When talking about N+’s “premise,” it’s hard to make it seem like you’re not leaving something out. It's too simple, really: you are a ninja, and you must hit a switch and run to an exit. While the ninja aspect of the game is nebulous at best, the innovation and sheer fun found in many of the levels is hard to deny. Even though you might end up punching out a few innocent bystanders in frustration towards the end, N+ provides a fresh and fun experience that is so simple and straightforward; it's a classic "videogame" experience.

At the heart of the game are its 40 levels that each include five bite-sized stages to blast through in less than two minutes total. As the nameless "hero" you must activate a switch and make your way to the end of each cleverly-designed level, carefully jumping over bombs and avoiding the usual ninja-seeking missiles and machine guns that are trying to blow you to bits. Since you have neither weapons nor true enemies to fight off, your ninja's wall jumps and floaty physics are the only thing keeping you intact at the end of the level. Sometimes you'll breeze through a level on the first try; other times that exit will cost you well over 100 lives.

In this aspect, the game is like a puzzler with no puzzles, or a Mega Man game without any Robot Masters. In each level you're forced to find the way out while staying alive, which oftentimes hinges on your ability to tap the X button at just the right time with just the right amount of pressure. While a few of the levels present actual puzzles by forcing you to activate switches and bridges to cross bomb-laden paths, the majority of them test your ability to haul ass while making exceedingly precise jumps. Even though each level has the same basic bomb-and projectile-avoiding concepts, each presents a new challenge to be surmounted, whether it’s the simple challenge of making the perfect jump across a mountain of bombs, or the advanced aggravation of making a rocket follow you across long and windy terrain.

N+ succeeds because it provides a crash course in what is truly essential to videogames. It gives you a nameless character to navigate to an exit while completing tasks and collecting items. When viewed from a broader scope, many videogames, nay activities, can be boiled down to such simple terms. After all, what really is Mario? A game in which you collect coins while navigating to the exit. How about Dragon Quest? A game in which you retrieve items (princesses, magical herbs, lost children, etc.) and head to each dungeons exit in order to get to the game’s final exit. This is the basic pattern of most videogames, and by eliminating all the graphical fluff and substantial elements like storylines, characters, and conflict, N+ works as an example of one of the rawest videogaming experiences out there.

However, in some ways it suffers from its simplicity. With no real story, no overlying objective for carrying on, and no real change from one level to the next, its biggest drawback is its repetition. And it’s not just the general premise that stays the same from level to level - the backgrounds rarely change, and practically every obstacle to face in the game is seen within the first few hours. Something as simple as a color change from one level to the next would have been much appreciated, while larger things (like a multi-tiered level design) could have given the game an entirely different feel.