“Become the Mexican Ninja and fight to take back Nuevo Tokyo, where Narcos and Yakuzas have fused into the ruthless Narkuzas. Master slick combos, unleash outrageous Mexican Jutsus and craft deadly builds in this fast, chaotic 2.5D roguelike beat ’em up. ” – Steam Description

Mexican ninja is an unapologetic humorous 2.5D button mashing arcade style beat’em up with a roguelike twist, allowing you equip multiple types of special moves on top pulling off some insane combos for extra damage. The more you progress the more skills you unlock, the more skills you unlock the more damage you deal, and the more damage you deal the less Narkuzas are left standing in your way.

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Save Nuevo Tokyo

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Welcome to Neuvo Tokyo a city inspired by Japanese and Mexican Culture, where it was once a prosper and beautiful city now in ruins after the Narcos and Yakuzas decided to work together and take over under their new name The Narkuzas. The five heads of the Narkuzas each lead their own clan which dictate the law of the land, and their law sucks culo. A group of rebels lead by their sensei El Mero Mero gather in the outskirts of Nuevo Tokyo, and its up to you the Mexican Ninja to help them clean up your once beautiful city from its corruption.

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Wanted Dead or Alive

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When you start up the game you are presented with a really brief yet funny cut up explanation of the story. If I’m being honest it was kind of overstimulating and I kind of had no clue what was going on while at the same time laughing about it. I’m not saying this to say it’s a bad thing because I get that they want you to jump straight into the game, but for some it could be especially if they want to understand the lore of the game. The gameplay is pretty simple depending on your controller, ◻/Ⓧ are light attack, △/Ⓨ are heavy attacks, 〇/Ⓑ is your dash, ×/Ⓐ is your jump, those four combined are what the game calls death charms, and the trigger buttons are your special abilities also called Jutsus.

You are then thrown into one of the barrios ran by El Cascos, where you are shown how to do a simple light attack combo, and where to find sakila to regain your health, you are also introduced to La Virgencita NeeSan, Llorona Yokai, and Hachipotli the three Mexican-Japanese Spirits who grant you different kinds of buffs that include passive skills, death charms, and jutsus.

At the same time you are fighting a small band of Narkuzas until you run across El Cascos himself who introduces himself to you and begins the first boss fight. Beating him is tough since you do minimal damage to him but it is possible, I unfortunately was not able to achieve that and was then hilariously picked up by a garbage truck and dropped off in the outskirts of Nuevo Tokyo where you then meet your sensei and leader of the rebellion El Mero Mero (No, really, that’s his name.)

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El Mero Mero Teaches You the Way of the Donkey

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Whether or not you defeated El Cascos on the first try you are then met with El Mero Mero the leader of the rebel group helping to clear the streets of the Narkuzas. This is where he introduces you to two separate permanent skill trees that help you unlock permanent buffs and new combos. The first one is called the way of the donkey, this tree will increase your health bar while also help regain health after every level, increase your damage on all attacks and jutsus, and lastly increase the amount of health gained from sakilas and reduce cooldowns on jutsus. If you’re wondering what sakila is well its a combination of sake and tequila thus you get “Sakila.”

Hidden among this tree are small references to Mexican humor, my favorite being colita de rana which is a reference to a saying my mom used to say whenever I got hurt and help ease the pain. There is also huevos which yes translates to eggs in English but in this context it means courage, and trucha which is to be alert.

Second Skill tree belongs to El Mero Mero, this is where you unlock your other moves. Like I mentioned before, when you start the game you get told to mash the light attack to do a combo, but with this tree you unlock even more advanced combos you can use to slash your enemies. Survival unlocks different mobility combos, martial arts unlocks flashy combos and finishers to extend your combo, and combo power buffs the damage output of your combos while also doubling your score to increase your combo higher. Obviously you need moola to unlock all this new moves and buffs. There is also kind of a hidden combo gauge mechanic, unlike most beat’em ups where the combo tracker only multiplies your score points, this game increases your damage output the bigger the number gets. On top of that the three Mexican-Japanese spirits grant you buffs that will only activate depending on how high your combo is. If you’re wondering yes you can chain your moves together to extend your combos and it can get quiet chaotic at times the further you progress.

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Lets Get Started, Vato

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So lets get down to business once you enter Nuevo Tokyo you are met with the three Mexican-Japanese spirits that grant you the option to choose one of three random jutsus. Ranging from farting on your enemies and inflicting burn damage, unleashing a chilling grito that curses your enemies, or a quick dash attack that zips you around the battlefield like the flash. Then you are given the option of picking a random passive skill, these range from more damage on light and heavy attacks, increased status effects/duration, or increased health. once your done with that you arrive at the metro where you pick which barrio you want to go to. It will also show you what rewards you get for completing each barrio, those include passive skills, jutsus, and death charms. Making every run different and leaving it up to you on what kind of build you want to go for.

