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Developers, if you call your game Legend of Fat Ninja, I expect to see a fat ninja. Not
just a hearty ninja which is what we have in this offering. The main reason is after
graduating from the Iron Skillet Academy, Fat Ninja is on a quest to find the best ingredients
possible, but also to crush the competition with his nin-jitsu. This is accomplished by
pinballing around the level like a loon, and would be a lot more amusing if our character
was just a little heavier. If wishes were horses, right?
The controls take a little while to get used to, but that is more due to the random nature
of the gameplay rather than any failing of the controls themselves. You start by sling-shotting
Fat Ninja into the level, and after this, anything he makes contact with will not only
propel him around, but will refill the dash meter. You get three dashes before having
to refill. What this means is you can tap the screen in any direction and Fat Ninja
will use his aerial acrobatics to adjust his mid-air trajectory... kind of. He won't make
a direct B-line for the direction you've tapped unless it's directly up, down or to the sides.
Everything else will cause more unique arcing moves like the spin kick which drops as it
travels sideways. These dashes not only need to be regulated but timed well, as the last
thing you want is to run out and face plant into the hard concrete, sacrificing a life
in the process.
The goal is to ram yourself into the lackey ninjas that are heading to shut down your
noodle hut, and then when they have been dealt with, the main chef opens for business and
you need to reign supreme down upon him to finish the level. All your adversaries are
represented off-screen by small directional bubbles with their faces on them, and this
leads into one of the issues of the game, how small everything is.
It's hard to make out the enemies let alone everything you're bouncing off of, and this
can really affect gameplay when trying to pinpoint attack the enemy chefs. It's also
a shame because the art style used is very striking, but you don't really get to appreciate
it because of its size, and also the random flying around you'll be engaging in.
Those who dislike large bouts of luck based gameplay might initially be turned off by
Legend of Fat Ninja, but there is actually a learning curve, and after a while, despite
all the random bouncing, you'll become quite adept at dashing in the right directions at
the right times, and chasing that high score as well as parading your culinary dominance.