Game-A-Week Episode 30: Ninjala

[3:25 AM]

I'm cooking up a gigantic special game-a-week that will actually take several weeks to complete.

[3:26 AM]

So in the meantime, to whet your whistle, I'll be providing Game-A-Week minis for as long as I have material to do so.

[3:26 AM]

Which will be like regular game-a-weeks but very small

[3:31 AM]

Ninjala is a free to play game on the Nintendo Switch.

[3:31 AM]

Its like Splatoon but instead of shooting things, you hit things with swords

[3:31 AM]

Its fun for what it is.

[3:32 AM]

There are robots scattered throughout the map that you can destroy in increase your energy.

[3:32 AM]

When your energy is high enough you can transform your weapon into a big weapon.

[3:32 AM]

Which does big damage.

[3:32 AM]

And that's pretty much the strat for every match

[3:33 AM]

Prioritize smashing robots in order to get your big weapon ASAP, then end everyone's miserable lives.

[3:35 AM]

When you and an opponent hit each other at the same time, you'll end up in a "Clash" in which you pick a direction and its basically a rock-paper-scissors tiebreaker

[3:36 AM]

IF you win the clash, you win the fight. You can't recover from a Clash because there's so much hit-stun from losing the Clash that you just get combo'd until you die.

[3:36 AM]

Feels great if you win the Clash, feels terrible if you lose it. And there's a 50% chance for either outcome and there's nothing you can do about it.

[3:37 AM]

At the end of the match bonus points are awarded to the player that destroyed the most robots and the player who got the most kills.

[3:38 AM]

So even if you're in first place, that doesn't mean anything. Because someone below you could get these bonus points and take the whole game that way.

[3:40 AM]

The game's lore is that after Ninja were wiped out at the end of the feudal era, they fled Japan and scattered themselves throughout the globe passing down their teachings from generation to generation.

[3:40 AM]

It's actually a pretty cool concept.

[3:41 AM]

So obviously, nowadays, Japan has completely taken over the world, even turning the Statue of Liberty into a ninja and the descendants of the shinobi beat each other to death in a competitive sport called Ninjala for our amusement.

[3:41 AM]

Obviously.

[3:43 AM]

I give Ninjala a 4/10. Its a fun game on the surface but the more you play it, the more frustrating it gets as RNG impacts the game way too much. You could be the best player in the world and still get screwed in a match against a new player just because that's how the game is set up.

[3:44 AM]

Also, Jane is the best character (and the only "Ninja" that actually looks japanese)

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