Welcome to this review of Beetle Ninja! A game not about beetles but about ninjas!
Ninjas were very popular in '80s-'90s, consider all these shows, cartoons and arcade games about these lethal assassins. Beetle Ninja is a game that made me remember these old good times!

Ok, but what is this game? It's the adventure of a wannabee hero named Beetle Ninja (duh!), real name Montrell, in a world where lots of different ninjas exists: from Zombie Ninja to Polar Ninja, from Ninja Cat to Tomato Ninja, there's Rocket Ninja, Ninja Cow,, Ninja Cop, Ninja Lawyer, Lion Ninja and many others... (meh I made up a couple of them, but who cares?). This setting reminds to me the epic webcomic Axe Cop (even if less weird) crossed with Bomberman (Dynablaster), due to the character art, with the difference that the protagonists are ninjas. And also heroes for hire.


A day at the beach... hey... What is this? What is this?? WHAT IS THIS???

After a prologue we start in Beetle Ninja's house (remember to use the phone to collect the 3000$ from the first mission!), a place that is the base of operation where you can see the commands, rest, save (using the calendar) and find the companions (if you hired someone!). Every day starts here, and from there you can do various things: look for a job, go outside and perform some activities. Each day there are different events and things happening, so you have various options on how spend the day. Also various ninjas will be available for hire in the pub but this, as many other activities, require $$$ (money makes the world go round)!

Oh yes, cash is a rare occurrence for a destitute hero like Beetle Ninja that owns just a two rooms house! The struggle will be first finding some cash that may be spent to learn abilities and create a party, and to do this you have to complete missions or perform jobs like martial arts instructor and other tasks. These parts are quick time events or other minigames (one for example a sort of wack-a-mole task) that will provide some money to our novice hero.


Oh no! It's really the end of the world! Hey, what a nice cat over there!

There's just a little problem: the world is going to end soon, so the days are numbered if someone (you, Bettle Ninja!) doesn't do something to stop the doomsday clock! This means solving the mystery behind the "Seeds of Rebirth", but there's so much to do that you may forget your mission... or no?

Beetle Ninja is an adventure game not linear and with a high replayability (I don't have to tell you that there is more than one ending isn't it?). Each day you can choose to work, look for missions, rescue cats, go on vacation or just wander aimlessly.
Ihis is not a classical jrpg because despite the presence of a group (or party) of heroes (even if in a conteporary setting), combat encounters award NO loot (in most cases at least) and NO experience points. Zero. Nicht.


Oh considering the difficulty to earn cash, this is an offer almost impossible to refuse!

But this is not a problem because there are no levels, stats can be improved and skills can be learned in various ways performing various actions (for example renting vhs can make our protagonist learn special attacks!), but this just for Beetle Ninja, the other ninjas have no way to improve (but they start being quite strong and already skilled). Anyway I soon realized that going around alone is a good way to get you killed, no matter if I learned a very powerful attack (and thanks to the energy-restoring move I was able to perform it 2-3 times before needing to recharge, all without need of using items) the assisting characters, even those who are cheap and apparently not so useful (I am talking to you, Love Ninja!) are necessary to progress, like a super sentai team against a lone big monster! And don't worry if in the beginning you do not have enough money, soon, if you make some wise expenses (won't waste all money on abilities, buy some and hire some helpes) and perform some missions, you will own a good quantity of cash for healing items and other expenses. Please mind that not every day there will be a mission available so consider doing odd jobs. Also, some items like the forniture are available only if you spend some particular "Corporative Currency"!

Ok so far, so good, but you know what is better? The art of this game: sprites are really nice, enviroments are "cartoony" but still rich of details, pretty and colorful! Every asset is 100% original and has a distinct character and style, same goes for music, and that's pretty impressive, I think. This doesn't happen often, but clearly you can see the originality of the game from the very beginning, isn't it?


Martial Arts style! Take this, hideous monster!

Ninja Verdict
Ok Beetle Ninja is a pretty cool adventure game (where combat is just one of the many activities), anything bad? Uh I just wished there were some save points during the missions since sometimes I had few time to play, there are some typos ("disapointed", "pitty"), and thre is the fact that you need to re-hire characters each day (anyway after some missions I had a lot of cash!), but these are not really terrible issues.

I think it is a good game as it is anyway and it would earn a 4/5 for original idea and gameplay alone, but the custom graphics, nice sounds and charming style bump this to 4.5/5... oh yeah, this is a game that you may or may not like (shame on you!), but it has a cool concept and it's a pleasure to play and replay.

My suggestion? Play this, try the demo if you want, it's really better than most games I played, surely original and not too combat focused. I just wish it was longer, bigger and that's because it's a pretty good adventure game!

PS: I got three endings do far, but I guess there are some more. Unrecognized Hero is the one I liked most!