Akane the Kunoichi is a 2D Action Platformer in where we must save our master from the clutches of the ninjas who have kidnapped him. No further reason or story is given as we journey through 15 levels and mow down everything that gets in our way. Your only method of attack is to throw kunais at your enemies and have no form of melee. The amount of kunai you possess is infinite so you can spam as much as you like, but we can only throw them horizontally, meaning its necessary to be on the same plane as what you are trying to kill. Every enemy you encounter will take precisely three hits to go down, and all deal the same amount of damage from either their attacks or simply bumping into them.
There are only four different common foes you will face for the duration of the title, and none are particularly enjoyable to fight. You have a brain dead green ninja who can only walk back and forth like some kind of Goomba, an orange ninja that throws kunai, a monk who throws his hat when you are near, and finally, you have a dog with a terrible hitbox. As annoying as it is to have to crouch to hit the dog’s paws since throwing sharp pointy knives into its head does no damage, it somehow comes out to be the least troublesome of the bunch. This comes in large part due to both enemy placement and your character Akane’s huge sprite which makes it difficult or impossible to dodge projectiles in many cases. It’s not too evident in the first couple of levels in where the game is extremely easy, but that will change as you get deeper into it.
Its difficulty, in general, is perhaps my biggest issue with it. The method which they used to go from mind-numbingly easy to punishing is simply not fun. They use techniques such as messing with the environment to make your movement slippery while the controls were pretty subpar in the first place, enemies that literally spawn in from thin air at precisely the wrong places to plunge you into an endless pit, and precise platforming that is a bit much for both your large hitbox as well as the previously mentioned control issues. It derives all of its challenge from the cheapest way possible and as a result makes beating this game feel more like a trial of patience than anything else. You do have three limited magic attacks to cast, though the starting areas are so easy you’ll never need them, with the later levels treating them more like a puzzle element allowing you strike down enemies placed in areas you otherwise couldn’t.
Every three levels you will encounter a unique boss which are all giant monsters. These do not fare much better than the regular grunt enemies in how fun it is to fight them. Easily the worst has to be the second boss that requires you to wall jump as it chases you from both sides of an arena room. Wall jumping is a pain to pull off right, and this boss’s hitbox is both tiny & hard to hit. Out of all five bosses, only the 1st and 3rd one are decent while the rest suffer from making it difficult in all the wrong ways. Funnily enough, boss fights are the only areas where our magic spells are not allowed which is the place they would have served their purpose best if balanced properly. Thankfully, every stage with a boss will let you fight them right away with the rest of the level surrounding it being optional for those that want to collect all kimonos. There is no award for collecting them aside from the extra challenge of doing so and an achievement.
All of the stages, even the one containing bosses have a five-minute timer. It may not sound like much but the levels are so short I never found it becoming an issue. The only thing you really need to worry about is avoiding death as there are no checkpoints and four hits is all you can take. Scattered throughout some levels are cat shaped vases which may contain either a heart to recover a pip of health, extra time, and a power-up to your basic kunai attack that increases the amount you throw at once. The theme changes up every three levels which is a nice touch even if their differences are purely visual. At the end of the day, Akane the Kunoichi is not what I would call a bad game nor one that didn’t have any care put to it. It’s just too unenjoyable and faced with crippling flaws that hamper what is on offer.
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