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Vivendi Universal Games
Witnessing the brutal murder of her father, then hung by a wire and left for dead, Kurenai swears vengeance on the ruthless Black Lizard Clan. The wire that almost took her life has now become her signature weapon, the Tetsugen. Using her powers of stealth, speed, and seduction, she sets a deadly trap for her enemies, the scourge of feudal Japan. 
A third person action game blending a variety of game-play features including action, adventure, stealth, seduction and fighting. All these elements have been placed into Japan in the 1500s -- Kurenai is a young girl who's world is destroyed when she and her father are attacked by the deadly Black Lizard Clan, a group that captures her and brutally hangs her by a wire and leaves her to die. Miraculously, she survives and is rescued and adopted into a clan where she obtains complete mastery of her unique weapon, the Tetsugen (steel wire). Kurenai has pledged her undying loyalty to her new family. She now lives to avenge her father's death and will go to any means necessary to destroy the Black Lizard Clan.
Red Ninja Features:
 Revolutionary wire weapon, the Tetsugen, where the functionality of the wire is determined by the end attachments and length & strength of wire which creates dynamic gameplay that combines action, adventure & stealth
- Beautiful, large environments and event driven storyline, written by Shinsuke Sato (The Princess Blade), a feature film writer/director from Japan
- Seduce guards, run along walls, air walk, walk on water and use invisibility to distract your assailants
- Choose how you will destroy your enemy by using numerous additional weapons like blowguns, smoke bombs and rocket explosives
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Red Ninja Strategy Guide
Head and legs' decapitations: When locked onto an enemy, when you throw the Tetsugen press Up before you hit the target. The same goes for legs, except you press Down.
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Red Ninja Gameplay
Ninjas rule hardcore. Ninja Gaiden is a brutal experience and the developers, Team Ninja named themselves after it. Look to the music and you'll find the label Ninja Tune has been taking names for over a decade. So what's cooler than cool? Putting a female ninja into a game and putting the camera in plenty of compromising situations so that her panties get a supporting role. That's the idea behind Red Ninja: Return to Honor and it just might work.
Of course there's a lot more to Red Ninja than just the capacity for creating some perverse shots, but it's there. That's all we're saying. And when you climb into a small tunnel be ready for the full moon. It can be blinding in its beauty.
But back to the gameplay for a bit because there is something else besides a girl in a loose-fitting ninja outfit here. Her name is Kurenai and she's got skills in the way of the Tetsugen. This is a metal wire with a weight at the end of it. By wrapping the end around an enemy's legs, torso, or head Kurenai can drop fools to the ground or slice them in half for a nice bit of arterial spray. There's a lot of blood in the average human being and from what we've seen Kurenai squeezes until the last drop.
 Another alternative from just attacking one person is to set up enemies like dominoes and dropping them to the ground. By holding onto one enemy Kurenai can run in circles around him and clothesline others along the way. They can be knocked down or, if she's lucky, decapitated to join the ranks of the glorious and the dead.
This all works out somewhat well if you can figure out when to do this. When sneaking up on someone Kurenai can target someone and by hitting square she can throw out the Tetsugen. But if she's a bit too far, then she'll swing a knife around. The only way to know what the radius of the Tetsugen's ability is to keep on experimenting and getting a feel for it.
Another thing that will require some work and patience is the camera system. While we applaud it's ability to show off Kurenai's assets it's difficult to work with in the regular situations involving running, jumping, throwing, killing, and probably a few more that we haven't come across yet. This can be especially problematic in cramped quarters which will make players reach for the Dramamine. Hopefully, this will be tightened up for the final release for a smoother experience. Less right here could be more indeed.
One area that needs a lot more is the option menu. The enemies haven't been that scary so far, but the possibilities to tweak the game are truly frightening in their current state. Go to the menu and there's one option: vibration. You can have it on or you can have it off and if you want to do more, then you're outta luck. No camera options, no sound options, no nothing except for vibration which, last we checked, classifies as practically nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Once the technical difficulties have been overcome we found that there is definitely a ninja game here with the elements of stealth and killing with a variety of weapons. There were a few stealthy weapons, but the one that we kept coming back to was the Tetsugen. Knowing the kill radius with it is tricky, but the results of that at least are pure, bloody fun. That alone sets the game apart in a new direction and hopefully there will be even more as the game progresses. The outlook, as they say, is hazy, but there's always the uncertain future and we like to be optimistic around here.
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Red Ninja Graphics
 Red Ninja 's graphics don't make up for the gameplay inadequacies, though there are bound to be a lot of drooling guys who will admire Kurenai's easily-visible black thong. Visually, everything from the enemy models to the wall textures looks at least a few years old. It's not a hideous looking game, per se, but finding eye candy is like looking for a dollar in a dumpster. If only the rest of the game was given the artistic attention that Kurenai's "hotness" received, the graphics might be something to write home about.
The level designs are especially bad, and are another big experience-killer. For example, there's one area where you have to use a blowgun to assassinate a rival government type. He's surrounded by guards, and if one spots you, it's game over. Figuring out how to get a clear shot is incredibly frustrating, and you're often called out when it seems impossible that anyone could've seen you. If you persevere, you immediately take on an incredibly cheap boss who splits into multiple shadow forms after you've done some damage. It's hard to imagine anyone working through both of those scenarios and maintaining a desire to play the game further. http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com
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Red Ninja Audio
The audio is mostly decent, but it has a few rough spots. Mainly, the voice acting is the primary issue with the game's sound presentation, as it varies wildly in quality. Kurenai is mainly just boring, but the remaining characters are all either wickedly over-the-top, to the point of ludicrousness, or just severely annoying. You'll find some decent sound effects while you play, though nothing remarkable, and the traditional flute music that makes up much of the soundtrack is mostly pleasant, though it's a tad repetitive.
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Red Ninja Gameplay Controls
 This is classic third-person control set, so naturally the Red Ninja and the camera are manipulated with the sticks. A complete forward stick movement will cause a sprint but a light press enters Red Ninja into stealth creep mode. The B button performs a full crouch stealth walk that is more effective than a vertical walk but the pace is much slower. Nearly every vertical surface in Red Ninja: End of Honor can be scaled with a double-tap technique on the jump button. Edges of cliffs and ropes can be grabbed and moved along with a quick button press and left/right directions on the left stick. Stealth moves include the wall cling with peer and vertical surface running. When full running velocity is achieved, Red Ninja can run sideways up a wall, but too steep of an attack and momentum will be lost; think of it similar to Prince of Persia wall riding but with a bit more skill involved. http://www.gamespot.com
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