Assassinations keep coming up as the subject of stealth games, presumably because they lend themselves so well to the structure. Getting to the right person at the centre of a heavily defended mansion/castle/office is a challenge, and then killing them off is a climactic moment that changes things up too. Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven does all of that, but playing it close to contemporary Hitman 2: Silent Assassin provides an interesting showcase for just how differently games could approach that same framework.
The work of K2, a company founded by former Square and SNK staff, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is the third entry in a series set in feudal (and supernatural) Japan. The subtitle is a loose translation of the title. You play a ninja tackling infiltration missions with a bag of tricks you pick from anew each level and replenish as you go along, from location-marking coloured rice to smoke bombs to throwing knives. It was far from the first ninja game to top the UK charts, and despite actually being Japanese, the combination of its frothy pastiche approach to genre and a localisation that opts for copious English text in faux-brushstroke fonts mean the occasional reminder of British ‘80s ninja trend games like Way of the Tiger and Last Ninja.
Playing in third person 3D, Wrath of Heaven offers you some practical reasons to be stealthy. Melee fighting, with its fairly simple blocks and attacks, is slow and dangerous. It’s an acceptable fallback option in one-on-one situations in particular, but best to avoid it. However, stepping out into view offers little lasting punishment when the guards are so much clumsier and more isolated than those of Hitman. An even bigger difference comes in the way levels end not in (hopefully) discreet kills, but in being forced to announce yourself and have a boss fight. Wrath of Heaven is considerably less intricate, as its (still helpful) drafted maps indicate.
The compensatory pleasure comes with the fact that the bigger reason to sneak up on guards isn’t practical, but stylistic. Stealth kills get you a super stylish sequence of your ninja tackling them, followed by a huge glowing character being written on the screen and added to a visual counter of your successes. In a similar spirit in between those moments, you can zip around levels using a grappling hook, swinging up to just about any roofs you can get a good sight of. Take weapons from guards you have disposed of, and your character can switch between blades and staff in a whirling moment.
It’s not that Wrath of Heaven doesn’t have deeper elements. The resource management aspect, carefully choosing your tools and using them only when needed as you carry them on through with you, works well. Some of its multi-level architecture is as devious as it is inexplicable. It’s just that it’s so good at the simple pleasures that they inevitably become the focus. There’s never really any question of being a silent assassin here; the secretive ninja stuff ends up as window dressing for the cool ninja stuff. Don’t get too much else wrong and games can get quite far just on how the moment-to-moment looks and feels. Who needs tension when you have a grappling hook?
Top of the charts for week ending 15 March 2003:
UK games: Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (K2/Activision, PS2) 
Japan games:
Final Fantasy X-2 (Square, PS2)
UK films: Maid in Manhattan 
UK singles: Gareth Gates ft. The Kumars – Spirit in the Sky 
UK albums: Norah Jones –
Come Away With Me