Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash (Wii U) Review

Natsume has a lot of explaining to do. How does the team behind Harvest Moon manage to fall flat so hard? Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash is a pretty basic concept that's been done to death, but that doesn't mean it can't be innovated in a meaningful way. Even games like Rakoo and Friends that stick to the formula to a T end up bringing their own ideas to the table to at least differentiate them from the competition.

Ninja Strike instead opts to strive for the bare minimum. Everything it does has been done before, and done better. Its controls are reflex based, but don't offer any challenge whatsoever thanks to virtually no game design. Currency attained from going through stages end up being spent on characters, but they amount to little more than cosmetic changes. The visuals are basic and to the point, but have been done before and lack the charm a bit of polish would have given it.

At first glance, it just seems like an average mediocre endless runner, but it's so much more; calling it mediocre would be giving Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash too much credit. It doesn't even attempt to be fun. It has one song that loops on end, from start to finish, that makes it impossible to endure for long play sessions. On top of that, a focus on leveling up attributes while also trying to be pure reflex based, Ninja Strike can't offer any challenge whatsoever due to a design oversight.

It tries to accommodate reflex-based gameplay while also adding in RPG elements to elongate its already dead in the water lifespan. It's a chaotic disaster that fights against every good choice it could have possibly made. It's a crying shame that the developers behind Harvest Moon ended up putting out this shameless cash grab.