With an provacative, scantily clad heroine complete with swords, throwing stars, and other deadly weapons, Red Ninja: End of Honor looks sinfully good. However, this ninja game is no Tenchu by any means, and fails to deliver in many areas.

Graphically, it actually has a strong foundation, with solid lighting effects, smooth frame-rates, and the interesting décor and architecture of Japan in the 1500’s. Blood literally gushes from wounds as you hack and slash your way through the levels, but beyond these features, the graphics seem redundant – it’s basically Tenchu with more vibrant colors. The main character herself, Kurenai, is really nothing but some eye-candy that wields sharp objects – very little personality here to tell of.

Audio wise, your usual bag of action sound effects are here, but nothing remarkable. The musical score is simple, composed mainly of a flute-type Japanese theme, well suited for the game even though it grows old after awhile. There are some voices too, from the main character Kurenai to the supporting cast; however, it is laughable at best – very over-the-top stuff, maybe not as bad as Resident Evil camp, but somewhere in that area of comedy.

It is Japan in the 1500’s. You play the part of the skilled assassin, Kurenai, as she is caught in the middle of the warring Takeda and Oda clans. After the Black Lizard Clan murders her father, she is adopted into a band of ninjas and masters her deadly art. By employing your famed Tetsugen, a wire basically turned weapon, you can eviscerate your foes by simple latching on a few times and tugging sharply on it. At first, it’s fairly enjoyable to use this unique weapon, but after awhile it just becomes way too easy and tiresome. You also get a hold of some other nasty stuff like blowguns, smoke bombs and explosive rockets to help toy with your opponents.

The Red Ninja storyline is supposedly done by Shinsuke Sato, of The Princess Blade fame, but I’m not sure I would want my moniker on such a pitiful game devoid of much story. You mindlessly run around from level to level seducing, killing and sneaking your way past numbskull foes – the A.I. is pitiful. Enemies wander around unaware while you dice them up one by one, not to mention their apparent lack of fighting prowess when they actually do see you. To make matters worse, a lot of the maze-like levels require platforming elements, and with an extremely wonky camera and control system (more on that in a bit...), it’s very aggravating.

Initially, you are greeted with “hint butterflies” that help you with the rudimentary controls and aspect of the game. Later on, though, you realize all the tutorials in the world can’t help much when your camera causes half of your deaths or more. Aside from that, the A.I. is pretty dumb, and you should be able to make it past them; just beware of the nearly suicidal platforming areas. Most gamers will probably quickly realize how frustrating Red Ninja: End of Honor upon playing it. My suggestion is to definitely rent this one first before buying it to save yourself some trouble.

WORST CAMERA SYSTEM EVER. ‘Nuff said... well to humor you, let me elaborate, because in a twisted way, it is quite humorous. Any time you move, the camera tries to snap behind Kurenai... well, needless to say, when you don’t want it to rotate behind, it usually does, which causes some issues. Best to just lock onto enemies and pray you follow them in and not trip over yourself or some ledge to certain death. To make matters worse, the controls are horrendous – not a good thing in such an action intensive game that combines old-school platforming with spastic combat. Red Ninja was a truly maddening experience and I was glad to pop that DVD out of my PS2 as soon as was humanly possible.

Red Ninja: End of Honor is highway robbery with the $50 price tag, especially when a lot of stellar PS2 games are retailed at $40 or lower nowadays. Hopefully the Red Ninja titles collecting dust will clue in storeowners to drop the price and fast, before they move them to the furniture department for coasters. With the likes of Tenchu and the Splinter Cell series, there should be plenty of ninja-esque gaming to go around, and both are worth your money. So save up and pass on Red Ninja: End of Honor. Don’t dishonor your wallet.