The sheer number of terrible games released every year is immense, but every so often there comes a game that really takes the cake. The year before last, it was Anubis II, a 3D platformer supposedly based on Egyptian mythology. Last year, it was a surprisingly popular (seeing as how terrible it was) 3D platformer titled NinjaBread Man. Surprisingly enough it was developed by the same people as Anubis II, Data Design. Though NinjaBread Man’s release was somewhat limited, this platformer is still around, and there are many reasons you should be warned to avoid it at all costs.
Firstly and most notably, is the game’s gameplay; or lack thereof. Being a platformer, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game should be jumping from platform to platform in order to solve the game’s obstacles, should it not? But in NinjaBread Man, jumping is handled by shaking the Nunchuk, a task that, when made while at the same time navigating with the control stick, requires coordination that I doubt many human beings consistently possess. And if that weren’t bad enough, the other major aspect of the gameplay, combat, is near impossible, as the enemies are extremely and ridiculously overpowered. Not to mention that to swing your sword you must shake the Wii remote, and half the time this doesn’t even register.
Which brings me to the movement controls. In NinjaBread Man, you either walk (which is excruciatingly slow) or you can run, which makes your character very hard to control. Anyone playing this game can expect to fall off of platforms repeatedly due to these frustrating controls.
And if you were expecting it would at least feature a somewhat interesting or different narrative, you can forget it. In fact, NinjaBread Man has no story at all. No cutscenes, or anything. Though I can’t imagine what they would do with only a tutorial and three stages, the entirety of which can be completed in less than an hour on the first try.
And no, Data Design Interactive isn’t just budding developing studio that doesn’t know all the ropes yet. They know exactly what they are doing. Why do you think their major publisher is called Conspiracy Games? In 2007 Data Design announced they would be releasing thirteen games, but what they didn’t tell us was that they would all recycle gazillions of material from each other.
