Tenchu: Return from Darkness (Xbox)

Firstly i would like to congratulate the makers of this game for providing a top quality game. This game was everything a stealth game needs.
With 2 characters with alternate story modes (and 1 to unlock) this game provides hours of gameplay.
Nothing can satisfy you more than observing your target then seeping your cool blade into their suple flesh. Which brings me on to my first delight of the game: sucessfully stalking a target without him spotting u allows u to pull of superb stealth kills which include slitting throats.disembowling and skull spearing.
with an intense storyline and great bosses the first 2 parts of this game are great with unlockable items and weapons.
however once u complete it the first 2 players the fun stops.
the unlockable player is aweful. It is really easy as he has animal calls which stop people chasing u and return to their posts. Also his stealth kills have left alot to be desired as they are just corny X-rays of where he is jabbin people with his pins or watever he has.
All in all a top quality game, and i truly recomend it for u stealth fans out there.

First impressions weren't great - no 60Hz, slightly jerky opening movie, minimal options... The enemy A.I. is frequently laughable - prime example: hotly pursued by a ninja, you run into a dead-end dust-trap behind a ladder ... whereupon the ninja (plainly visible to me, so presumably I'm plainly visible to him) yells "I'll find you!" before promptly forgetting you're there and wandering off, leaving you "hiding" in plain view in a nook with one way in or out! D'oh! I imagine that connoisseurs of "modern" stealth games with all their dynamic shadows and intelligent adversaries would be horrified...Tenchu's enemies have the memory of goldfish, and are painfully short-sighted - in fact the entire game is so simplistic that it feels like the original PSOne code with PS2-quality graphics running on, erm, an Xbox. Not good, you'd have to agree - so surely this game deserves ridicule then? No, actually - I can't explain it, but it's actually good honest simple fun. I actually found it quite refreshing after all those high-ambition Splinter Cells and suchlike. No matter how much I wanted to like MGS : Substance, or Splinter Cell, I can't honestly say I enjoyed them - in my opinion they had too many gadgets and gizmos, and the gameplay never quite delivered that vital factor called "fun". Techu: RFD is a simplistic game, sure - likely too simplistic for some to stomach these days - but I found I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than its more ambitious competitors. Go figure...I'm not blessed with broadband so I can't comment on the Xbox Live aspects of this game, but I've read since that they're a hoot and a holler. Sounds like you can add another star if you've got Xbox Live then!Overall: Would've been more acceptable as a budget release, but it's simple stuff that's somehow very enjoyable in an almost retro kinda way. Looks & feels like a game from the last gen, but sometimes simple arcadey fun is more important in a game than an accurate physical model of life the universe and everything! :-)

I thought the Xbox did a great job in updating the Playstation 2's Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. For starters, the improved higher resolution of the Xbox over the Playstation 2 did it more justice, but also, the real additional fun-factor was the inclusion of a couple of new levels not previously found in Wrath of Heaven.

Atmosphere, typical of the Tenchu series, is second-to-none. Lost none of the fantastic music, Feudal Japan settings and has some great un-dead and spooky levels. The stealth is, once again, amazingly good, better than all the other stealth games out there, as Tenchu was the original (and best).

Five stars. Any quibbles or weaknesses are quite minor compared to the overall gaming, graphics and experience that Tenchu: Return from Darkness brings to the series.