Mark of the Ninja

[Lordnine]

This came out today on Steam. There are some addition impressions in the console forum but in shot it’s a 2D ninja based platformer with beautiful hand drawn artwork that actually rewards stealth as opposed to murdering hundreds of people. The levels offer multiple solutions from stealthy assassination to complete avoidance. You also upgrade new abilities and equipment based on your performance and whether or not you choose to play with a stealth or combat focus.

Anyone who has any interest in stealth games needs to take a look at this one. It’s not only one of the best stealth games of the last couple years but until Dishonored and XCOM came out was in the running for my favorite game of the year.

[Archinerd]

The designer (developer?) was on the Three Moves Ahead episode a week or two ago talking about hidden information in strategy games. The bits and pieces I heard about this game from there made it sound like it was pretty good and I'm interested even though I'm not typically a fan of platformers. I think it's the frantic pace and emphasis on dexterity and jumping puzzles that I dislike. Does this have a bunch of jumping puzzles in it?

[Lordnine]

Not in the typical sense. As a ninja can you climb on just about any surface, hang from the ceiling and use a grappling hook to get to areas you can’t in any other way. There are a couple instances where having good reflexes would help but the penalty is in having to fight or run from a guard, not instant death. On the whole the game encourages slow methodical play instead of run, jump and prey. The only exception to this rule is the optional challenge rooms which are far harder than anything from the main campaign.

[Archinerd]

Thanks, sounds like I might actually like this platformer.

[Hipolito]

I've finished this game. It has slick animation, tight gameplay, lots of options, strong design from top to bottom ... but it's all a bit dry. I didn't feel strongly motivated to keep playing until the last couple of levels which feature Stalkers and the Mark of Serenity. There was one moment during those levels when I actually paused to catch my breath. I wish more of the game was that intense.

I was frustrated by how little backtracking I was allowed to do. More than once, a door would unexpectedly close behind me, saving the checkpoint and preventing me from hunting for missed scrolls unless I started the level from the beginning.

It's refreshing to have animated cutscenes between levels again. Maybe it's just my perception, but it seems that level-based games have been skimping on cutscenes lately. The story didn't hold my interest until the last couple of levels, though.

[Hrdina]

Yeah, I actually finished this game as well, despite rarely finishing a game, and even more rarely playing platformers. I actually went through a second time to get all the achievements unlocked. I thought it was an incredibly well-done game with a good story as well. Highly recommended.

[Archinerd]

Thanks, sounds like I might actually like this platformer.

I did actually like it.

[KDH]

As you may know .. this is on sale @steam for $2.99 for the next 20 hrs

my question is .. how well does it control on the PC without a gamepad

[Lordnine]

I prefer it slightly with controller but it controls fine either way. In some ways you may find it easier since you can aim with the mouse instead of the analogue sticks.

[KDH]

Thank you .. I shall check it out

Maybe someday I'll actually get a gamepad

[GreenGoo]

I played it for awhile on keyboard and mouse and had no problems. Like, it never dawned that there might be problem. Smooth as silk. Then I got a gamepad for something else and tried it with Mark. It worked great too. I prefer the gamepad now, but it was perfectly fine with mouse/keyboard.

Great game. Great buy at 3 bucks.

[KDH]

Does anybody who has the "special edition" remember if the game title-screens designate that the game is, in fact, special-edition?

I purchased the DLC for this during the sale ... STEAM tells me it is in my library, but yet I cannot tell if it is. STEAM support just tells me to verify integrity of local cache, which said all is OK with local files ... and there are files in the DLC folder





There were difficulties getting anything to download during the sale due to high traffic

[IceBear]

From reading the Special Edition DLC description it sounds like it adds commentary so if you have an option to turn on commentary then you have the Special Edition

[KDH]

Thank you ... yes, commentary is there

[Lordnine]

The commentary is actually pretty interesting. I replayed the game when the DLC first came out. There are a bunch of little things they did with the game that you probably wouldn’t notice unless someone pointed them out to you but really improve the performance.

The guards for example, have tons of lines of just idle dialogue because the developer knew that in a stealth game, you are going to stay in one place for a long time. Having frequently repeated dialogue would break immersion and become repetitive. When I read this I immediately smiled because I had recently been discussing the guards in Dishonored (a game I love) but which has the guards repeat dialogue about every 15-20 seconds.

Note: There are a lot of story spoilers so you probably don’t want to play with the commentary on if it’s your first play through.