Tenchu 4: Art of the Ninja

[Nester the Lark]

I'm not sure if I should be interested in this or not.

Kotaku reports that Tenchu IV is in development exclusively for the Wii, and according to GoNintendo, it will be published in North America by Ubisoft. Apparently, there are also plans for a Tenchu V and VI, but no platform(s) were specified for those installments. (Probably depends on how well IV sells on the Wii.)

The first trailer is available here.

The Tenchu series started on the original PlayStation, and the first two games were developed by Aquire. After that, in the hands of other developers, the series is considered to have gone straight and steadily downhill. (The most recent installments appeared on the 360 and DS and were reportedly awful.) This new game, however, is back in the hands of Aquire, so that might be a good thing.

However, I, personally, don't really care much for stealth games. I mean, a stealth game with ninjas sounds cool, but I think I'm more of a straightforward action fan.

[Nester the Lark]

Jeux France has a video with gameplay footage of Tenchu 4. It's from a Japanese presentation where they also demonstrate how the controls work. It seems to rely on motion control pretty heavily. Interesting.

[TV Eye]

The graphics look good from other videos I've seen. Don't know if I'll get it though.

[Nester the Lark]

I've continued to follow this game, and I'm still intrigued.

Computer and Video Games posted a preview a few days ago (with a tone that's not unlike a 3PS ).

And Famitsu just posted new images. It seems that you can control a cat for recon. Cool idea!

I've also noticed that, like with Fatal Frame, some fans of the series are ragingly upset that the game is a Wii exclusive...

EDIT: New Japanese trailer.

[Nester the Lark]

GameTrailers has posted an eight minute long promo video for Tenchu 4 that shows a ton of gameplay footage and details the controls. It's all in Japanese, but it looks pretty cool nonetheless.

[Nester the Lark]

Triple combo! 3 hits!

Just in case anyone cares, IGN has the first English trailer for Tenchu 4. I hope this games turns out well.

[Wildcat]

Hopefully it controls smoother than Tenchu 2 did. Really made sneaking around like a ninja cumbersome. XD

[Nester the Lark]

Apparently, IGN was impressed with their hands-on experience.

Not surprisingly, Acquire is trying to make the game accessible to newbies (like me), but IGN seemed to think it worked to the game's advantage. It sounds like a stealth game that even I could enjoy.

If you're close enough to other characters, you can hear them whispering though the Remote's speaker! Very cool! Each character will have about 25 different stealth kills, activated via Remote+Nunchuck gestures.

Check out the videos. The presentation looks awesome.