With every man and his dog (or at least raccoon) sneaking around in stealth-based action, it seems that you can't buy a game without a stealth element these days. However, when it comes to sneaking, no one is stealthier than a ninja.

Tenchu is set in ancient times, where Lord Gohda's land has been at peace for a year since the defeat of Lord Mei-Oh and his evil forces. However, Lord Mei-Oh was not killed, but disappeared into a portal instead. His defeat came at a price, as the heroic ninja Rikimaru was killed in action. Or at least, so everybody thinks. But Rikimaru lives and his return is well timed, as it seems that enemy ninjas are gathering together to carry out unknown dark purposes.

Tenchu is a stealth combat game that has an arcade feel to it and is pretty tough too, so those of you who expect to walk through the first couple of levels without problems will be surprised. In fact, the enemies are so tough that it took me about eight or nine attempts and two hours just to complete the first level and that was on Normal difficulty setting! It is good to be challenged, although Tenchu challenges your patience sometimes, as well as your gaming skills.

You play either Rikimaru, the enigmatic ninja returned from the dead or Ayame, a young, acrobatic female ninja. Both of you have a range of equipment, skills and techniques at your disposal to make it through the tough and dangerous locations that you must visit. Rikimaru's first mission is to punish an evil merchant, who is lending money to villagers and then stealing their daughters to sell into slavery when they cannot make the extortionate repayments. After this you must take care of a traitor in Lord Gohda's castle, but once he is vanquished enemy ninjas invade and you must make your way to Lord Gohda, to ensure he is safe. From here you begin to follow the trail of the enemy ninjas in an attempt to discover their purpose. Meanwhile, Ayame's first task is to rescue the girls who have been sold into slavery, but then she also goes to kill the merchant! Although their two storylines are different, their levels and stories intersect and sometimes they contradict each other (as in you both killing the same merchant), which is a shame, because it wouldn't have been too hard to think of ways to use the same levels but do different things on them throughout the whole game. Still, this isn't the end of the world and the inclusion of two playable characters with different moves, special abilities and fighting styles is a big plus, not to mention the variation in the levels that does occur.

The graphics in Tenchu are good, but not great. The scenery is detailed without being spectacular, textures and colours are used well and your enemies move fairly fluidly. The animation is a bit jerky at times though and your enemies often run into walls and continue moving their feet whilst not actually going anywhere, which looks pretty silly. Also, the way Rikimaru runs is really frustrating, he moves his legs really fast but takes very small steps and so can't really move very fast at all. This is quite annoying and it would have been good if he could run faster. Ayame can run a bit faster, but her run looks a little silly too. The cut scenes are good but not great (although the opening credits movie is pretty spectacular) and they further the story along well enough, but are not hugely exciting a lot of the time and feature a fairly standard script and voice acting.

The most impressive part of the graphics are the stealth kills - when you sneak up behind an enemy you can kill him instantly. This is done in a multiple-angle, blurred shot, where you slit your enemy's throat, run him through with your sword or (my personal favourite) land on his shoulders and shove your sword down through his head! Ayame's stealth moves are just as excellent, including an awesome neck twisting move with her legs, which twists your enemy's head all the way around! These moves are really cool and if you do get fed up with them you can turn these sequences off.

The sound effects are good, with the grunts of ninjas, sounds of slicing and blood spurting, clanging of swords and everything else being appropriate, but again nothing is really outstanding. The music is more arcade style than suspense and whilst it is good, it doesn't particularly enhance the game. This is Tenchu's main problem really, it is good but not exceptional and feels a bit dated - if it came out a year to 18 months ago it would get higher marks than today.

That's not to say it's average though, it is above average and there is a big challenge and plenty of enjoyment to be had. The key to the game is to avoid being spotted - sneak around and take your enemies from behind in a deadly swipe. Because you are a ninja you are stealthy all the time, so there are no buttons to hold for sneaking. You have an icon that shows you how likely you are to be spotted and you get a fair warning when a guard is about to see you, giving you time to scarper out of the way. Wall sneaking is used to great effect in getting a good heads up on where your enemies are before you walk around a corner. But most important of all and in fact more essential to your survival than even your sword, is your grappling hook. This has a good range and can hook onto any surface - in fact, the free-roaming nature of the grappling hook is by far one of the game's best features. You must think three dimensionally in terms of going up and down as well as forward and back. For example, on the first level you can grapple up to the rooftops and take out your enemies one by one, by silently attacking from above. The grappling hook can often be used to get you out of tricky situations too, if you are being chased for example. And it is essential in swinging over pits and reaching high ledges that you otherwise could not access.

