IO Interactive, Robosoft Technologies
Mac · Nintendo DS · PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 3 · Wii · Xbox 360
3.27 from 230 ratings
1784 members have it in their collection · 7 playing now · 1112 backlogged · 59 wish listed
How long? Main story 7h · 100% 18h (from 5 logged playthroughs)
Review V1CGaming 3/5 · Nov 22, 2020
Although it's definitely more of a children's title, it's still a nice relaxing game for adults to enjoy as well. You can always turn up the difficulty, ignore the power up potions, or explore the world for 100% completion to make it a little bit harder.
Review Haxiel 4/5 · Jun 9, 2019
Mini Ninjas is an adventure game about Hiro, a young ninja with the ability to use Kuji magic. It has a simple, straightforward story in which Hiro sets out to defeat the Evil Samurai Warlord and restore balance to the land. Along the way, he finds and rescues his ninja friends. From a gameplay perspective, Mini Ninjas involves a balanced …
Mini Ninjas is an adventure game about Hiro, a young ninja with the ability to use Kuji magic. It has a simple, straightforward story in which Hiro sets out to defeat the Evil Samurai Warlord and restore balance to the land. Along the way, he finds and rescues his ninja friends. From a gameplay perspective, Mini Ninjas involves a balanced mix of environment exploration and combat. Environments are mostly linear, but they do include a few diversions and collectibles on each level to encourage exploration. Combat is mechanically straightforward, but some amount of experimentation is possible due to the decent variety of Hiro's abilities.
It's quite obvious from the outset that Mini Ninjas is aimed at a young audience. Hiro and his friends are charmingly animated, and each character has a cinematic video that explains some of their quirks. The environments and characters are drawn with a cartoon-like art style that's consistent throughout. The enemies you fight in the game are actually innocent animals twisted by dark magic, so they simply revert to their original, adorable forms when you defeat them. There's no killing involved.
On the downside, the simple approach to combat means that its fairly shallow. For each character, the basic set of moves remain the same throughout the game. Also, the game rarely gives you a reason to switch from Hiro to another ninja. I was personally experimenting with all of the characters, but Hiro's balanced moveset and magic skills make him an obvious choice. This is rather unfortunate, because the other ninjas are unique and memorable in their own ways.
I was also not a fan of the way the spell energy system was implemented. Casting a magic spell reduces your maximum energy capacity, as opposed to temporarily draining it. As an example, casting a spell that uses 80 units would take you from 200/200 to 120/120 instead of 120/200. You have to drink a potion to restore the maximum capacity.
Despite the minor complaints, I liked Mini Ninjas as a whole. It may not have the depth or complexity of a more serious title, but it brings together a lot of interesting parts into an amazing, cohesive whole. The varied environments, the feeling of an epic adventure, and of course, the unique characters themselves all up to an interesting mix. There's a lot of lighthearted fun to be had on this journey.
