It quickly becomes a thrilling back-and-forth - the sort of game where you find yourself subconsciously shuffling forwards in your seat, toes curling in your shoes as the extreme concentration takes over.Ī few levels feel more like puzzles, where you have to do things like kill all enemies on a map to unlock the door to the next stage. It’s a delicate dance, then, between frantic, eager movement and staying still in brief moments of tranquility. This might sound like it isn’t a problem - but given you need to carefully and manually aim each jump before executing it in order to avoid obstacles that’ll hurt you upon landing, the pressure is always on to move again - and quickly - without also landing yourself in hot water. The flip side, of course, is that without the ability to otherwise move, the spry hero is vulnerable whenever they’re not on the move. It’s all about that one action, and tight control pairs with fast responsiveness and lovely crisp pixel art to mean that simple act feels incredibly satisfying. If it takes you into the path of an enemy attack, you’ll parry. If your leap sends you passing through an enemy, it’ll deal damage based on your current equipment and the strength of the leap.

Holding lets you charge up, too, which powers up attacks and makes any leap travel further, and with less of an arc. This isn’t so much the protagonist responding to your inputs in a context-sensitive manner as much as it is the ninja making use of all skills at once with every button press. The protagonist can’t even walk - movement is accomplished through stringing together leaps, wall-jumps, and ground-based dashes, all triggered with that one single button.

Jumping, attacking, and parrying are all handled with the same input and action. Much of what sets it apart is down to its control scheme and the skill-set of the titular ninja, which offers a very simple concept: every core action is tied to a single button and action. You can check out Ninja Star's trailer here.

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