iGR Insight - Super House of Dead Ninjas PC Review

Super House of Dead Ninjas is Adult Swim Games’ first game to come to Steam, and from its successful reception hopefully not the last.

In Super House of Dead Ninjas you play as Nintai Ryoko, The Crimson Ninja, from a small village in a distant part of Chun-Jan. Your quest is to infiltrate a tower, which goes by the name of Ziggurat of Infinum, in search of answers instead of the treasures that are said to be hidden inside. The answers Nintai seeks are what happens to the innocents that are dragged screaming into Ziggurat of Infinum, and of the legend of the one armed ninja who supposedly made it to the bottom floor. Oh and maybe also to put a stop to the horrific demon Abarghus, and its minions who’ve been terrorizing the nearby villages.

Unfortunately, the only way into Ziggurat of Infinum is from the roof, and 350 floors separate you from the bottom. Each quest in the tower is randomly generated. To make matters even worse, you are also timed. You start with a mere 30 seconds on the clock. That means you must race from time reset, to time reset, to avoid a special demon enemy that will descend upon you if you run out of time. Scary stuff I know.

Your home base of operations is a small, rundown inn on the outskirts of the tower. At the inn is where you prepare for your quest by selecting weapons to aid you, view various upgrades, and other unlockables. Within the inn you are able to choose the difficulty of the game, and at which floor you want to start at. At the start of the game you are only able to start from the top, but there are benchmarks to reach so you don’t pull out your hair out having to restart from the top of the tower every time you die.

The variety of weapons you are able to choose from is large, but they aren’t all available from the beginning of the game. Each weapon has certain requirements in order to unlock it which gives you something to aim for as you descend into the tower. Weapons range from the classic katana and nunchucks to a more futuristic light saber. Oh yeah, and what would a ninja be without some devastatingly strong ancient magic.

One game mechanic I really like is the experimental rage technique, which was taught to you by your master. As you kill enemies your rage gauge will fill up and when it is full you will automatically enter rage mode. In this mode you will move faster, resist damage of any kind, and your attacks will instantly kill your foes. With each additional kill your gauge will refill a fraction. So in theory you can possibly rush through most floors untouched leaving a path of death behind you if you are fast enough.

The controls were my only negative experience with Super House of Dead Ninjas. With a fast paced, unforgiving game like this, good controls are a must otherwise you are going to have more than one *facepalm* moment. In Super House of Dead Ninjas you use the arrow keys to move, which for those not used to using the arrow keys it can take a little getting used to. I would suggest using a usb controller.

Other than that it’s a pretty solid game. The graphics and soundtrack are retro while still being fresh if that makes any sense, and the gameplay is very fast paced and unforgiving. For those who like a challenge I would suggest checking this title out.

+ Gameplay
+ Retro graphics and soundtrack
– Possible control difficulty

Review Score: 8/10