Like its PS2 brethren, Tenchu: Return from Darkness offers the player the option to hide in the shadows as either the more-powerful male, Rikamaru, or the quicker female, Ayame. Both hail from the Azuma clan. Once the player chooses a character, RfD offers a lengthy single-player campaign, including a handful of levels not seen in its PS2 predecessor. Unfortunately, not all of the translation went that well.

When one thinks of a game going from PS2 to Xbox, certain expectations are set. The graphics should be improved. High-definition support should be standard. The in-game sound should support Dolby 5.1. Xbox Live should add content or vastly improve multiplayer. Unfortunately, Tenchu: Return from Darkness only picked the low-hanging fruit on this list.

If you have played Wrath of Heaven on your PS2 and do not own a high-definition television, then you have seen RfD. The visuals were not the best the PS2 had to offer, so they really stand out as second-rate on the Xbox. There is nothing specifically wrong with them. They just lack the polish that is usually expected from the NVIDIA chip buried in the Xbox. Even in high-definition, the textures are nothing to write home about. In fact, the only thing the 480p support adds to the game is a clearer view of the sub-par visuals.

Thankfully, the sound improvements were more adequate than those of the graphics. Dolby 5.1 is supported in-game, which this reviewer considers a tremendous asset in any title. If a watch dog is rounding a corner behind Rikamaru or Ayame, players with a 5.1 setup will know it. In a game that relies as much on the senses as the Tenchu series does, this extra ability really adds to both the realism and the gameplay itself. In addition to the technological aspects, the musical score in RfD is every bit as good as that in the previous games and adds greatly to the experience.

One hurdle that must always be cleared in when porting a game to a new platform is the controller. It is a well-known fact that the PS2 has four face buttons and four shoulder buttons. The Xbox has four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, and two mistakes known as the black and white buttons. Since its inception, the Tenchu series has used the PlayStation layout very well. By its very nature, having to map two of the PS2 shoulder buttons to the black and white buttons on the Xbox pad will cause problems, and it does. Microsoft had the forethought to label one of the two auxiliary buttons as "Back." Perhaps if they would have pushed in during hardware development, it would have taken them back to the drawing board. If so, that would have been the first, last, and only time these buttons did any good. Other than the button-mapping quandary, the Xbox pad does a good job of controlling the action, so control is not a big issue.

Xbox Live is an advantage any developer has when creating a game on the Xbox. It allows the downloading of new levels. It allows vastly improved multiplayer possibilities. In Tenchu: Return from Darkness, it allowed the same, stale levels from the PS2 version to be played online. This was the last straw for me. Multiplayer was an afterthought in Wrath of Heaven, but surely Xbox Live would allow for a great improvement in this area, right? If you have no local friends with whom to play, then the XBL support in RfD adds value. However, for everyone else, the guy sitting next to you with a PS2 controller in his hand supports voice chat and can play the same six levels that are offered here. Again, going the extra mile could have paid great dividends, but the easy path was followed.

It is pretty clear that the developers at K2 cut nearly every corner and cost when they ported Wrath of Heaven to Return from Darkness. Gamers should follow their lead. Spend the $20 to get the PS2 game and save $30. Nothing in the Xbox rev warrants that extra cost.

· · · Daniel Riley