From Tecmo and Team Ninja, the makers of such hits as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden Sigma, comes Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS. Now if you’re a fan of the Ninja Gaiden games don't be afraid to try this one out; just because it's on the DS doesn't mean it's not hardcore.

          This installment in the Ninja Gaiden series takes place between Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox and the newest installment, Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360 and PS3. After the events of the Dark Dragon Blade Incident subsided, Ryu the protagonist has rebuilt the Hayabusa Village. Some time later, Ryu is training with an up and coming ninja, Momjii, when she is kidnapped by members of the Black Spider Ninja Clan. Just as Ryu is about to dash off to save her, he is transported back to the village where he finds a mysterious dark sphere. The master sword smith of the village, Muramasa, explains to Ryu that there are 8 of these Dark Dragonstones. If all of them are gathered together they will unleash a power even stronger then the Dark Dragon Blade. In order to save Momjii and the rest of the village from the Black Spider Ninja Clan it is up to Ryu to collect all of the Dark Dragonstones and put an end to these evil fiends' terror

          When playing Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, the DS is held like a book. This is the same technique used in Brain Age and Hotel Dusk: Room 215. This style of game play works perfect with this style of game. The touch screen is where you'll see Ryu running about in a pseudo-3D world, meaning all characters and items are rendered in 3D graphics, but the background is a pre-rendered 2D world. On the non-touch side, you'll have your map, which helps in most cases, but because the game is so narrow in terms of getting from point A to point B, you almost don’t need it there. It may sound a little silly when I explain it, but if you were to look at it directly you would understand.

          The control layout for Dragon Sword is really simple. To attack, the player uses the stylus and basically scribbles all over the screen. Ryu can also launch projectiles by simply tapping the stylus on an enemy. Throughout the game you will be awarded new special moves where you must move the stylus in specific directions to pull them off, and the detection for those moves is really well done, I don’t think I've ever managed to cheat it out. To move, the player simply touches where they want Ryu to run to, and to jump, you swoosh the stylus up words. If you can swoosh up twice quickly, then Ryu will perform a double jump. As for the actual buttons on the DS, they are all set as Guard. I personally prefer to use the R-Button to Guard because I hold the DS in my left hand while playing, and my left index finger is right on top of it.

          As you progress you are also granted new magic abilities. In the game, these are called Ninpo. To activate a Ninpo attack, the player taps once on the Ninpo icon beside the health bar. This will bring up an outline of a word character which you must fill in using the stylus. If the character is filled in fast enough, then Ryu will perform the selected Ninpo attack which will either involve tapping enemies on the screen or guiding the attack by dragging the stylus across enemies.

          In terms of difficulty, this game felt pretty easy. Unfortunately you can't play on hard mode until you finish the game on the default difficulty. This may be a problem for some of those hardcore Ninja Gaiden fans who love the difficultly of the larger platform titles. Luckily for them the game takes only about 6 hours to complete; that is if you manage to plow right through without having to rigorously trial and error your way through each dungeon.

          In closing, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword is a great title for the DS. If you enjoy action/adventure types then you should defiantly pick this one up. It looks fantastic, the game play works great, controls are simple and you don’t have to have played it's predecessors in order to understand what's going on.