Fruit Ninja Review: Sharpen Your Fingertips for this Fruit-Juice Splattered Classic

Platforms:	iPhone, iPod Touch
Publisher(s):	Halfbrick
Price:	$0.99
Download

After playing about a dozen iPhone games with “ninja” somewhere in the title, Fruit Ninja immediately jumps out of the pack as wholly unique and worth a buck. It is anything but the side-scrolling, button-mashing affairs we’ve come to expect (and sometimes really enjoy) from ninja-themed titles. Instead of creating a cute ninja character that you control, developer Halfbrick puts the blade right on your fingertip and lets you go to work on an endless storehouse of exotic fruit.

According to the game, “All ninjas hate fruit,” and thus it’s up to us to end the fruit’s journey. All this takes is one swipe of the blade to split the fruit apart and send their insides splattering across the wood-paneled backdrop. The fruit enters the screen from the bottom, as if thrown by some force (I like to imagine that a monkey is responsible). It follows an arc toward the top of the screen, then gravity brings it down. Before it exits from the same way it came, you have to swipe across it in any direction. You’ll hear the swish of a blade, see a quick white gash that shows where you swiped, and hopefully the fruit will split apart and award a point. Sound simple? It would be if the fruit assaulted you one at a time, but the life of a true ninja isn’t that easy.

As the game progresses, entire baskets full of fruit get launched and need dicing. To make things worse, bombs also get mixed in . . . Fruit Ninja works on a three-strike system. Fail to slice a watermelon, mango, pear, strawberry, orange, or banana before it exits the screen and that’s a strike. Slice into one of the bombs and it means game over immediately. You can imagine how tricky it becomes when there are seven pieces of fruit in the air with a bomb in the middle. Your finger(s) need to work quickly and accurately to slice the fruit while avoiding the bomb, and doing it all in a matter of no more than about two seconds. Any number of approaches could be taken to getting past these challenging moments. Fruit Ninja supports multiple gestures, and you could technically use all the fingers on one hand as blades, though I challenge you to make this technique more effective than a simple, one-finger approach.

A number of variables enhance the gameplay, and it’s very apparent that Halfbrick has gotten the most out of Fruit Ninja’s potential. During each game you’ll encounter a number of randomized “critical” fruits. Slicing these awards 10 points rather than one, and really speeds things along on your way to the top of the leader boards. Each time an increment of 100 points is reached also provides a noteworthy landmark, as you are forgiven one strike each time this happens. Using the strikes wisely provides an interesting element of strategy. Sometimes it’s better to take a strike rather than risk setting off a bomb just to get one stray strawberry. You can always hope to reach that next hundred mark and get the strike erased.

Openfeint is fully integrated with Fruit Ninja, but be warned that looking at the leader boards is more depressing than inspiring. Apparently there are people out there with fingers for more dexterous than mine. But I won’t let that stop me from playing Fruit Ninja for a long time to come. It’s only detraction is that it’s a very one-note experience that is shallow compared to some games. But that’s easily forgotten thanks to how well it works . . . Halfbrick has polished what could have been a gimmicky mini-game into an excellent standalone title that, for 99 cents, everyone should have on their phones.

Our Rating: 4/5
Fruit Ninja is available in the App Store for $0.99 at the time of this review. (App Store Link)

About the Author

Devin Wieland

 

Free! Gem Keeper