If this game had been developed by Nintendo, it would probably have been called Ninja Reflex: Train Your Reflexes in Minutes a Day! You already are familiar with the concept – put together a collection of minigames and exercises that are designed to stimulate your brain, or as in this case, your reflexes. In just minutes a day you too can train yourself to have the lightning quick reflexes of a ninja. All the skills required to master Ninjutsu are here – Michelangelo’s nunchaku, Leonardo’s sword, Mr. Miyagi’s chopsticks, and of course everyone’s favourite ninja stars (boringly referred to as shurikens in the game).

The game starts with you selecting your Ninja name in a fashion much akin to choosing your porn star name. I came up with the highly original “Crouching Tiger” but with a long list of adjectives and nouns to choose from, there is some scope for you to create your perfect name. You are then welcomed by your Sensei who is voiced by an American actor featuring an annoying fake Japanese accent. After a long and boring introduction that tries to set the scene, you finally get to whip out the weapons you’ve been itching to get your hands on.

There are six minigames to choose from, each testing a different Ninjutsu skill – shurikens, sword fighting, nunchaku, fishing by bare hands, catching fireflies, and snaring flies with chopsticks. Each of the six games sets you a particular series of objectives, and passing these earns you a jewel for the skill you have been training. Once you have earned at least 5 of the jewels, you can go forward to a test comprising of three of the skills you have just mastered. The reward for passing is the next colour belt, with the ultimate challenge to achieve 3rd degree black belt.

While each of the six games has a variety of objectives, each is essentially played in the same fashion. So for those keeping score, that’s right – there are only six games available. No more to unlock. Nada.

I had a lukewarm opinion of most of the games. In fact I can’t come up with a favourite from the lot. Catching fireflies is simply a case of watching the touchscreen for them to appear, and tapping on them as quickly as you can. Chopsticks vs. flies is the same deal, except that once you have tapped on the flies you have to drag them into bowls – even Pat Morita can do it. Nunchaku involves drawing endless figure eights with the stylus (representing the motion of the nunchaku), and then pressing L or R with correct timing to smash projectiles that Sensei throws at you.

Fishing is performed by dragging the stylus across the screen to trail fish in a pond (don’t move too suddenly and scare the fish!). When the fish surface, tap on the screen to catch them. Sword fighting uses the common DS game mechanic of using the stylus to draw a line in the direction you want to slash your sword, as you defend against the blows of your enemies before striking them down.

Finally, the game I was most looking forward to: shurikens. I had thought I would get to use my inner Ninja to aim shurikens at onscreen enemies, but instead found that throwing them was simply a matter of tapping on targets once, and then drawing an upwards stroke to throw. No directional skills necessary.

The games all rely on quick reflexes, just as the game’s name suggest. Controls are generally tight except for the sword fighting. At times I would find that my sword strokes wouldn’t register and I’d be cut up by my foes. The game definitely ramps up the difficulty as you get towards your black belt, and in a filthy way of extending the game’s short length, if you fail a belt test then 3 of your previously achieved jewels are removed as a penalty, forcing you to regain these before resitting the test. Fortunately if you suck at one particular game (I couldn’t fish to feed myself), you can complete the game by passing just 5 of the 6 games.

Progression through the game is linear such that once you achieve the objective of a minigame, you cannot go back and repeat it even if you want to. Earn jewels in each game. Pass the test. Earn next belt. Go back and earn more jewels. Even when you finish the game, you can’t go back and play in “free play” mode – the game resets you back to a white belt, and you are encouraged to then go back and play the entire game in the same linear fashion. Say what? Once you’ve developed the skills of a 3rd degree black belt, why on earth would you play on white belt difficulty for?

The novelty of the game’s idea drew my interest initially, but with only 6 games there is not a lot of variety and the gameplay quickly becomes repetitive. The glaring flaws of the game are disappointing, because with some more thought and work it could have been actually worthwhile playing. The top screen in this game is never used. Sure it displays images, but this is only to ensure you won’t think that your top screen is busted. The game doesn’t save your fastest times so you won’t know if you are getting better (or worse). There is multiplayer, but remarkably you cannot play together with someone on another DS even if they also own the game. You simply take turns on the same DS – shameful considering that the Wii version of this game has a simultaneous multiplayer mode. There is no WiFi connectivity for leaderboards or multiplayer. And don’t even dream of any form of DS-Wii connectivity!

The game also contains what is best described as a “concept game. The Meditation mode displays a virtual scene from a Zen garden, and encourages you to stare at the screen for meditation sessions which can either be “free” or “guided”. In the guided mode, Sensei teaches you the correct method of staring at your screen and freeing your mind. Mind blowing – literally.

It is frustrating that game developers continue abuse the DS platform with shoddy and cheap (yet full priced) minigame collections like this. Honestly – a full priced title containing SIX minigames? Not even Meditation makes up for this attempted daylight robbery. This is the first game developed by Nunchuck Games (in association with EA), and if this is all they can come up with in their first effort, one would worry about their long term survival. Throughout your training Sensei gives you clichéd advice, with the final gem delivered in the game credits: “If you love life, then don’t waste time because that is what life is made of”. Unfortunately this piece of advice comes far too late. If Ninjutsu training is what you are interested in, take my advice and join a martial arts class instead.