Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja
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| Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Success / Ninja Studio |
| Publisher(s) | Success (Japan) Atlus (North America) |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo DS |
| Release date | NA February 20, 2007 PAL October 12, 2007 JP June 8, 2006 |
| Genre(s) | action role-playing, dungeon crawl |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | CERO: A ESRB: E10+ |
Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, known in Japan as Gōma Reifu Den Izuna (降魔霊符伝イヅナ? lit. "Devil-conquering Soul Talisman Legend Izuna") is a Nintendo DS game by Success and published by Atlus USA in the United States. The game is described as a dungeon crawler with humorous dialogue.
Contents |
[edit] Story
Izuna and her ninja clan are looking for a place to settle down after their old master decided that ninjas were obsolete, and booted them from his castle. Upon arriving at a village that's suitably out of the way for their "Grandboss", Gen-An, they decide to stay at an inn when Grandboss wanders off.
While trying to find Grandboss, Izuna manages to offend the gods of the village, and everyone in the area starts behaving strangely. Now Izuna has to descend into the various shrines for the gods in order to set things right.
[edit] Gameplay
The game is a dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons. Inside the dungeons, gameplay is effectively turn-based, with monsters in the dungeon getting to move or attack every time Izuna moves a tile or takes an action. If Izuna should get KO'ed inside the dungeon, a passerby will bring her back to the village, but Izuna will lose all the items and money she was holding. However, after completing the first dungeon, you'll be able to store items and money in a warehouse, allowing you to put some good weapons in reserve in case you die. These features combine to give the game a Roguelike feel, albeit with modern graphics.
Key to the game system are the use of talismans. Talismans look like o-fuda in their in-game graphics. They all have an SP cost that is randomly chosen when the item is spawned (that is, created by the random dungeon generator). For most damaging talismans, the higher the SP cost, the more powerful the effect, while for non-damaging talismans a higher cost indicates a lower value, but one talisman, the Kikan talisman (which takes you back to the dungeon entrance), has a constant SP cost. Talismans can be used in three ways. First, a talisman can be used or thrown at an enemy (sometimes a talisman's primary use involves throwing it at a target enemy), which is called its Use effect. This method will consume the talisman. Second, talismans can be attached to weapons and armor to apply their Stick effect. Equipment have an SP limit, and talismans stuck to the weapon deduct their SP cost from that limit; if the SP limit is reduced to below zero, the item will break very easily. All equipment have a limit on the number of talismans that can be attached at one time. Talismans cannot be unstuck from the equipment unless peeled off by the equipment store man; they can also be burned off by the equipment store man, or with a Purifying Flame, but if removed this way they are destroyed. Third, the equipment store man can burn talismans into equipment, or you can do it yourself with the Burn-In item. This can make the equipment significantly more powerful.
Weapons and armor in the game are randomly generated based on what the game thinks the difficulty should be at the current floor in the current dungeon. As such, it is not impossible to be carrying two Cat Claws at the same time, one with an attack of 6 and one with an attack of 75. However, the game discourages the pattern of changing weapons the moment a better substitute is found, as other games of the genre encourage, by implementing the LUV (love) stat; as you use a weapon more, the LUV stat increases, increasing the weapon's efficiency in every way - it will deal more damage, be more likely to hit, and get critical hits more often. There are three equipment classes: the sword, the claw, and the arm (displayed in-game as a gauntlet). You may equip a sword and an arm at the same time for attack and defense, respectively, but neither can be equipped at the same time as a claw (which has both attack and defense stats), nor can two of any class be equipped at once. Each equipment type has several types, each with its own special effect (which could be as mundane as the tendency to be randomly generated with high attack). The Tsukumo talisman can transfer the effect of a highly loved weapon to a new one.
Other items in this game include pills (which can be ingested by Izuna, or thrown at an enemy, applying its effect to the appropriate individual - counter-intuitively, most pills are harmful and should be thrown at enemies), ninja tools (shuriken, kunai knives, bombs, and caltrops), and restorative items (which restore Izuna's HP and SP when used).
[edit] Characters
[edit] Izuna
A 16 year old girl who was born and raised as a ninja. She's arrogant, and often doesn't listen to others. Izuna travels with the remainder of her recently unemployed clan, Gen-An, Shino, and Mitsumoto. (whome she calls her slave)
[edit] Shino
A girl whom Izuna looks up to like an older sister.. More on the short tempered side than Izuna but is kind at heart, as read in the comic on the official site. Referred to by Izuna as Shino-Sis (or Shino-neechan in japan)Her real sister went mising a long time ago(and is going to come in izuna 2 the unemplyed ninja returns) she is said to be like izuna.
[edit] Gen-An
Formerly the leader of their ninja village, but now just the leader of their group of unemployed ninjas. The others in the group just refer to him as "Grandboss".
[edit] Mitsumoto
The last member of the group, Izuna doesn't treat him with any respect, mostly because he doesn't stand up for himself and doesn't seem to have any real ninja abilities. His skirt-chasing tendencies probably do nothing to raise his esteem in Izuna's eyes.
[edit] Reception
The game received poor-to-average ratings, with a Metacritic average review score of 66 out of 100. Some reviewers enjoyed the game's high difficulty and quirky storyline, while others panned the game for a perceived lack of depth, difficulty, and battling. It's also noted that the game doesn't use any additional DS features, such as the microphone, touch-screen or Wi-Fi. The game was popular enough to spawn a sequel, Gouma Reifu Den Izuna Ni (Devil-conquering Soul Talisman Legend Izuna 2), announced for U.S. release on July 22, 2008 as Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns.
[edit] External links
- Official English website
- (Japanese) Official website
- Izuna Review by Tokidokijournal.com
- Metacritic Review Aggregation
