Comments on: E3 09: Mini Ninjas Trailers

By: Wisq

Wisq — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:38:14 +0000

I suspect the use of QTEs for bosses stems from the lack of granularity of player health — in a standard “hit the boss and don’t get hit” situation, if the player only has some four hearts of HP to work with (no fractions), I imagine it’s hard to balance “boss has interesting-looking attacks” with “player should be able to avoid them with moderate ease to prevent frustration and constant restarts”. Much easier to just make them debilitating rather than deadly, and make the QTE minigames decide whether you lose health or the boss does.

Then again, arcade games were balancing the hitpoints-in-boss-fights thing a long time ago, so maybe it’s just developer laziness and/or a different target audience these days.

On the third hand (where did that come from?), maybe I just haven’t played enough QTE-featuring games to mind them so much. Sure, I’d prefer a stand-up fight that both looks interesting and plays well — but in this kind of game, if it’s a choice between good-looking QTEs and a generic-looking “shoot it and don’t get shot” boss fight, I think I’d prefer the former.

By: mouj

mouj — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:32:56 +0000

It does look neat and fun to play… Me wants !

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:19:35 +0000

Like sammy said, reminds me of I-Ninja.

By: Inanimotion

Inanimotion — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:21:35 +0000

that…looks…AWESOME!

By: kurige

kurige — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:32:44 +0000

Uh, oh, spaghettio. QTE. QED.

By: K

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:39:20 +0000

Harry Potter? Pfft, that’s some stupid kiddy …Ooh, cute little ninjas! Boing, boing, tehehe! ^__^

By: Marcin

Marcin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:16:31 +0000

Sign me up for another “Oooh looks cute and fun” and at the same time “WTF QTE” So I guess a :) and a :( makes a :|

I guess if most of the game is NOT qtes, I can live with just the boss ones – but after Mercenaries 2, I’d rather just not see them ever again.

By: Shadrach

Shadrach — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:42:14 +0000

Definitely getting this, been looking for a good PC 3D platformer since Psychonauts.

By: sammy

sammy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:24:09 +0000

Looks very I-Ninja to me, which is good news.

By: Rei Onryou

Rei Onryou — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:35:44 +0000

Looks good. Do want.

By: Isometric

Isometric — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:29:24 +0000

This went totally under my radar and now i’m rather interested.
Maybe i’m just a sucker for that cell shaded art style? if that’s what it is?

By: MonkeyMonster

MonkeyMonster — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:44:59 +0000

Looks amusing – definate wii potential surely…