Why I am definitely buying Mini Ninjas on release day.

 Hi, guys. I posted the following on my blog today. But I felt strongly enough about it that I wanted to post it here, too. Hope you enjoy the read. -Book

 

If you've read this blog before, you are familiar with my quest for the perfect family game. It needs to be age appropriate, accessible, and--perhaps the most difficult criterion to meet--entertaining for the entire family (not just kids or parents). Yeah, that last one is tough. It seems like most game developers, when designing a "family" title, forget the parents entirely and also treat children like idiots. This is what makes my quest so difficult...

Mini Ninjas is a game created for the enjoyment of a wide range of people centered around kids and the family. It is an action-based adventure in which the player gets to combat and triumph over evil through the use of his or her skills as a Mini Ninja. Mini Ninjas is different in the way that it is an action game in which you don’t kill your opponents. Instead, you break the spell cast upon the helpless animals of the Mini Ninjas world and thus release them back into the wild. As such, while the game contains tons of action and furious combat at the end of the day, no one gets hurt and the player is still treated to a truly engaging and amusing experience. It has been rated EVERYONE 10+ with Cartoon Violence and Crude Humor by the ESRB in the US.

In other words, IO Interactive wanted to make an adventure game with ACTUAL adventure in it, while also not subjecting kids to the possibly corrupting effects that simulated murder might have. Now, we can argue all day long the influence that video games may or may not have on kids... But the important thing here is that the people at IO Interactive took the time to THINK about a way to make an honest-to-goodness adventure game that is also family friendly.

Why is there no killing in the game?
Balance is everything to the Mini Ninjas. The Ninja Master teaches them that maintaining harmony in nature is the most important task. Since the enemies in Mini Ninjas are innocent animals transformed through twisted Kuji Magic, the Mini Ninjas rescue the animals by lifting the spells cast on them, thus restoring balance to nature, rather than killing them.

IO Interactive has created mature rated games until this one. What the deal with that? Why are you switching to a game like this?
With ten years in the bag, many of the developers here have started families and wanted to take a stab at making games that they could enjoy with their kids. Mini Ninjas incorporate the trademarks of IO Interactive--creativity, action, fun--with exploration, family-friendly entertainment and a game that had a very wide appeal and great depth. It’s as much an IOI title as Hitman or Kane & Lynch.

So not only did they balance the fun factor with respect for the kids, they also worked this into the game's narrative. I appreciate that. It makes the gaming experience that much more real and immersive. I don't like developers just catering to what I want. They need to mean it.