The cute little Ninjas that inhabit Ninjatown are based on the toys by Shawnimals and the game is not the cutesy platformer I was expecting, but a non-stop mix of action, strategy and more than a smattering of resource management. It’s basically a ‘Tower Defence’ game, the sort of game that only really works with a mouse, or the DS’s stylus because of the game’s requirement to scroll around the play area and designate what you want your Ninjas to do swiftly and accurately.

Your job is to manage the Ninja warriors at your disposal to fight off the hordes of enemies lead by your nemesis Mr. Demon, who, for reasons unknown, is bent on the destruction of Ninjatown – and I’ll do the wise thing and avoid analyzing the plot too carefully.

The enemies flood into the town in a steady stream and once one reaches a certain point on the screen marked by a flag, it disappears, knocking 1 life off the 10 you start with. In order to get your Ninjas set and ready to fight you have to strategically select the position of a building plot on the map so they can build their hut and choose which type of Ninja you want them to be; the basic black ninja is quick but takes heavy damage, the orange anti-ninjas hit hard but move slowly, there are archer and snowball-throwing ninjas to combat flying enemies, and “business” Ninjas bore the enemy to a standstill by showing them their pie charts... You can also build power-up training dojos that improve the performance of all surrounding Ninjas. Building each hut costs a certain amount of ninja star cookies, the currency of Ninjatown, fortunately when enemies are defeated more cookies are earned. You can then spend these cookies on building more huts and upgrading existing ones in order to deal with the ever increasing number of enemies.

So to the good and the bad. The graphics may be simplistic but they do the job admirably, allowing a lot of on-screen action without you ever having a problem seeing what’s going on. This game definitely falls into one of the “Marmite” genres; you’ll either love or hate this kind of “tower defence” game and its constant juggling of resources and occasionally manic action. This is rather a good example however, and rarely falls into the trap that so many of its ilk do by making you feel hopelessly outnumbered. I found that it soon became highly addictive, and even when the game was finished I wanted to go back to completed levels in the quest for those elusive ‘A’ ratings. Despite appearances it’s definitely worth a look, even if your tastes usually lie elsewhere.