Along the way you will encounter a verity of enemies all ranging from small dainty grunts, long range attackers, hard hitting gordos, and many more. You will also come across several NPC that grant you quests to complete along your journey. These include killing a certain amount of enemies, landing certain types of moves/jutsus, breaking objects around the environment, search quests, giving money to a drunk, and killing certain bosses. Completing these quests will then unlock new passive skills, new powerful jutsus, and awesome and hilarious new costumes to wear. The NPC and enemy mobs is what brings life to the game with funny yet sometimes cringe worthy dialogue, although I will admit some of the enemy lines do tend to get repetitive during combat.

Like I mentioned before there are several types of costumes that you can unlock and wear that grant you different kinds of passive skills. Several of these costumes are named after funny Mexican slang and pop culture. Some costumes are simple recolors of the base outfit like the Whitexican, El Aguacate, and El Mariachi Negro; while other outfits are references to several Mexican icons and video games like Guillermo Totoro, Don Ramen, and War Ninja. There are several more outfits you can unlock but my favorites are Don Ramen who is a reference to Don Ramon a character in a classic Mexican comedy show called El Chavo Del Ocho that grants you extra money on enemy kills, War Ninja which is a reference to Kratos from God of War that buffs ones of the Mexican-Japanese spirit abilities, and lastly El Gringou Ninja which is basically an American Ninja that grants you a random explosion on light attacks.

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Take Down the Five Heads of the Narkuzas

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Neuvo Tokyo is ruled by five bosses called The Five Heads who rule different sections of the city. El Cascos rules over the outskirts with his heavily experimented on Crack Panda. Then you have The Tech Bros. They control over the corporations and technology of the city, overworking the people of Nuevo Tokyo with little to no pay. Shikamala controls the red light district, and finally Juichi Violence who calls himself the grand priest who believes that drugs, sex, and violence should be the true religion of Neuvo Tokyo.

Each boss’s locale plays different in a sense that the difficulty increases and more hard hitting mobs appear, also the camera angle changes after every boss you defeat. For example when you start the game it plays like a traditional 2D side scrolling beat them up, when you enter The Tech Bros. Domain the camera changes to slightly angled top down view, Shikamala becomes a top down view, and Juichi’s retuns back to normal. Don’t worry, the camera angle reverts back to 2D once you get into fights with the enemy and bosses. It kind of tends to get a bit annoying when it does that, I somewhat wished it stayed consistent with the 2D view.

I want to add that each boss also has their own fight patterns, El Cascos like to bounce around with his fat belly and doing AoE attacks, while Crack Panda bull rushes you with big slashes and seismic slams. I wont spoil everything but it took me several tries to figure them out, especially when they send out their goons at you. If you manage to survive your way through all the five heads you are then met with their head honcho for one more final battle, will you be able to free Nuevo Tokyo or fail and climb your way back to the top!

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• Graphics– It has a unique anime/comic book cell shaded style that really makes it stand out. Each locale art style changes with its unique themes, and colors. I really like how well they blended the Mexican-Japanese cultures together with the environments. The 2.5D style really works well and they did a great job.
• Gameplay– The gameplay is smooth and easy to pick up, there really isn’t a need to memorize all your moves you can just button mash your way through levels. As you progress it does become more difficult as you’re introduced to stronger enemies. At the same time my only gripe is that when your surrounded by mobs of enemies it becomes hard to keep track of yourself, there have been often times where I cant see myself which causes me to lose my big combo number I racked up. All the combo moves your learn are fun my favorite being el combo chido stacked with the black hole buff your get from la virgencita neesan. Like most rougelikes each run is truly unique, you get to try out different build and with costumes granting different buff its awesome to see how I can build around them. Although it sometimes leaves me wishing it had check points after beating a boss, or the option to choose a starting point after dying. Having to start over from the very beginning and having to beat the same boss over and over until I can reach a new level and boss eventually felt kinda repetitive and a little frustrating at times. What I do love and came to find out is that it has an autosave feature for example; Say you are in a middle of a run and the game crashes or your power goes out, or you need to exist the game to do chores, the game will save where you left off granted you will start the level or boss fight from the beginning. Overall it was a fun experience that kept leaving me wanting more!
• Sound– The has a unique soundtrack which again blends both cultures beautifully, from mariachi style horns mixed in with calming shamisen sounds. Then they add a twist by throwing in some powerful metal music that pumps the action tenfold. The sound effects match the action and are mixed well. Only annoying thing is the spoken dialogue from the NPCs and enemy mobs becoming repetitive after every run. I do like the small snarky remarks from some in the background after you defeat certain bosses which adds to the atmosphere of the game.
• Controls– Are simple, you have a light attack, a heavy attack, a dash button, and a jump button, and you can mash the shit out of them in any order you want.
• Story– Is kinda bare bones, like I mentioned before when you start the game its briefly shows you what is going on. Essentially gangs of narkuzas take over the town making peoples lives miserable for some and its up to you to defeat them. You will meet npcs that not only give you quests but also give bits of lore tied to you and the Narkuzas, im not going to spoil what it is thats for you to find out.