Inindo: Way of the Ninja (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
274A playthrough of Koei's 1993 role-playing game for the Super Nintendo, Inindo: Way of the Ninja.
Like so many other Koei games, Inindo: Way of the Ninja is a console port of a computer game that focuses on the bloody Sengoku era of Japanese history. It shares many of its characters and settings with Nobunaga's Ambition, but instead of a war-sim, Inindo is primarily a JRPG with some strategy elements mixed it. It was the second game in Koei's Rekoeition (Koei Re-creation) series, following in the genre-bending footsteps of Uncharted Waters (https://youtu.be/JbwY4TGd5M4 ).
The story begins in 1582 in a small village outside Kyoto, not far from where Nobunaga originally committed seppuku. However, in this alternate take on history, the warlord isn't dead. Depending on the path the game selects for you at the beginning, he either walks away from the rebellion at the Honnouji Temple unscathed, or his burned and mangled body will been seen shambling from the scene under some seemingly supernatural force.
You play as an Iga ninja whose village and clan have been all but wiped out by one of Nobunaga's campaigns, and it is up to you to prevent him from taking over Japan. You have until the year 1600 - shortly before the Tokugawa shogunate is established in the real world - to accomplish the mission.
For much of the game you'll be wandering 16th century Japan, visiting the eight dungeons that hold keys to the secret ninja arts that you'll need in order to oppose Nobunaga's forces. You're free to choose your party members from over 100 warriors (representing eight different character classes), many of whom have special skills that'll prove useful over the course of the adventure. There are also a number of optional dungeons that hold powerful weapons and items. I visit all of them in this playthrough.
The game features a strategy mode where you can wield direct influence over who holds power in each region. You can spy on and sabotage enemy castles, curry favor and build alliances with other daimyo, and fight large-scale battles on their behalf.
Inindo feels quite different than pretty much any other Koei game. It looks like a DQ clone, but the design makes it feel like the developers were aiming more for Capcom's Destiny of an Emperor (https://youtu.be/dDOg6yaFeHg ) than a "traditional" RPG.
With all of that going for it, Inindo: Way of the Ninja sounds like it should be a real sleeper classic, right?
The unfortunate reality, however, is that the game is a frustrating mess of half-baked ideas, shoddy mechanics, and an excruciating interface, all of which are made more maddening thanks to the game's technical issues and its piss-poor presentation.
When the Super Famicom port was released in 1991, it was met with scathing reviews and terrible sales. The game is often referred to as kusoge on the Japanese side of the internet, and it's not hard to see why. It makes you wonder why Koei even bothered to translate it for English-speaking audiences.
For as much as the game emphasizes its strategy elements, they rarely contribute to the gameplay. It's only necessary to fight one of the large scale battles at the end of the game, so the whole concept of uniting different factions against Nobunaga feels like a pointless exercise, meaning that the game's defining feature is a bust. It's also missing content from the PC88 game - you can no longer get married or buy a house.
So, can the RPG side of things carry the game?
Well, most of the dungeons are sprawling multi-floor mazes filled with constant random encounters. The battle system tries to inject a bit of strategy by placing characters on a grid, but this doesn't generally matter since unlimited-use battle items allow you to wipe out nearly everything in short order. Fights move at the speed of molasses, there's no auto-battle, animations play out slowly, and the cursor is laggy.
This lag persists through the entire game. It's at its absolute worst when you're trying to navigate through the terrible menus: if you decide to change out a party member and need to transfer their equipment, you're looking at a 10 minute ordeal. It's torture, especially with its unexpectedly long loading times. It's mind-boggling that it has such crippling performance issues given how simple the graphics are, but the map judders as you walk about at the faster speeds, NPCs awkwardly warp between tiles, battles slow down during attacks - it's absurd.
My guess would be that instead of creating a native port, Koei went cheap and ran large chunks of the original PC88 game's code through an interpreter. They did that for some of their NES games, and it would certainly explain why the SNES constantly struggles to keep up.
And the music is bad. Like, really bad.
But in spite its problems (and against my better judgment), I actually enjoyed Inindo. I don't get it either, but it is what it is.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.