I-Ninja

Argonaut Games had a long history of technically ambitious work behind it when I-Ninja appeared in 2003. The game belongs to the 3D action platformer category, which at that point was one of the most crowded shelves in the shop — every platform supported it and every publisher wanted a mascot-shaped entry in the genre.

Movement and combat carry the design in roughly equal measure. You control a ninja, so alongside jumping and climbing there is fighting, and special manoeuvres feed into both. Games of this type typically broke up their standard levels with tasks built on different rules, keeping progression from settling into repetition, and that structural variety was a selling point publishers leaned on heavily in this period.

Camera and control are always the deciding questions for an early-2000s 3D platformer. The conventions were still hardening, and the gap between a game that handles comfortably and one where you fight the viewpoint separated the good releases from the average far more decisively than graphics or content did.

Our record lists Zoo Digital as publisher, a company associated with budget lines and later reissues. That is useful practical information: titles distributed through that channel are generally easier and cheaper to track down today than original first-run editions. I-Ninja is worth attention chiefly if you enjoy action platformers and are looking for the less-celebrated entries from a time when dozens shipped every year. The OldGame.cz profile keeps developer, publisher and release details together for reference.