This game is relentlessly difficult. The entire game is built around the controls and how they function - so while they may feel "clunky" or even "bad" to some, the design that was amongst the best of what was possible at the time - and by especially clever or unique games, imitated on purpose - takes some time to get used to. Even on normal, you're not going to be able to open this up and crank through it in an afternoon.

A few tips to get you going...
*Make use of continues. You need practice!
*The game rains tools on you to use, and you can only hold so many. Discard any notion of holding on to them. They all have their uses and in the times they are useful, are strictly better than hitting things with your sword. As you play more to learn how the tools work, and how the stages are laid out, you'll pick up on when and where you should hold on to something to deal with an upcoming problem enemy. When you're just starting, you don't know anything, so just use it and see what works where.
*Don't come at this game with preconceived notions of what it SHOULD be, engage with what IT IS.

Tengo bros keep winning!

Tengo Project’s latest remake, starts off deceptive with how simple it seems. Level and enemy design that seems very textbook, but subtle nuances such as player control, multi-hits, item management, enhance what comes off as an otherwise standard console-style action platformer.

The first and most immediate thing you’ll probably notice is the controls. They’re not what you expect from a game where you play as a ninja. They’re very commital. Long delay for jumps, arcs that you only have a little control over, jumps off of ledge grabs being locked to arcs that you’re stuck to and can’t immediately attack out of, your chain weapon being something that locks you in place and has a lot of recovery, item management being real time and something you have to stop to do. I want to highlight the controls, not just because even by themselves it’s really fun to master and zip through levels but because of them it enhances almost every part of the game. It means even the tiniest bit of enemy rng such as them deciding to turn left instead of right now carries more gravity with it.

I was surprised to find this game has a good scoring system, considering scoring in 99% of action platformers is ass (and not the good kind like Kaede’s) but it’s nice to have an exception. It mostly revolves around routing your throwing fan (weapon that gives you points with every hit and is good for long rows of enemies), your small mallet (weapon that doesn’t do much damage, but whatever you hit with it has a multiplied score on death), killing as much as you can as fast as you can, and holding onto high score items (usually food, but sometimes something completely useless), until the end of stage. It’s simple but ties into the core fundamentals of the game really nice because now you don’t wanna use your good healing items too much, but you also still want to be fast because that gives you more points. Just gotta be more efficient.

Time trials seem like such a natural fit for a game like this so I was surprised to find out it was much less interesting. The time trials are strictly separated into their individual stages, so you can pick a super powerful item loadout for a stage that would otherwise be in the middle of a run and just blitz through it without much fanfare. It’s disappointing. They should either remove the ability to use loadouts or add an option for full game time trials.

Anyways, this has become one of my favorite action platformers. Really solid fundamentally, visually gorgeous with mostly really fun bosses and levels that do a good job of setting themselves apart. Tengo Project really are some of the best devs around.