What happened to Tenchu? [History of Tenchu]

when anybody asks me to talk about some of the greatest gaming experiences of my life my mind automatically flips back to the playstation 1. i can remember vividly the first time i played on a playstation i was barely a teenager and i was blown away not only by the graphics and feel but also the gaming experiences that were unlike anything i'd ever played before it's strange now to think that we are on the cusp of a fifth generation of playstation tenshu was undoubtedly one of the most special games and moments i had ever experienced i remember the first time i saw this game i was visiting a friend called paul he was obsessed with anything from japan anything japanese and paul loved it i still remember the day i discovered tenshu like it was only yesterday because it marks not only the day that i discovered tenshu but the day that paul also introduced me to one of the greatest games i have ever experienced and that was suey corden but tenshu was unlike anything i'd ever seen or played before i'm roy mccoy and welcome to the latest episode of my series what happened to where i take a game and or series from history that has seemingly disappeared and i asked those all important questions what was it what happened to it and could we ever see another one a sequel or a remake if you do enjoy these kind of videos please feel free to check out my other ones and also give me a like because it really helps the video to succeed and do well and also if you like this kind of content please subscribe but after that let's talk about today's focus and it's all about the tenshu series so as i've previously mentioned the year was 1998 and i was sat in a room with my friend paul what he did next was tell me the title tenshu stealth assassins told me that it was a game about ninjas and put the disc into the machine now at that time i was so excited i mean what kid what teenager in fact one adult i still want to be a ninja who doesn't want to be a ninja but i think this was also the first game series that really introduced me to stealth mechanics and that is the crowning feature the thing i really take away from the tenchu games because while there were other ninja games things like shinobi and ninja gaiden tenshu at that time was undoubtedly and probably still holds up as the most realistic ninja game i've ever played and i have to say at this point i think now is a perfect time for tenshu to raise its head to come out of hiding because as we get more games like sekiro and ghosts of sushima they prove that the desire is still there that need is still there for a game like tenchu so what is it what is tenshu well quite simply put it's an action adventure stealth game and as i said the first one was released in 1998 and developed by acquire the game was set in feudal japan and as i've previously mentioned it was one of the first ninja games to use stealth mechanics most of the other ninja games previously had been more of an arcade experience the game was published in north america and europe by activision and sony music entertainment in japan so what made this game so special the story followed the actions of two characters there was ricky maru this kind of older stronger male ninja who carried a long sword and a faster but slightly weaker female character called ayami who carried a pair of shorter swords the game itself is split over 10 levels all of which are filmed at night and you can basically clamour across roofs use zip lines and do everything you would want to do as a ninja so both characters visit the same places and conduct the same missions but their story does vary now the fact that this game was set at night give tenchu stealth assassins such a ninja-like feel of course it looks and it does feel a little bit dated things have moved on but this game is still phenomenally good and coupled with this little caveat is that tenchu in japanese translates as divine retribution now as you can probably imagine the game did really really well to this day it still holds a metacritic score of 87. and sadly i can tell you that this was the high point of the series so far there's been a number of games some of which i'll cover very very quickly during this video but if you are looking for a classic game of yesteryear that uses stealth mechanics this is a great shower and of course it's sold really really well which leads on to a sequel and just two years later in the year 2000 acquire gave us our second journey into the tenshu universe tenshu 2 birth of the stealth assassins once again the game used a third-person game mechanic controlling a character in a 3d environment and this time in tenshu 2 the game was intended to be a prequel and once again we got ricky maru and ayami this time as much younger versions of themselves only this time they were joined by another character called tatsumaru the game was published once again by activision and the story was interesting and fun to play now one thing that has to be mentioned about this game the reason that tenshu 2 is undoubtedly a great sequel is that it includes a mission editor so effectively the player could create their own missions and gave the game an unlimited i hate that word to be honest but an unlimited technically unlimited lifespan sadly it didn't do quite as well as the first game in the series and as i said pretty much from the first game it is a little bit of downhill and the second game stands with a 77 metacritic score not a bad score and i remember enjoying it but not as much as that first game i think the thing was is the first game surprised you with all these