Paper Ninja review

Paper Ninja has quickly become one of my favorite game apps. Welcome to the world of attacking paper!! Slash with your finger and cast devastating magic to crinkle those little suckers up and toss them into the other-world’s trash bin! Released by Real Inverse LLP, Paper Ninja is available on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for $0.99 and they have a Free Halloween Version.

I love the art of this game. The character designs are shiny extremely well done stylizations with great special effects, really well done simple backgrounds, and they have this grandpa mentor figure that talks to you, teaching you the basics of the game and announcing when you gain achievements. He has a great design and honestly, the overall package deserves praise.

The gameplay is extremely well done. Enemies can’t be attacked until they unravel from their bouncing paper ball form and they hold their weapons in certain ways. If you attack from the direction of the weapon, you will get blocked, so you have to cut each enemy in a specific direction to make sure you don’t get stunned and end up getting hit. This puts you into a super-fast-paced yet manageable state of quick thinking and really engaging action. I was hooked by level 1. Paper Ninja also gives you different challenges. A play through mode, Survival mode rush-style challenge, and a mode similar to Fruit Ninja where ninjas are trapped in fruits and they are tossed into the air for you to slash.

Paper Ninja also provides you special powers. Gather energy by slashing enemies and you can stop time or trigger special elemental attacks by using different finger gestures like pitching or using multiple fingers. Also, behind the scenes, you have a way to level up and gain new attacks by replaying stages, playing the challenges or earning achievements. You can’t see the actual progress outside of randomly gaining new skills to use or enhancements to existing skills.

This is a great use of the theme backed by face-paced intensity, addictive challenge, and great graphics. And parents! If you don’t like the bloody slashes, you have the kid-friendly option of changing the graphics to adhesive bandages instead! Check this one out and feel the ninja cuteness!

Here is a video demo of the Paper Ninja app on the iPhone

AppSafari Rating: 5/5

AppSafari review of Paper Ninja was written by Joseph Ho on November 18th, 2010 and categorized under Action, App Store, Featured, Games, Line Drawing. Page viewed 6181 times, 2 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.