UPDATES! (Full Playlist)
- Video 1 — Stealth Games, The Video Game
- Video 2 — Sinister Foreshadowing
- Video 3 — What am I Seeing?
- Video 4 — Wine Snob
- Video 5 — 100 Yen
- Video 6 — It’s Raining Men
- Video 7 — Catacomb Chaos
- Video 8 — Predictable AI
- Video 9 — Otomo the Hungry
- Video 10 — Video Game Reference
- Video 11 — Chopsticks
- Video 12 — Serenity
- Video 13 — We’ve Always Been Together
Mark of the Ninja is a stealth game by Klei Entertainment, who you may know for Eets, Shank, and Don’t Starve. It was originally released in September 2012 as an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive; it was ported to PC later that year, and in late 2018 it received a remaster for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC/Mac/Linux. The remaster doesn’t add any new content (aside from including the Special Edition DLC from the get-go) but the audiovisuals have been retooled to support 4K and 5.1 surround sound.
NOTE: As of Video 7, we’ve had to switch to the original version of Mark of the Ninja due to a game-breaking glitch. But don’t worry, the game still looks pretty!
Mark of the Ninja is a stealth game paradox: at once completely unique while also paying direct homage to everything that came before it. Weird, I know. It’s a 2D stealth game, which is pretty rare, while borrowing the best design elements from its 3D brethren. While direct combat will get you killed, it also encourages striking fear in the hearts of your enemies and killing them indirectly through traps and friendly fire. Basically, our nameless ninja is an extremely lethal Batman.
FAQ’s
So, how’s this LP going to work?
A new YouTube episode uploads every Saturday (Patrons get 24 hours of early access, complete with the raw video file). I’m doing co-commentary with my good friend pdPreciousRoy, who’s also done commentary with me on two other LPs (these are YT only; this is our first thread with the Zone!)
You said something about DLC. What’s that about?
A few months after the game first came out, Klei released Special Edition DLC, which includes two extra items and one extra costume (we’ll go into detail on those when we unlock them), a very extensive text-based developer commentary, and a prequel DLC level starring one of the side characters. We will be playing the DLC level as well, and I’ve already determined exactly where it’s going to be—but, y’know, spoilers.
This is a stealth game, eh? Will you be going for perfect stealth all the time?
That depends on the map. Every level has optional objectives—some require you to sneak through them and others do not. On the maps without a stealth requirement I’ll do my best to mix things up a bit, though as I mentioned, combat isn’t great in this game (and it’s built that way on purpose).
As a general note, some levels (Level 5 comes to mind) have optional seals that are impossible to complete on the first playthrough. When that happens, I will do a brief “cleanup” in the next update which completes the seal, and maybe show off anything I missed last time.
I saw the first video, and this format is kind of familiar. Aren’t you just ripping off ChipCheezum’s shtick, but worse?
Yes.
What’s the spoiler policy?
What little story this game has is worth experiencing for yourself, so no unmarked spoilers! If you absolutely must talk about the story before it’s covered in an update, please use spoiler tags.
