Week of 27 Apr 2025

weekly blog

May 4

“Don’t let me down, you scum!”

Achievements Earned In:
- Tenchu Z
- Minecraft

This week was pretty much all Tenchu Z, as I made it a goal to do at least five missions every evening after work. This translates into fifteen, since I’m doing my Easy, Normal, and Hard runs subsequently to keep everything fresh. I truly enjoy stealth games like this, where each run is almost identical and the game is all about how you approach all these guards on their set control paths. You could sneak into the room to grab and stab the corrupt landlord target, or you could wait outside the shoji to their room with your sword drawn and stab them as they stop to yawn. It’s all great, but would be more enjoyable if I wasn’t having to do this three times (minimum) each.

I ran into the two hardest missions so far in the game: Mission 16, where you have to stealthily follow a corrupt businessman, and the following Mission 17, where you get your first boss fight. The former is tough because you still need the points to get the Ninjutsu Mastery rank, and if the target is out of sight for more than 25 seconds, you fail. This turned into me having to kill who I could in the target’s vicinity, which would be hard enough, but the guy actually circles back later in the level so those you kill you need to also hide out of sight. It’s hectic, but I managed enough. Tougher was the boss fight against Shigi, a rival ninja. While I love the stealth in this game, the combat is very clunky and unenjoyable and made the fight near impossible. …Unless you just drown the fool by luring him onto the dock and meleeing him twice while his back is to the water. I know there’s another boss fight (two of them) at the end of the game, so here’s hoping there’s a similar trick as I’m already close to the end.

Achievements unlocked: 21 (+19) | Completion: 68%