of Mini Ninjas are absolutely gorgeous, but I became bored long before the end.  Hopefully Io won’t abandon this formula and go back to making gritty, stabby games just yet.  Or, I hope they do, but that they keep on ploughing down this route too.  Mini Ninjas isn’t the great game it nearly was, but there’s heaps of potential.