FromSoftware's Ninja Blade Game Explained

gamerant.com:

Before its success with the Dark Souls franchise, FromSoftware was known for making a wide variety of games. King's Field and Armored Core were two of its oldest offerings, and their DNA runs through many FromSoftware titles. Aside from mecha action games and fantasy dungeon crawlers, FromSoftware also dipped into horror. There were further unique offerings such as the turn-based JRPG Enchanted Arms, but most of FromSoftware's catalog can be boiled down to these categories.

In 2009, Demon's Souls began to change the company's direction. However, just a week prior in Japan, another FromSoftware game released exclusively for the Xbox 360. It was arguably the last of its kind until Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 10 years later. That game was Ninja Blade, and apart from a Steam port late in 2009, not much has come of it. It was delisted from Steam recently due to a publisher request, but the game contains several strange choices that lie outside FromSoftware's usual design repertoire, contributing to Ninja Blade being a quirky experience.

Every FromSoftware Game (Ranked By Metacritic Score)​

At first glance, Ninja Blade appears to be a fairly standard action game. The combat takes a lot of inspiration from the 3D Ninja Gaiden trilogy, and comes off like a less difficult spin-off. It also holds some resemblance to FromSoftware's Otogi titles, though they play differently. Players control Ken Ogawa, a ninja employed by the containment task force GUIDE to fight the mysterious Alpha-worm parasite. Ogawa travels to Tokyo with his father Kanbe and some other ninjas to contain a massive outbreak, however Kanbe and another team member infected by King Worms kill the squad. Kanbe stabs Ken with their clan's Ninja Blade, but the wound is only