Gaming Smack

Ninjatown for the Nintendo DS is probably my favorite hand-held game since Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and probably for the same reasons—it combines the cuteness of, say, “Happy Tree Friends” with deep strategy.

Ninjatown is based on the ironic hipster Shawnimals toys and graphic designs you can find in specialty shops.  Picture what the Hello Kitty universe would look like if it were invaded by ninjas.  The game’s units include wee ninjas, anti-ninjas who are big and orange, business ninjas who move really fast, baby ninjas who distract enemies with their stealthy cuteness, and (my favorite) ninja consultants who advise you on strategy.

Against this eye-numbingly cute background, developer Venan Entertainment has built a surprisingly deep and addictive “tower defense” strategy game.  Arguably last year’s hot single-player genre, tower defense games are a subgenre of real-time strategy games in which you don’t have to worry about managing armies, you just lay back and defend your territory from waves of enemies.  Remember the big Battle For Helm’s Deep in the second “Lord Of The Rings” movie?  It’s kind of like that.  You watch for what types of bad guys are coming down the road, and you move your different types of units strategically around the map in order to take them out before they overrun your base.  Kinda like the humans and elves did in the movie, until the orcs TOTALLY CHEATED by taking out the wall with that iron explody thing.

Ninjatown has a wide variety of units and maps, and it’s fun to replay maps in order to improve your score.  The story is a tongue-in-cheek trifle about some monsters trying to invade Ninjatown and environs to steal a cookie recipe, but the plot isn’t the point, the gameplay and the funny asides are.  It’s like an older Looney Tunes cartoon, if Chuck Jones had been an ironic hipster (which he was, sorta, back in the day).

If you’re a DS strategy fan and you’re tired of Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics you should definitely try Ninjatown.

Smack Verdict:  PLAY