Sooner or later you will be seen though, but it is almost too easy to shake your foes - just run off and duck around a couple of corners and the enemy will lose you, then you can double back and sneak up on him whilst he's still looking for you and kill him. The enemies are generally pretty stupid and give up too easily in my view, making the need for stealth less necessary (as you only need to be out of sight for a few seconds before they decide you've run away). Then you sneak up on them as they walk off and kill them - like I say, not the smartest of people. However, if you are cornered and forced to fight, even a lowly guard is very tough, let alone enemy ninjas and the other more outlandish enemies that you will face later in the game. They are damn tough and you really have to keep your wits about you. It only takes a few hits before all of your health is gone and using a health boost exposes you to the enemy for a couple of seconds too. You can collect logs that allow you to be reborn at the same spot, which is a big help, but even so it is still difficult.

The combat system is pretty uninspired and a little overcomplicated, but you will get the hang of it. Blocking is very important, although half the time it doesn't work quite as well as I would like. You only use the square button to attack, combining it with left analogue stick movements. You must lock onto an enemy to use these and you can quickstep, back flip and so on. There are various special abilities that you will discover as you progress through the game, which you learn after making 9 stealth kills during the level. However, combat is tough and if there are two or more enemies they will attempt to surround you and will attack you with relish, making up for their lack of intelligence with their tough weapons skills.

There are a number of items to aid you in your quest such as smoke bombs, throwing weapons, spears, bows and arrows, poison rice, grenades, land mines and many more - over 20 different items in fact. You can use rice to plot a path in the more complicated mazes of levels that you face, there is a neat device like a grappling hook that pulls an enemy forward so he falls at your feet, spikes you can drop to injure pursuing enemies and more. These items are a big bonus and spice up the variety of the gameplay somewhat and you are limited on the number of items and types of item you can carry, so you cannot be too heavily armed with extras.

Whilst Tenchu is an enjoyable game, it does have its flaws. The first you will notice is the loading - loading times can be quite long and there are frequent (but relatively short) interruptions in some levels, which can be frustrating and break up play a lot. When you first start playing and die a lot, it is really frustrating to have to load the whole level in again and repeatedly press start to go through the cut scenes and select your items again (you must select the items to take with you at the start of each level). As I mentioned, the guards are pretty unintelligent and single-minded and this spoils the realism a little bit, plus the slow movement and annoying running animation isn't great either. The worst part is being able to fall to your death - on the third level you encounter this in abundance in the Limestone Mines. There are many pits where you can fall, it is also possible to run off the edge of a cliff to your death and the rebirth log will not revive you if you fall. So one mistake and you must start all over again. Considering how big these levels are, the lack of a method of saving in the game is a big omission, even a limited number of saves would have been better than none at all. This leads to a lot of repeating the same mission over and over and can be extremely frustrating.

To balance these flaws, Tenchu will last you a long time if you have the patience. The replay value is very good; not only can you play the whole game through as Rikimaru and Ayame but each level also has three different layouts to complete (these are the same maps but with the enemies in different locations). You are given a rank at the end of each level based on your stealth kills, regular kills, number of times you were spotted and so on, ranging from Thug to Expert Ninja, so there is always the option of redoing a level to improve your ranking. There is also a Versus mode, with 16 playable characters and a number of arenas, where you have a set time limit to kill a number of enemies, or you can just go straight for each other. In Co-Operative mode there are 3 playable characters and the two of you have a set time limit to achieve a specific task, such as collecting a number of items or rescuing someone. These are a lot of fun and you can split up or stick together as you feel is best. These extra modes, whilst not part of the main game and story, do add extra value to the title.

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is a good, solid game. It's playable and challenging, but may prove too difficult for some and the lack of an in-game save can lead to frustration and repetition. Still, it has good graphics, sound and music, an excellent grappling hook feature, lots of stealth and plenty of combat and killing -all in a day's work for a ninja.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).