Remember this game?
Let me tell you about this game. Developed by Argonaut Games (developer behind the Star Fox games on SNES, the Croc games, Buck Bumble, and Alien Resurrection on PS1), where it would sadly be one of their last projects before closing down a couple of years later, I-Ninja was a really fun and overlooked action-platformer for the PS2/GameCube/Xbox.
Main style of play was obviously the action-platformer part. You had a simple, but fun, combat system and some really tight platforming. But sometimes the game will throw some variety your way in the form of hamster ball segments, a Star Fox-style on-rail shooter boss fight, a boss fight in a giant robot that plays a little like Punch-Out, etc.
The game also starred Billy West as the main character and had music by Nick Arundel, who would go on to work on the music for the Batman Arkham games.
The game's cinematics were also directed and produced by legendary animators Don Bluth and Gary Oldman. Now that's some star power!
In a world where even smaller known platformers from the PS2 era like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, De Blob, and Legend of Kay are able to get ports on Switch and Steam and whatnot, it's a little disheartening to see a buried treasure like I-Ninja will go mostly forgotten. I couldn't even narrow down who exactly own the rights to the game anymore. Namco published the game in the North America, but Sony published it in Europe.
Luckily, most of the staff of Argonaut Games have seemed to have found nice homes in other development studios like Q-Games and Rocksteady, so maybe someone from one of those studios might chime in and see if we can get some answers on the rights situation (or even if the code is even in tact). But I, and the two other fans of this mostly forgotten game, would love to see this game get another chance and have people experience such a gem.
(Would also love to see Buck Bumble get ported, but this is about I-Ninja)
Let me tell you about this game. Developed by Argonaut Games (developer behind the Star Fox games on SNES, the Croc games, Buck Bumble, and Alien Resurrection on PS1), where it would sadly be one of their last projects before closing down a couple of years later, I-Ninja was a really fun and overlooked action-platformer for the PS2/GameCube/Xbox.
Main style of play was obviously the action-platformer part. You had a simple, but fun, combat system and some really tight platforming. But sometimes the game will throw some variety your way in the form of hamster ball segments, a Star Fox-style on-rail shooter boss fight, a boss fight in a giant robot that plays a little like Punch-Out, etc.
The game also starred Billy West as the main character and had music by Nick Arundel, who would go on to work on the music for the Batman Arkham games.
The game's cinematics were also directed and produced by legendary animators Don Bluth and Gary Oldman. Now that's some star power!
In a world where even smaller known platformers from the PS2 era like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, De Blob, and Legend of Kay are able to get ports on Switch and Steam and whatnot, it's a little disheartening to see a buried treasure like I-Ninja will go mostly forgotten. I couldn't even narrow down who exactly own the rights to the game anymore. Namco published the game in the North America, but Sony published it in Europe.
Luckily, most of the staff of Argonaut Games have seemed to have found nice homes in other development studios like Q-Games and Rocksteady, so maybe someone from one of those studios might chime in and see if we can get some answers on the rights situation (or even if the code is even in tact). But I, and the two other fans of this mostly forgotten game, would love to see this game get another chance and have people experience such a gem.
(Would also love to see Buck Bumble get ported, but this is about I-Ninja)
