Need to distract him, or get him closer to you? Bring out the Noise Makers and Blow Darts, make him confused, terrify him even. First up, is your trusty sword, if you can get behind him without alerting him, you will be able to pull up a small quick time event that will lead to his bloody death.
That is the key point here, Klei give you the tools to progress through the game’s levels in a variety of ways, and it’s up to you to choose how to do it. What you do have, however, are all the tools necessary to take this guy out silently, if you choose to do so.
A full frontal assault will get you nowhere with these guys, they have guns, and you do not. Mark of the Ninja is littered with these unfortunate folk, and I say unfortunate because of the fate that befalls them as the game goes on. Some way through the first level you will come across your first Hessian Guard. You control your character just how you would expect to in any other 2D side-scrolling game, however the opening levels are littered with tutorial tidbits to help guide you through and show you the ropes. Mark of the Ninja is a dark game, for the most part taking part in dim surroundings while the light of city life glows in the background. The answer, thanks to the amazing presentation seen in Mark of the Ninja, is very effective indeed.
You may be wondering how effective a 2D stealth game can be in these 3D, open world inspired times.
Mark of the Ninja is a stealth focused game, something that must have been a joy to develop after the all out brutal assault that was Klei’s last release. What is entirely different, however, is how the game plays. When you first boot up Mark of the Ninja, the similarities between it and the aforementioned Shank 2 are quite clear, as the way the two games are presented are largely the same. Klei Entertainment’s last game was Shank 2, which was released back in February of this year, so it has been a pretty swift turn around between titles. The story of Mark of the Ninja is a simple one, as it follows the story of, yep, you guessed it, a ninja, as he is sent out on his final quest (in ninja land, a final quest really is final, as the ninja must sacrifice himself when it is complete) to avenge the deaths of all the members of his clan, who were killed by a ninja hating group known as The Hessian Services, lead by a George Michael lookalike named Karajan, who dislikes ninjas and seems to have gotten into the habit of underestimating them somewhat. How does Mark of the Ninja play you ask? Well, you’ve come to the right place to find out. Up next from Klei comes Mark of the Ninja, a game that carries all the style from previous Klei games, yet brings a different play style to the table.
As creators of some of the best 2D side-scrolling games in the last few years, Klei Entertainment are steadily building themselves up as one of best small development teams out there N+, Eets and the Shank series of games are all evidence of this statement.