Ninja Blade's  doesn't know if it's a traditional Japanese action game or a western style action game.  What it does is mix some enjoyable combat with some cinematic quick time events and along the way tells a quality story that has been well thought out.  Unfortunately the legacy game play elements seem to hinder the experience for anyone who might be a casual action game fan.

It's very clear that Ninja Blade was developed by a Japanese development team.  There are some glaring issues with the game that have been trade makers of many Japanese games.  The game will often refer to you hitting checkpoints but unfortunately those aren't save points.  I learned this the hard way when I first started Ninja Blade and didn't have time to complete the first mission.  Now it's not like I was only 15 or 20 minutes into the game...I was a solid hour into the first mission.   I lost all my progress and I had to replay the entire first mission over again.  When your missions take about an hour to complete this is a complete fail in my opinion.

For those willing to replay or grind to improve their characters weapons this game embraces that need.  This too is a very Japanese notion that you will continually replay a game to earn more red orbs to buy better weapons and find all those hidden costumes.  You really don't see western games developed to reward gamers to continuously reply their game.  Often you'll need to replay or grind to improve your character so that the next boss battles aren't as difficult.  To overcome a difficult scenario you just improve your character until he/she can over power that obstacle.

I tend to enjoy shooters but I'm not a fan of on rails shooting modes.   One wouldn't expect a lot of gun play in a ninja game but Ninja Blade has several on rails shooting parts to missions.  For the most part it fits into the idea this is a future military assault team so whey would use tanks and use stationary guns.  This is one of those modern game play elements that Ninja Blade does well enough that it doesn't annoy you but doesn't exactly feel right either.

Probably the best part of Ninja Blade has to be the finishing moves on the bosses in the game.  Often there are two or more boss battles in each of Ninja Blades missions.   It's a very common idea in Japanese action games like this to have several bosses.  On occasion you'll even fight the same boss two or three times in a game.  Once you get the bosses health all the way down a quick time event will be triggered that allows you to have a high quality cinematic closure to your fight.  By hitting the right buttons as they display on the screen you'll perform some moves you just can't do in the normal game play.  These quick time events are very easy in Ninja Blade but it's better than sitting back and watching some video of your character finishing off the boss.

As odd and annoying as some of these issues are Ninja Blade really does stand out among the typical action games.  The finishing moves in the boss battles are excellent pieces of cinema.  The game does have some cool moments like throwing a giant wrecking ball at a giant spider.  It just unfortunate the levels don't have save points considering how long they are.  When you dish out achievement points for finishing a level in 40 and another in 50 minutes your probably should have save points.