Ninja Blade is one of those games that must have been very cheap at some point, or perhaps part of a bundle, because the name is so ridiculously generic that I can’t think of any other reason it would have wound up in my Steam library.

It turns out that the game is pretty generic as well.  It plays something like an clunkier but easier version of Ninja Gaiden Black with the body horror turned to max.  You run around and hit monstrosities that used to be human, trying to clean up the monster-infested streets of Tokyo before the Government blows the whole thing up to prevent the infestation from spreading.  You get to use three different types of swords, there are a couple of element-based ninja arts that you use for combat and to solve puzzles, there’s lots of wall running and swinging off conveniently-placed poles and a grapple to help you clear long gaps, and it really has a lot of elements that could have made for a really fun game but just kind of don’t.

The saving grace of the game is its sheer absurdity.  You play as a Ninja named “Ken”, the last member of a team of Ninjas that apparently Japan keeps around to deploy in monster-infested-Tokyo situations, and everything you do is so over-the-top that I would question the humanity of someone who can play this game without laughing frequently.

It’s not just the way you ride missiles like surfboards, or hold back a runaway plane with nothing more than a rope in one hand and your sword stuck into the pavement in the other, but things like deploying to a new mission in an Osprey and riding there on the outside of the aircraft.

On one of the wings.

On the underside of the wing.

Hanging UPSIDE DOWN from the underside of the wing.

Because you’re a Ninja and that’s what Ninjas do apparently.

Also you can do all of this while wearing a pink Ninja outfit:

The crazy extends to the far-too-frequent QTEs.  These stink up the game every few minutes, and would absolutely get it tossed into the “never play” pile if it’s weren’t for the ability to set the QTE difficulty independently of the combat difficulty, so you can play with normal or hard combat difficulty while setting the QTEs to “Foolproof”.  With this done, when you are prompted to hit X or dodge or what have you, you can simply press ANY key and the event will succeed and the QTE will continue.

With this done, boss fights all end with particularly gruesome and visceral displays of Ninja Bad-assery, and again you will likely be giggling like a schoolgirl as you watch them.

Or, more accurately, giggling like a full-grown man who should know better.

Sooooo… if you can get it cheap, or if you get it in a bundle or something, I think it’s worth putting in your Steam library.  Probably.  You could do worse.