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Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja for the PSP is supposedly the follow-on to PS2 Shinobido: Ways of the Ninja, which was released sometime mid last year. In Ways of the Ninja, you played Goh "The Crow", an amnesiac ninja in 16th Century Japan, who by finding his memory, finds out why and how his Ninja clan - the Asuka Ninja Clan - protector of the Japanese province of Utakata, was wiped out overnight, and save Utakata from civil war.

In Tales, the threat to Utakata is not yet gone, weak from its last threat and still without a protector clan, it's easy pickings. Once again, you play Goh, from a third person perspective, to save Utakata from evil (and another rival Ninja clan, of course).

Tales of the Ninja promises what all Ninja movies do - a variety of deadly weapons and tools fit for a master of stealth and deception, matching skills to enable quick and quiet movements in the shadows of the structures that are Utakata to evade, steal from and kill a plethora of unsuspecting enemies, and, of course, plenty of swordplay.

In addition, Tales is supposedly a "free-roaming" adventure, where you are allowed to choose the missions (represented by a map) in which you want to partake, and thereby choosing your own path to completing the game (apparently there are about 80 branch points). Mission types are total destruction, assassination, theft, kidnapping, transporting and protection. There are also 36 unlockable characters you can use in the game.

All sounds very exciting (as it should with anything to do with ninjas), but does Tales deliver what it sets out to do? Well, the answer is yes functionally, but the delivery is mostly poor and made significantly more frustrating by an unpredictable camera and poor combat controls.

It is undeniably satisfying, every time, to be able to sneak up from behind and put an enemy down silently with a single blow, particularly when the use of the grappling hook to scale buildings to position yourself behind the unsuspecting enemy is required. However, it is the process from spotting an enemy and being able to silently position yourself behind the enemy that is the chore. It becomes quite disorienting and consequently frustrating when the camera frequently changes direction suddenly, making spotting and tracking enemies difficult.

However, this can be overcome by exercising some (extreme) patience by having to stop frequently to do a manual view of the surrounding area. If you aren't the patient type, you are likely to inadvertently give up your position resulting in another less than satisfying experience, direct combat with multiple enemies.

Unlike stealth kills, direct combat doesn't feel as well implemented. There is a lock-on feature and you can block enemy attacks but in most cases, they seem futile and the end result is that you either mash the attack (square) button or (by far the better option) run for it.

With the AI ever so useless, the enemy will eventually just stop pursuing you and forget that you were ever even there. If you choose to stay and fight, (especially towards the later part of the game when things do get harder) the AI will toss enemy after enemy at you.

Even though not that smart, eventually they will wear you down unless if you have copious amounts of health potions. It seems that the AI has only two states and consequently two actions, either it is aware of you or it is not. If it is not, it will ignore you even if you are standing very near (but not quite directly in front of) an enemy. If it is, then it will throw everything in the vicinity at you. Perhaps, these are in some ways "encouraging" you to be more Ninja-like by exercising more stealth than a gung-ho out-and-out approach.

Tales has a slight RPG aspect to it (which is quite welcomed). In that, you can level up Goh's or any of the other characters' skills and abilities/weapons after a mission, making them a more potent killing machine. However, it is advisable to concentrate on levelling up one or two characters to the extreme throughout a game instead of having a bunch of mediocre characters. If you wish to level up other characters, it would be better just to replay the game with each character.

The visuals for Tales rate from mediocre to poor depending on what you are looking at. The characters are relatively detailed and convincing enough, and animation isn't too bad (e.g. stealth kills are a nice touch to the game). However, the background is quite the opposite - bland, sparse and textures so rough that you can hurt yourself if you get too close.

The use of invisible walls, rather than a building or a large door, to form the boundary of a mission is bit of a blast from the past. Though there isn't any thing wrong with that it is interesting to wonder why the developers decided to use something less realistic.

It is also unfortunate that there is very little use of cutscenes in the game. Missions can be introduced by lots of informative text (whether they are historically accurate or not it is not certain) but it would have been much more engaging to have used cutscenes instead (though it wouldn't be a saving grace for Tales).

The audio aspects of the game are pretty much like the visuals: background music is pretty good, setting the right mood for the game, with special effects adequately capturing the clashing of cold steel and war cries - however, the speech is lacking and what is there is unconvincing, unless if you were on the set of an American made Ninja movie.

If you can eventually workaround the issues, Tales does have a relatively long replay value, especially if you like playing a game over and over again just to experience all the possible branches and/or with each unlockable character. Given the game's relatively low difficulty, those inclined to Ninja-hood, would easily find Tales a choice game to whip out and replay it, just to feel like you have accomplished something for the day. In addition, you can go multiplayer and play the game with up to four other players via the PSP's WiFi in ad hoc mode. Alternatively, if you have the PS2's Ways of the Ninja, you can create maps and use them in Tales.

Overall, Tales would have been an good Ninja game if it weren't for the unpredictable camera and less than spectacular controls. However, because of them and coupled with the other niggly bits, ultimately, Tales of the Ninja is rather like a bad B-list Ninja flick.