S
tealth became a serious sub-branch of
the third-person action adventure in 1998.
Emerging from a dark corner came a
shadowy trio of games: Metal Gear Solid,
Thief: The Dark Project and Tenchu: Stealth
Assassins, the latter a tale of two ninjas in feudal
Japan. As with stealth, ninjas had been presented
differently prior to Tenchu. Famous examples
include Joe Musashi, aka Shinobi, and Armakuni
from System 3’s The Last Ninja, neither of whom
worry about brazenly striding around their
respective worlds and eliminating enemies face-to-
face. Tenchu would revolutionise this, rewarding
the player for a sneaky, undetected approach.
The idea of Tenchu began in Tokyo with a man
named Takuma Endo. “I had been developing
games since I was at university and went freelanceafter I graduated,” he tells us. “I started my
own business, just about when the PlayStation
launched. I wanted to develop a PlayStation
game!” Endo’s company, Acquire Corp, founded
in 1994, took part in a competition run by Sony
Music Entertainment. “We won, and got the right
to produce a project, but couldn’t think of the
right one. Then, after struggling for six months,
we came up with the ninja concept.” The idea was
placed into a demo featuring motion-captured
characters and a science fiction-style backdrop.
The demo demonstrates how different Tenchu
could have been before Acquire decided to use a
more authentic scenario, and once development
began on Tenchu, the chief concepts of honour
and revenge came into play. “The word ‘tenchu’
means to attack against the person who did the
wrongdoing, and is often used in samurai drama,”
says Endo. “Then we looked into Japanese folklore
to help us create images of demons and hell.”
While most of the opponents in Tenchu are of
human origin, there are also supernatural beings
to combat. Emaciated fire-breathing cultists,
axe-wielding giants and recurring villain Onikage
all offer challenges beyond the realm of normality.
Tenchu is the story of Rikimaru and Ayame of
the Azuma ninja clan in the service of Lord Gohda.
Their roles are to infiltrate those who have become
corrupt or greedy, and as the game proceeds, the
pair are drawn more often towards the demonic
Lord Mei-Oh and his unearthly warrior, Onikage.
Eventually, Gohda’s castle itself is ransacked and
his daughter, Princess Kiku kidnapped by Onikage,It’s been 21 years since developer Acquire blended stealth and the
supernatural in a deluge of blood and steel. With From Soware’s
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice looking to evoke the spirit of Tenchu,
Retro Gamer jumps niily backwards to the very first game in
this legendary and much-loved series
Words by Graeme Mason» [PlayStation] Rikimaru def tly liberates a guard’s head. We don’t
want to get on the bad side of this guy, that’s for sure.STEALTH ASSASSINS
PUBLISHER:
SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT/
ACTIVISION
DEVELOPER:
ACQUIRE CORP
RELEASED:
19 9 8
PLATFORM:
PL AYS TATION
GENRE:
THIRDPERSON
STEALTHIN THE
KNOWTHE MAKING OF
84 | RETRO GAMER