interesting stealth mechanics and these new features and the second game while it's not bad to make more of the same in a lot of ways it changed some of the environments it changed the times of day it did nothing new it didn't do anything to exceed expectations or surpass what the original had achieved after a gap of three years in 2003 we got our first tenshu on the playstation 2 and it was also later released in 2004 on the xbox however this time it was not a choir who made the game instead the developer this time was k2 llc who were actually a subsidiary of capcom and the game again was published by activision in north america and europe but surprisingly by from software this time in japan who also went on to develop the playstation portable the psp version in 2009. once again we got the characters of ricky maru and ayami and this time they were joined by a new character called teshu and also along the way you visited and you saw some of the old familiar characters that you'd seen before the game again plays out differently depending on which of the three characters you choose and the story once again was a hit with me i enjoyed the story from memory there was a lot of the traditional aspects of using real life with a little bit of a fantasy element that the tenshu series was also famous for and also the graphics looked great for a playstation 2 game and to be fair the game was good i mean i mentioned before that it was downhill but maybe it was downhill from the first game and this was a slight peak again because this game for me was probably better than the second game in my opinion so when i look back now the first three tenshu games were all hits in my opinion the game on the playstation interestingly enough was called tenshu wrath of heaven which considering that the title tenshu means divine retribution it's kind of saying divine retribution divine retribution tenshu wrath of heaven however on the xbox it was released under a different name of tenshu returned from darkness now if you still have a playstation 2 kicking around your house or original xbox i highly recommend getting this game because it still holds up in terms of gameplay story and overall excitement for a video game of that era yes the graphics look baited but looks can't be everything now the metacritic score for this game still stands at a very respectable 79 on the playstation 2 and 70 on the xbox so once again the game did considerably well which always leads on to a sequel and this time in 2004 developed once more by k2 llc we got the terrible dreadful tenshu fatal shadows and this for me is the point where the series kind of let itself down now all of the entries in the tenshu series so why did tenshu fatal shadows do so badly its biggest failing is the fact that it really didn't improve on anything from the previous entries it didn't do anything new and it was just getting a bit tired similar to the same way of a game like dead rising where eventually you just get fatigued you get serious fatigue and this is the point that it happened at in my opinion as a tenshu fan i'd played this game already but i wanted something new something exciting maybe a more engaging story or an open world environment which is why i still to this day state that ghost of tsushima was the game that i have been waiting most of my life since the original tenshu now in this game you you once more play as a yami and you also take control of another character rin but unlike the contrast between ayami and rikimaru in the previous games it didn't feel like that big a difference which is why i think this game just didn't work for me it was a series low point or one of the series low points and sadly the metacritic score agrees with my opinion and it stands at the moment as a lowly 58 but talking about a game series that was producing 80s and 70s previously high 70s this game should have done better but the expectations that i as a tenchu fan had were just not met and sadly and wait for it i'm gonna make a joke tenshu fatal shadows proved fatal oh terrible for any further entry so far hitting the main playstation console that was it four games two great games one really great game an amazing game probably one of the greatest stealth ninja games of all time in the first one tenshu stealth assassins and one well not so good one that needs to be removed from my memory i still remember the disappointment in a stark contrast of playing fatal shadows with that stark contrast of playing stealth assassins the first one with my friend paul so as i said this was the end of the tenshu series on the main playstation console but it didn't stop there oh no no in 2005 k2 llc released tenshu time of the assassins and this one hit the playstation portable and surprisingly it only came out in japan and europe in 2005 and 2006 respectively it had a single player mode and it had a multiplayer mode and if i'm totally honest i don't really remember it now this one has a metacritic score of 51 which surprisingly is not the worst metacritic score of all the tenshu games oh no the worst is yet to come and that comes in 2006 on the nds we had 10 shoot dark secret and it should have been kept secret but was dark for anybody that played it now i've looked at gameplay of this i haven't actually played this i have to be honest but nothing about this game looks appealing and it scored a whopping 37 on metacritic this game was a stinker and the lowest point of the tenshu series now obviously the developer of k2 llc believed that they were on a roll at this point for some reason and in 2006 in japan in 2007 in the rest of the world we