Today I stopped by the Mini Ninjas booth to get a sneak peak at the upcoming Io Interactive and Eidos Entertainment title.

The demo for Mini Ninjas was very basic and basically highlighted the combat and very simple puzzle solving elements. From the start, I walked along a linear dirt path surrounded by swaying grass and occasional standing lanterns with animals prancing around in close proximity.

My first obstacle was to cross a burning bridge that had been split apart in the middle. With no obvious way to get around it, the game finally felt bad for my suffering and explained that I was able to possess animals. Pushing down on the D-Pad in front of an animal allowed me to possess the animal for a period of time: until I hit down once again, or took damage from some source. I was able to possess a chicken-like animal and attempted to fly over the burning bridge. In a series of events I can only assume was intentional, my chicken got toasted and I was thrown into the river.

From here, I discovered that Hiro, the main character, has the ability to remove his hat in the water for use as a raft. So I hopped into my new hat boat, which humerously looks as though I was riding in a giant bowl of ramen, and cruised on over to the shore where I encountered my first battle.

Basic combat utilizes the “B” button for a standard sword attack, and hitting “A” allows players to jump out of harms way. Enemies drop golden energy orbs which are used to build up red power orbs that can be released for a special, and much stronger, attack. I did not play the demo long enough to see one of these special moves in person.

Other elements of gameplay include being able to switch between characters that have different abilities including Futo, a brutish ninja who wields a large hammer and is very strong against enemies.

One thing I strongly have to compliment concerning mini ninjas is the camera: it was very responsive and consistently remained behind me without any choppy movements.

From what I saw, I don’t think the demo truly represented Mini Ninjas true potential. The experience altogether left me apathetic to a real opinion on this title. I think it definitely has the right formula to be great and I look forward to playing the finished project.