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Tenchu
Genres	Stealth,Action-adventure
Developers	Acquire K2 FromSoftware
Publishers	Sony Music Entertainment Japan Activision Acquire FromSoftware Sega Nintendo Microsoft Game Studios Ubisoft
Creator	Takuma Endo
Platforms	PlayStation PlayStation 2 Xbox PlayStation Portable Nintendo DS Xbox 360 Wii
First release	Tenchu: Stealth Assassins February 26, 1998
Latest release	Tenchu: Shadow Assassins February 2009

Tenchu^[a] is astealthaction-adventurevideo game series owned byJapanese game publisherFromSoftware, where the player assumes the role of aninja in 16th-centuryfeudal Japan. The first game in the series titledTenchu: Stealth Assassins was developed by Japanese developerAcquire and published in 1998. Later games have also been developed byK2 andFromSoftware. The current rightsholder to the series is FromSoftware who bought the rights fromActivision in 2004.

The title in Japanese literally translates in English as "Divine Retribution", with天 (ten) meaning heaven and誅 (chū) meaning death penalty (another translation of this phrase,Wrath of Heaven, is the title of the firstPlayStation 2 entry in the series).

The game perspective isthird-person. There are numerous items to help the ninja on his/her mission, but unlockable items can be acquired if the player gets a "Grand Master" rating at the end of thelevel by being as stealthy as possible. Items and controls vary from game to game, but the gameplay is essentially the same throughout exceptTenchu: Shadow Assassins. Stealth is a very important element in the game, where players have to duck, crouch, and hide behind walls to avoid detection. Enemies can be killed with one maneuver by using Stealth Kills, and a player can avoid detection by using the Ki meter. The larger the number, the closer the player's position to an enemy. If a player is spotted, the Ki meter will turn red, the enemy will alert everyone in the area, and the player is forced to fight hand-to-hand or hide somewhere until the enemies give up their search and resume their patrol routes.

The main characters of theTenchu series are Rikimaru, Ayame, Tesshu and Rin. Rikimaru is a tall, white-hairedshinobi with a singleninjatō named "Izayoi" and a scar over his right eye. He is physically stronger than Ayame and Rin, but relatively slower. Ayame is akunoichi (female ninja) who wears black (sometimes dark purple) clothing, with long pants, a loose belt, arm armor that goes to halfway from the elbow and shoulder, and a ring that surrounds her neck, with her midriff exposed and carries a pair ofkodachi. She is faster and can perform morecombos than Rikimaru and Tesshu, but is weaker than them. Tesshu is a vigilante who wears blue doctor's clothes and fights bare-handed with acupuncture needles; he is strong like Rikimaru, but slower than Ayame and Rin. His appearance is heavily based on the character "Baian Fujieda". Rin is a young kunoichi who carries a large katana called Natsume. Despite wielding a sword, she prefers to use hand-to-hand combat, relying on fast combos like Ayame.

The series takes place in 16th-century feudal Japan. The original story (Stealth Assassins) revolves around two ninjas, Rikimaru and Ayame, who have both been members of the Azuma Ninja Clan since childhood. The two ninjas serve the benevolent Lord Gohda and work for him as his secret spies to root out corruption and gather intelligence in his province. However, the evil demonic sorcerer Lord Mei-Oh sought to destroy Lord Gohda, and using his demon warrior Onikage, wreaked havoc throughout Lord Gohda's province. Although Lord Mei-Oh was killed in the first game, Onikage appeared in all subsequent games (exceptFatal Shadows andTenchu Z) as the archenemy of the two ninja, especially Rikimaru. Another major character who shows up frequently is Princess Kiku, Lord Gohda's daughter who often needs to be saved.

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(November 2024)

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (1998) andTenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins (2000) were both developed byAcquire.Activision purchased the international publishing rights to the games fromSony Music Entertainment, who originally published the first game in Japan. The third game,Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (2003) was developed byK2 and published byFromSoftware in Japan and Activision internationally. Activision sold the rights to the series, excluding the first two games, to FromSoftware in 2004,^[1][2] who then together with K2 developed six future games, released from 2004 to 2008, which were internationally distributed by various publishers.

There is an additional Japan-exclusive release forTenchu: Stealth Assassins on thePlayStation. One hundred of the best competing levels designed with the level editor ofTenchu: Shinobi Gaisen (an expanded version ofTenchu re-released in Japan) were put together to form a stand-alone, non-story based expansion set calledTenchu: Shinobi Hyakusen. The engine and game fundamentals remained unchanged.Shinobi Hyakusen is famous for the hardest level settings amongTenchu fans, especially because of the tight time limits and the overall lack of the items, excluding the caltrops and the throwing stars. No North American or European versions were released however.

Several games were also ported to mobile phones with graphic changes. These includeTenchu: Ayame's Tale 3D which was released for the Sony Ericsson mobile phone series andTenchu: Wrath of Heaven by TKO-Software and Digital Bridges which was released for mobile phones in 2005, although it used two-dimensional graphics. AGame Boy Advance version of the franchise was attempted by Classified Games in 2000, but it was scrapped due to the publisher's problems.

The video gameSekiro: Shadows Die Twice, developed byFromSoftware and published byActivision in 2019 was initially conceived as a newTenchu game.^[3]

A stage play adaptationTenchu Butai was performed in 2014.DotA and its sequelDota 2 include a playable character named "Riki, the Stealth Assassin".

It's estimated that the whole series sales are at 10 million games sold worldwide as of 2018.^{[citation needed]}

• List of ninja video games
• Shinobido: Way of the Ninja – a 2006 PS2 game with similar gameplay and stealth/action principals, also developed by Acquire.

• Official website(in Japanese)
• Tenchu atMobyGames

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