got tenshu zed or tenshu z to my american cousins and this one only hit the xbox 360. that's right it didn't come back to playstation which is a thing i often cite as a reason that series completely die when they make it exclusive on one console when it has been available previously on another console it tends to be a sign of the end now in this case tenshu had a pretty dedicated fan base despite that terrible last effort on the playstation 2 in fatal shadows it had a loyal fan base on the playstation waiting for it so what does the developer do they put it on xbox 360. now apparently this game was the largest of all the tenshu games and it had 50 missions to play through and it was also the ability to play four-player cooperative play and they were also once again those familiar characters like ricky maru but then if you were an xbox fan you would have only ever had one of the tenshu games to play previously unless you had purchased both consoles but it had a familiar story it was a big game there were new abilities there were lots of good things about this game but sadly it was just a bit of a stinker and scored 56 as a metacritic score but the tenshu series didn't die there there was one last roll of the dice on the main consoles and that was shadow assault tenshu which holds a whopping metacritic score of 46 and developed and published by from software it came out in 2008 and was a action puzzle video game what effectively the game was very similar to bomberman it was just why why did people do this why do developers do this i often complain about this now if the series is on a roll and everybody's loving it yes by all means make something new don't go too far away make something new but when you're looking at a series like tenshu this is a chokepoint this is a killing point for the series this is the proof that the desperation was there they were just trying to cash in in my opinion on fans loyalty to the series it was an exclusive again on the xbox 360 what were they thinking but apparently the game flopped and that pretty much signaled the end for tenshu however there was one final entry and it didn't come to the playstation or the xbox main consoles no this one was for the wii and we got to see the games in 2009 now for all intents and purposes it got pretty mixed to good reviews again in fact this managed to score a 70 in the metacritics on the wii and a 68 on the psp so not a terrible game not a bad game and we got some of the familiar characters and things like this but the series fatigue had well and truly set in in my humble opinion it set in around fatal shadows but the developers and the publishers kept flogging the tenshu dead horse now personally i enjoyed shadow assassins the characters of rikimaru and ayami were playable once more and playing it on the wii made it feel different and more engaging somehow and i thoroughly enjoyed it but to be honest tenshu in my opinion was dead after the fourth game and yes this was good and it should have brought it back but the game had jumped from console to console it jumped from playstation to xbox and now to nintendo to the wii it had been on the playstation portable on the nds and have had a few good games and quite a numerous amount of stinkers and i do believe that after 2009 we may have received another psp version of one of the original older games but pretty much since 2009 tenshu has gone which is why it's appearing today in my what happened 2 series so effectively up until this point we've talked about what it was and what happened to it it died from series fatigue bad planning in the form of jumping consoles and just overall flogging the dead horse there were too many versions of this game in too short a span since 1998 until 2009 11 years there were i believe nine games pretty much a game a year and eventually at some point we needed a break now let's move on to probably the most important part of this video and that is could we ever see a new tenshu and i'm gonna say yes ghost of tsushima sekiro developed by from software who made a number of tenchu titles have proved incredibly successful and have once more resurrected that ninja theme in games now i know ghost of tsushima wasn't strictly a ninja title it focused more on samurai but well if you play the game you'll get my point but i think now is the right time for somebody to pick up and develop the tenshu franchise once more i think the name itself still holds a huge amount of kudos with gamers particularly the ones that picked up the original titles the original three on the playstation 1 and playstation 2. if like me you played 10 shoot stealth assassins on the playstation 1 then i guarantee it has a fond memory and a warm place in your heart and i think should a game be announced it would sell incredibly well and i think the developers know this so i wouldn't be surprised the fact that from software developed sekiro and immediately after people were questioning why don't you make another tenchu will not be unnoticed so yes i think it definitely could happen this is one that is hiding in the shadows a little bit like a ninja but it is not completely gone let me know in the comments below what you think will happen to tenshu but on that note this is roy mccoy out

Channel: Roy McCoy

Views: 6,817

Keywords: roy mccoy, tenchu, new tenchu, when tenchu, what happened to tenchu, what tenchu, why tenchu, tenchu 2, tenchu remake, tenchu remaster, next tenchu, history of tenchu, what the hell happened to tenchu, tenchu ps4, tenchu ps5, tenchu games, tenchu series

Id: caFbrrq3FPA

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020