Stealth games have became more prevalent lately, in a very familiar fashion in our typical 3D forms. We see them coming in as a third person view, such as from Hitman series, to The Last of Us to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And with the explosion of the stealth genre, we have also lately seen stealth infused with FPS (think Crysis series or Dishonoured) or mixed with an action title (think Uncharted or Splinter Cell: Blacklist) or in its purest form in the Thief series. We thought we have seen them all.

We thought wrong.

You see, Mark of the Ninja is a 2D side-scroller with handdrawn graphics. It doesn’t have cutting edge breath-taking graphics or does it try too hard to conform to that. The look and feel is nostalgic and beautiful thanks to the talented team of artists and animators in developer Klei Entertainment that reminds me of the cartoons I used to watch on TV. And with that, it does an amazing job at showing how stealth mechanics can still work even in a 2D platformer. How? You ask. You are flabbergasted by the concept because you can’t exactly hide behind corners or peer out of it, nor can you shoot your dart or stun gun from cover.

(I can’t do this, you say)

Well, let me explain. Mark of the Ninja does an excellent job playing with the light and sound mechanics. Light sources reveal to everyone where you are if you happen to be in the line of sight of the guards, and sounds are represented visually as circular waves emanating from your running footsteps, to dogs barking to light bulbs breaking. A neat line-of-sight effect shrouds areas beyond view in murky uncertainty, while the colour vanishes from your ninja’s garb and the surroundings to show when he’s hidden in the dark. And from a 2D platform, the ninja can hide from a hidden sewer grate on the side, to the drain grate beneath, or to a chandelier above. Additional objects, such as doors or pillars can allow you to hide behind it on a 2D scale.

So for example, say there is a guard blocking my way to the objective, and from his position its is well-lit from a single light source and metres away from the darkness my ninja is shrouded in. No issue there, because Mark of the Ninja provides you with so many options at your disposal. You could use the grappling hook to zip to the hanging platforms overhead and then drop down behind him to do a lethal stab sword in his back. The cool thing is anytime you make an undetected kill like that, the camera zooms in and darkens the background, highlighting you and your victim as you plunge your blade into him and then toss his body aside. Or if you are feeling both creative and sadistic at the same time, you can throw a spike mine behind him, and then subsequently throw a dart to smash the light bulb. The sound stemming from that will distract the guard and prompt him to investigate, and after walking a few steps, triggering the mine and finding himself impaled in so many different angles that he instantly becomes swiss cheese. Or if you are feeling very nice and merciful that day, you could always deploy a firecracker behind him to distract him, and quickly sneak above him unseen while he walks back to check things out.

You begin with very basic moves of moving, grappling and stealth killing from behind, but as you finish levels and secondary objectives within each mission (such as completing an area without being detected or successfully pickpocketing your foe), you’ll earn medals redeemable for new moves that significantly liven up the game and open up your options. There is a move that you can redeem, for example, that allows you to string up your dead victims from an overhead perch, guaranteed to terrorise any guards witnessing that traumatic image. Terrorised guards panic and usually starts shooting blindly, potentially leading to friendly fire as your ninja watches gleefully at grown men peeing their pants and killing their comrades. Or you can use the infamous Metal Gear Solid cardboard box to hide within it, and ambush unsuspecting guards like a trapdoor spider when they walk past you.

The scoring system is very rewarding, achieving its balance between a stealth gameplay and being a killing machine. Your ninja is just a human, and when detected, a few gunshots can kill him pretty fast. This means you can’t brazenly walk into a room and start stabbing the guards in the open. While many stealth games claim you can play them lethally or non-lethally, Mark of the Ninja rewards you with XP when you use either style. If you are like me, preferring to stab every fool that you cross, you’ll earn some points along the way. But if you bother to hide their bodies, the scoring system will reward you more. Terrorize the weak-willed guards and you’ll gain even more (see my tactic above). Or you can just sneaking by the guards undetected to gain plenty of points that way. All these styles are complemented by different “Paths” to suit your playstyle. Take the Path of Silence for example, and the game will remove your sword, forcing you to sneak by everyone and will give you extra distraction tools to do so. Take the Path of the Hunter however, and you will have extra lethal items, but they cannot by replenish and you cannot carry any distraction items. These gives a great deal of replayability.

(No, you will not be able to do that in this game)

The only flaw I can think of is the maddening controls sometimes. You see, on the PC, the right mouse click is used for picking up a corpse, and also to hide behind a room or an object. What if the corpse is very near the room? Then the control will have difficulty differentiating what you intend to do. You might end up holding the corpse when the guard walks towards you, instead of hiding into the room as you originally wanted. It is frustrating, but thankfully not game-breaking.

Mark of the Ninja is a very smart game with a very intuitive design, filled with exploitable logic from guards and challenges you to be creative and to think.  Its linear but multi-route levels are really just collections of puzzles and you gain satisfaction through creative employment of your ninja’s bursting utility belt and moves. And with that said, Mark of the Ninja is really one of the best stealth games you can ever play for its value. Now at less than USD10 on Steam, this is the kind of game that slaps those $60+ multi-million blockbuster hits in its face and screams for attention because it is as good, if not better than those releases.