When you sift a real time strategy game down to the husked grain, you find a tower defense game. Enemies storm in of their own accord; your planning and money management determines what automated forces will repel them. Ninjatown (DS, SouthPeak Games) wisely works within the DS’s abilities by focusing on this core, rather than trying to graduate all the way to a fullblown RTS game. Ninjatown is a simple, accessible tower defender that adds variety and charm by leveraging basic Year One DS showpieces like yelling into the microphone.

One thing I’ve been wondering. Does Ninjatown’s relentless cute factor help or hinder the game? As in: I’m about to describe how great a game this is, but will you ignore it anyway because the imagery resembles a seven-year-old internet meme? You could easily pitch the graphics under a Domo-Kun Kitten Eater license. Or worse, some half-buried branch of the Sanrio family.

That distinctive look comes from designer Shawn Smith, known to the gaming universe from several years in editorial at Electronic Gaming Monthly. He left the games journalist scene for a go at making boutique plushies. Being able to turn his appealing sewn doodles into an actual video game – and a good one at that – sounds like the harried promise of a gaming dev Babe Ruth at Smith’s sickly bedside. “Sure, kid, we’ll make ya a DS game. You just get better soon, ok?”

But the resultant game is a high water mark in the DS library, well-crafted and smartly presented, aware of the limitations but reveling in its handheld space.

Ninjatown offers up cute ninja after cute ninja, cute baddie after cute baddie, as you ford through the most simplistic of storylines… the local Wee Devils are attacking the town in search of the ninjas’ famous cookie recipe. In lesser hands, your tolerance for kiddie nonsense would be stretched, but Ninjatown takes great pains to wrap the package in a clever, self-aware bow. After so many years reading boring, carbon-copy text screens in games like this, it’s fun to come across bizarre lines like these:

Forest ninjas attack flying and ground enemies with equal skill. They also know which forest fruits make the best smoothies.

Just when you think [Forked Tongueys are] defeated, they split in two! They’re also liars!

The Speedy Devil has just the X-treme attitude needed to dash right past your defenses.

Ninjas and caffeine can be a deadly combination, not to mention all those antioxidants!

My only complaint about the writing is that the game brings up the tired old Pirates vs Ninjas debate. That’s about one notch below mentioning Chuck Norris in my book.

So the game is smart with the writing… now how about the gameplay?

As in most tower defense games, the play here is to build the right units at the right time. Each level has a specific path that the bad devils will follow, lined with empty construction lots. From your menu of ninja huts, you select whether to fill the lots with slow combat ninjas, speedy ranged-weapon ninjas, and all the gradients inbetween. Business Ninjas (complete with little ties and cell phones!) are extremely fast and can more effectively block the faster devils. The Forest Ninja doesn’t do much damage with his arrows, but his range lets you build his huts a little further away from the road.

A thematically appropriate menu of unfurling scrolls lets you micromanage your huts… setting rally points, upgrading abilities, and the expected destroy command for emergency funds. Your options are presented in an obvious icon display, but you may need a level or two to master the game’s glyphs.

Most levels pit your town-building skills against ten waves of enemies, with a life meter that allows up to ten devils to make it through your defense. The levels have a ticking clock as well, which I would usually consider an unnecessary pain in a game like this, but I very rarely hit the timer’s game-ending wall. You are given a ranking based on how few devils breached your lines, although this seems to be mainly for high score bragging rights.

There’s a great sort of chess strategy to how you arrange your huts. Once you get to know the level’s enemy blitz, you can decide on the best setup for that board. Start off with some slow, sturdy Anti-Ninja huts for pure strength, but back them up with some fast Business Ninjas who will jump in and slow down the onslaught enough for the Antis to start throwing punches. Put one of the training dojo building powerups nearby to enhance your troops’ range or speed. Then upgrade your huts – each ninja hut has five levels – to maximize their damage, range, speed and health. By then you’re out of money and will need to sit and watch as your ninjas perform their cute little murderings and pile up more dough.

Luckily, watching isn’t boring. The ninja attack animations are adorable and hilarious. I could watch these cartoon cuties beat on each other all night. But Ninjatown has a secret weapon that starts off as a silly gimmick but becomes absolutely invaluable as you reach into the more difficult levels: Ol’ Master Ninja himself.

Ol’ Master Ninja is, in effect, you. Your stylus becomes his hickory cane, letting you become personally involved in the fray. He even hovers over the battlefield in a primitive balloon, much as you loom over the DS’s dual screens. It is his leadership that directs the soldier ninjas below. As the devils die, you accrue Happiness points, which allow you access to Ol’ Master Ninja’s secret ninja techniques.

At the simplest, tapping individual ninjas grants them a temporary infusion of ninja energy, making them faster and tougher. The intense “Hickory Lunge” lets Ol’ Master Ninja stab at superspeed as many devils as you can touch with the stylus. But other Master Ninja powers fall smack into the Embarrassing On The Bus category. “Get Off My Lawn” requires you to blow into the microphone, with the pleasant result of pushing all the enemies backward along the path. And “Wake Up Call” uses the sound of your voice to inspire nearby ninjas into a better performance.

Ninjatown’s defenses also include a series of item tokens that can be dropped onto the path, although they are provided on a very limited basis. The Baby Ninja token slows down enemies with sheer heart-emitting cuteness. The Ninja Consultant shows up with pie charts and graphs that increase ninja efficiency. The Ninja Dropping is, yep, poop that does damage to all devils in range of the poisonous fumes. These items are won at the completion of each level, and they all provide only one use… so you must choose carefully when you intend to wield them. It also seems like the better items are rarely awarded. I have plenty of extra Baby Ninjas but hardly any Super Ninjas (a heroic fellow who stuns all onscreen enemies in a single blow.)

The difficulty gets mean by the sixth of nine level hubs. (The first board on hub seven is intensely hateful.) For the harder levels, you’ll need several attempts and solid strategy to best Ninjatown’s toughest boards. The game may look sugary sweet but it will provide ample challenge. Honestly. And if you fail a single level too many times, Ninjatown gives you the pity difficulty, offering an easy mode just to get you through the board. So even if you’re not an ace player, you’ll still get to see the game in it’s entirety. (Which is pretty important since it takes many, many levels before you unlock all of the game’s ninja types and secret powers. Not to mention wrapping up that cookie thievery storyline.)

For multiplayer the game supports single-card and multi-card play, pitting two players against each other to see who can clear out the town faster. This mode includes a handful of exclusive screw-your-neighbor ninja powers, such as being able to steal your opponent’s money or Happiness. With levels taking only a few minutes to complete, it’s a shame that Ninjatown does not have online Wi-Fi play.

Ninjatown was released in the US in late October of last year. It has not sold particularly well, barely hitting 50,000 copies in nine weeks according to vgchartz.com. This means that just about every single DS Petz game has outsold it. I know the Petz series targets a different demographic, but ouch! With Nintendo just about abandoning the DS to the fickle whims of third party developers, the DS sorely needs games like Ninjatown. As gamers, we need good DS games like Ninjatown.

The Wii’s Nintendo Channel sporadically offers a Ninjatown demo. Give it a whirl and see if you are as charmed as I am by this overlooked gem.

One day, when the portable horsepower allows, we’ll all be playing Starcraft Classic on the bus.

Until then, we’ll always have Ninjatown.

For cute graphics and clever writing… and deeply challenging real-time gameplay… Ninjatown for DS gets a far-from-stealthy 4 and a half out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Ninjatown was released October 2008 (NA) for DS.
DS downloadable demo available.
Rated E