Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns Review

Let me first state clearly that I am not a fan of RPGs. I do not and have never tried to hide that fact. I try to avoid reviewing them, but when duty calls, it calls. Izuna 2 is a follow-up to the 2007 niche Nintendo DS title Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja. If the title tells you anything, Izuna is still an unemployed ninja. And seeing as how boring this game was to play, I can see why that is the case.

Izuna 2 starts out in a town for a wedding where Izuna and her gang meet a number of characters who should be familiar to those that played the first game. The storyline continues with Izuna’s best friend going missing and your job will be to find them. A lot of comedy is attempted, and maybe its my sense of humor, but I didn’t find it all that funny. There is a lot of dialogue to read and also voice-overs, but since this game was brought over from Japan by Atlus, they left the Japanese voice work while putting English text.

An optional tutorial will get gamers acclimated with the ins and outs of Izuna 2. The only problem is that even after playing through the tutorial, most gamers will likely find Izuna 2 to be quite difficulty. This is an “action RPG”, which in my book is a step up from turn-based, but it has turn-based elements as well. For instance, the dungeons, towns, etc. all take place on a flat 2D grid. Each move you make on the grid, item you use or attack you perform will count as a turn for which computer enemies on the screen will get an equal amount. It moves fluidly but as soon as you stop performing actions, the A.I. will stop also.

The game’s single-player is what you would expect from a game of this type. There are a number of downside, however, that drawback from the experience. For one there is no multi-player or Wi-Fi support to speak of. So once you beat Izuna 2, you probably won’t come back. I doubt you will remain interested enough to finish it the first time through, anyway. The graphics are also a major disappointment. If you are going to do a 2D action RPG on the DS, you should at least live up to the graphical style of, say, Link to the Past. This system is capable of a lot more than the basic and drab design we see here.

The only people that I could possibly recommend this game to are fans of the first game. Izuna 2 does nothing to reinvent or even stand out in the action RPG genre. People like me who do not find RPGs all that compelling for anything but storyline will likely be letdown by the cumbersome menu system, archaic graphics and steep difficulty. This one should have just stayed in Japan. We all would have been better off.