Battle Royale to Compete with Fortnite: New Switch Game Ninjala Review
The new free battle royale game, Ninjala released in early summer of this year, and it has been sneaking its way up the download charts. When it first released, they had 10,000 downloads, and within about two months it’s gone up to over 4,000,000. Now the question may be will this be a rival to the phenomenal battle royale, Fortnite? Spoiler Alert, this game may have a “gum-fighting” chance.
What is the Secret to the Ninja-Gum?
Ninjala was created by GungHo Online Entertainment Inc., a Japanese company who has a subsidary in the U.S. and is lead by Jun Iwasaki (former president of Square Enix U.S.A and XSEED). This amazing game was through both companies collaborative efforts to bring something bright and colorful to the playing field. It also has some cultural aspects of Japanese ninjas without the extreme background of being actual assassins. The best thing about Ninjala, is that you can start with the main battle royale sessions and level up fairly fast without a ton of effort. So, in starting the game, players get to pick from 8 quirky characters, all with their own charm and special ninja techniques. The game has character customization, where no matter who you choose, can change their eyes, face, skin color, and hair color. The backstory behind these “ninjas” lies within their weapons formed by bubblegum! A very fun and unique idea that was shown in this animated trailer for the game. The summary is the ninja gum enhances your character’s ninja abilities and provides them various weapons to battle in Ninjala tournaments. These tournaments or battle matches are randomized to give you a fresh opponent to spar with every time from anywhere in the world. The goal is to win the gold medal in each match, though coming in with silver and bronze medals still levels you up pretty well. These medals can even upgrade your characters abilities with assist codes. The more battles you play guarantees that your character will get faster and stronger. And as extras, they’ve included cool outfits, funny emotes, and “Ippon” decor that can be purchased in the game with jala currency.
The Secret Lies Within the Ninja
Going into the gameplay itself, your character’s actions are fairly simple. You go through a super short tutorial and can jump right in. There are no specific tips or tricks that you need to follow to get the gold medal. This game isn’t as complicated and time consuming as Fortnite. However, a nice challenge in the game is the rock-paper-scissors parry. Here’s where you may want to do some practicing with the computer fighting you in the dojo. The parry is where your opponent clashes with you at the same time, and you have to choose an opposing directional arrow to either hit them or be knocked back. Despite the length of time you can spend in a parry, it will give you a great upper hand if done correctly. The challenge is anticipating your opponent’s parry choice, and then deciding whether to flee or block if not successful. Also, in Season 2, there is a shield option added to the up arrow, which can break you out of the parry, so you are not consistently stuck in a death match. There are plenty of weapons you can choose, from gum katanas, drill beasts, scroll blades, sushi axes to even gum yo-yo’s . And now they’ve added skateboards and surfboards so you can ride your weapons in the air. Your weapon of choice and abilities you equip, can be a determining factor on how to usurp a heavy hitter or a lightening fast dodger.
The Future of Ninjala
The greatest features of the game, is that the servers run super smoothly for the most part. There are hardly any hangups, or breakdowns because the programmers are doing very well keeping up with the server maintenance and bugs. Matching eight players, surprisingly happens really fast, and during the load time you’re able to practice in the dojo. And they recently announced, that they are going to monitor battles to keep the matches fair. Which is good news for new players just getting their feet on the ground, and it helps to keep them safe from suspicious activity. I say it has plenty of potential as we enter in Season 2, and I expect many great things to come out of it. It would be interesting to see how they develop the game from here, especially with talk about a collaboration with Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog coming soon. I would say this game is not as intense as Fortnite, but even with that aspect, Ninjala is super fun to play, and some players really get into it. There’s no confirmation that Ninjala will make it to record breaking numbers but we will just have to wait and witness it for ourselves.
