Cubic Ninja is a completely new take on the somewhat dry Labyrinth formula. Does it succeed or is it simply a glorified iPhone app? Find out after the break!
Cubic Ninja is a game which sees you control a cute little cube Ninja called CC. CC is tasked with the objective of saving the princess who has been abducted (story screams out Mario throwback). While the story isn’t imaginative or good, that’s OK; it isn’t need.
You will need to help CC dodge obstacles and enemies in order to rescue the princess. However, due to the frantic tilting you’ll be doing (and yes, it will be frantic), there’s no surprise that the folks at AQ Interactive have decided upon deactivating the 3D effects while using this control option. It doesn’t matter, because the 3D effects are probably the most subtle I’ve seen in all of the 3DS games I’ve played. It’s so useless that I deactivate it even when I’m using the Circle Pad.
The controls (yes, both control options) are a quite buggy, it’s nothing game breaking but it seems that Cubic Ninja isn’t too accurate. What makes it worse is that there isn’t an option to adjust the sensitivity of the controls. Especially with the difficulty of the levels (which I get on to later in this review) in Cubic Ninja, you’d think that AQ Interactive would have taken more time trying to get the controls right. I thought that using the Circle Pad would be more accurate, it isn’t. It’s just as bad, in fact, I feel it’s worse than using the motion-controls. I now only use the motion-controls.
The graphics are OK, I feel they were produced really quickly, but that’s okay, because this game doesn’t need to have amazing graphics. I quite like the artstyle of Cubic Ninja, while some may argue that it is bland and unimaginative, I feel like it compliments the Cubic world CC inhabits. The music feels like generic royalty-free music, it doesn’t have any charm. Don’t get me wrong, some tracks are catchy, but they feel a bit cheap.
In Cubic Ninja, most levels are filled with scrolls. Scrolls help you go up a notch on your Ninjutsu gauge. Once you go up to a certain level, you will be able to use a certain Ninjustu power. They are only 4 powers, but all of them are helpful. From Ninja stars to a sheild, all of them will aid you in your journey to rescue the princess. For each time you complete a world, you will receive a new Ninja which a specific ability. For example some Ninjas might be bouncier than others, or some may be heavier, all of them can help you in the game.
There are 5 themed worlds in Cubic Ninja, and there is one boss for each world. The boss fights are a great addition, but some gamers may be turned off by the high difficulty. In total, Cubic Ninja has 100 levels, while 100 levels may seem like a lot, it isn’t. The levels can normally be completed within 2 minutes. In terms of difficulty, Cubic Ninja can be very harsh, some levels are easy whereas some others you feel that you’re very lucky that you completed it.
Quite a few levels can lead you to throwing your 3DS at a wall in frustration. Don’t get me wrong, I love high difficulty in games, but coupled with Cubic Ninja’s unresponsive controls, it just makes some levels feel impossible to complete. Thankfully, after you die a certain number of times on a level, you will be able to use any of the Ninjutsu powers, which I guess was a great feature to add in Cubic Ninja.
Cubic Ninja also has a level creator, it’s pretty good. After you’ve saved your levels, you can share them with friends using QR Codes. Also, you can’t save your QR Codes onto your SD card, you have to take a freakin’ photo of your the QR Code if you want to share it on the world wide web, which probably is the stupidest move AQ Interactive pulled when it came to developing Cubic Ninja. I also feel that AQ Interactive should have made new levels available via SpotPass.
Apart from a level creator, Cubic Ninja has a Survival Mode which is where you have to play through levels without dying, could be pretty fun, but with the high difficulty of the levels this task may feel impossible to complete. There’s also a Time Attack mode where you can try to go through all the levels in fast times, and you can save it as ghost data (which you can later try to beat) or save it as a QR Code.
Ultimately, I feel that Cubic Ninja is a great concept, but it’s missing quite a bit of content, and AQ Interactive made quite a few mistakes which could have been fixed by common sense. I also feel that this game could have been very addicting if it wasn’t for the problems it has.
However, if you can ignore the bad controls then I recommend that you buy it, but not at the price of $40. Wait for it to get a price-drop. But if you live in Britain, then you can buy it for £24.91(from Amazon), which isn’t a bad price, so I guess you can buy it, but only if you’re willing to put up with unresponsive controls.
Loved:
- Different modes available
- You can create your own levels and share them
Hated:
- Unresponsive controls
- Lazy graphics
- 3D effect are not prominent enough
6/10
Thanks to Ubisoft for giving this review copy!
