Tenchu’s combat and collision detection might be frustrating enough for some, but the way it handles items and inventory management will leave even the greatest apologist cursing in its wake. Instead of granting you a bag to take along your travels, Rikimaru and Ayame are stuck with three item slots to hold any number of the game’s many items. While this is obviously done for historical accuracy’s sake, you’ll frequently be forced to eliminate one essential item for another without knowing what lies ahead. This wouldn’t really be too big of a deal if you could always count on holding onto your items through the levels, but you can lose them in the most befuddling of ways. By accidentally "drinking" your Bamboo Tube full of water used to extinguish fires, or wasting a smoke bomb when caught (which is unnecessary considering you start over at the same spot without it) your decision to drop an item halfway through a stage may come back to bite you in the end.

On the topic of unexplained and aggravating things, Tenchu’s sword fighting mini-game one-ups Red Steel when it comes to awful Wiimote antics. When either ninja is discovered whilst holding a recovered Ninja sword, they're immediately thrust into a showdown that requires you to almost instinctively match the position of the Wii remote with the picture that appears on screen. It’s utterly unexplained (save for one instructor-less tutorial), completely confounding, and rarely seems to work as advertised; causing mass frustration throughout the majority of the game.

Sizable laments aside, Tenchu is far from all bad. Its setting is one of the most gorgeous and historically accurate the Wii has seen yet, and its graphics are significantly better than the majority of Wii games. Even though its inventory system has its quirks and/or huge drawbacks, it’s designed to give you the thrill of being an actual ninja roaming through the countryside, making due with what you can scavenge from your surroundings and surviving through your senses alone. For this reason, Tenchu definitely grows on you after you get the hang of each section, and truly shines on repeated playthroughs when you already know what’s going on around you. In this regard, Tenchu’s creators (From Software) deserve much praise for capturing the “ninja spirit” missing in so many stealth adventures and making it applicable to the Wii.

Tenchu works best when taken as a puzzle game that requires you to master your ninja sense and proceed step-by-step, error-by-error, to every stage’s inevitable boss. As a “stealth action” game, however, it falls short of expectations. With too many “huh?” moments to count, confounding controls, and frustrating A.I., Tenchu: Shadow Assassins remains a title for the dedicated ninja-loving, action-starved Wii fan willing to look past its considerable shortcomings in favor of its outstanding atmosphere and wealth of content.

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