Software:Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven

Short description: 2003 video game

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven
European box art
Developer(s)	K2 TKO Software (Mobile)
Publisher(s)	WW: Activision JP: FromSoftware Mobile EU: Digital Bridges NA: I-Play
Director(s)	Mitsuo Kodama
Designer(s)	Masanori Kuwasashi Tomoyuki Hosokawa Susumu Nakamoto
Programmer(s)	Shinichi Shimizu Tadao Tada
Artist(s)	Koichi Iwasaki
Composer(s)	Noriyuki Asakura
Series	Tenchu
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, Xbox, Mobile phone, PlayStation Portable
Release	March 4, 2003 PlayStation 2 NA: March 4, 2003 EU/AU: March 7, 2003 JP: April 24, 2003 Xbox NA: March 9, 2004 EU: March 19, 2004 AU: March 30, 2004 JP: May 27, 2004 Mobile EU: February 23, 2005 NA: June 13, 2005 PlayStation Portable JP: August 27, 2009
Genre(s)	Action-adventure, stealth
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (published in Japan as "Tenchu 3") is an action-adventure stealth video game developed by K2 and published by Activision for the PlayStation 2 in 2003. FromSoftware published the game in Japan as Tenchu 3. It was later ported to the Xbox in 2004 under the title Tenchu: Return from Darkness and to the PlayStation Portable in 2009 by FromSoftware under the title Tenchu 3 Portable. A mobile version featuring 2D side-scrolling action gameplay was developed by TKO Software and released in 2005.

Plot

After Lord Mei-Oh was defeated in Software:Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, Rikimaru was left in Lord Mei-Oh's fortress holding a giant boulder to provide an escape route for Ayame and Princess Kiku. He appears to be trapped and left for dead. Ayame stuck Rikimaru's sword, "Izayoi" (he is seen drawing this sword in the opening CG of Wrath of Heaven), in the snow as a monument for her fellow clan member, now considered dead. A year later, Rikimaru reports to Lord Gohda that he has survived this near-death experience; unbeknownst to them, the real Rikimaru is trapped in the 20th century, trying to find a way back to their time.

The game's plot plays differently depending on the character chosen but connects at specific points. The story revolves mainly around Rikimaru's return and the struggle for the Three Jewels, which are said to give power to those who possess them. These are the Jewels of Heaven, Earth, and Virtue. Tenrai, an evil wizard who wants to get his hands on them, commands a band of his men to take the Jewels from whoever possesses them. However, upon encountering Rikimaru, he seems interested in his power and attempts to convince him to join his men. Rikimaru refuses, and he and Ayame face each one of them. One of the men in Tenrai's arsenal is Onikage, who only serves him to pursue his plan of reviving Mei-Oh (his former master) and Tatsumaru (the former leader of the Azuma Ninja Clan whom Tenrai restored). Rikimaru and Ayame follow Tenrai into his fortress to stop him from destroying the world using the power gained from two of the Jewels. Peace will be returned to Gohda's land if he can be defeated.

Characters

Template:Too long Player characters:

• Rikimaru (力丸) is a physically strong and powerful ninja. Despite being reported as "missing" following the events of Software:Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, he later reveals and surprised Lord Gohda with his return although technically he is only a shadow of the real Rikimaru who traveled without their notice. While the real Rikimaru is still trying to find a way to return to his time, he is trapped in the 20th century. He uses the sword "Izayoi" as his weapon and uses it mainly in his stealth kills.
• Ayame (彩女) is an agile young kunoichi. She is the remaining Azuma Ninja in the care of Lord Gohda with Rikimaru's disappearance. She is tasked to search for Rikimaru's body following the events of Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. She later paired up with the real Rikimaru when she encountered Onikage in the Amagai Castle. She uses a pair of Kodachi as her weapon and kills enemies with acrobatic stealth moves.
• Tesshu Fujioka (鉄舟藤岡) is a new character introduced in Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. A village doctor by day and a vigilante assassin by night; however, he is not a ninja and is not serving under Lord Gohda but instead, he serves in an underground organization of assassins known as Muzen that murders only if it serves justice and is led by Zennosuke. Tesshu uses brute force, and pure strength in battle and uses his fists as his weapons. His attacks resemble aggressive jujutsu techniques, utilizing crippling strikes, headbutts, and vicious bone-breaking twists. He also wields acupuncture needles in many of his stealth kills. Although he possesses acupuncture needles, he only uses them for killing enemies in stealth. Tesshu also has a brief moment of rivalry with Rikimaru, when they fight each other to a draw after Rikimaru "steals" Tesshu's kill (Nasu). In Software:Tenchu: Fatal Shadows, Tesshu makes a brief cameo in a cutscene after Rin defeats Futaba and Hitoha. He is the only playable character in the series to have a known full-name. Tesshu's character design is heavily based upon the character "Baian Fujieda" originally created by historical novelist Shōtarō Ikenami in 1972 and played by Ken Watanabe in the Japanese TV drama Baian the Assassin from 1990–1992.

Other characters:

• Tenrai is a powerful evil sorcerer who is the main antagonist of the game. He set up fortress near Gohda's lands to make his plans easier to execute. He plans on gathering the Three Jewels with the aid of his "Lords of Darkness". Achieving two of the Jewels, he transforms into his stronger form while fighting Rikimaru or Ayame. Tenrai possesses a set of candles representing each of the other boss enemies throughout the game: as his candles snuff themselves out, he is aware of the movements of Rikimaru and Ayame. His Lords of Darkness, consists of people he summoned and some he revived:
• Dr. Kimaira, a mad scientist-inventor who is in charge of the mechanism of Amagai Castle, north of the Ronin village. He carries a giant Gatling gun-equipped puppet whom he calls "Mahime" (which literally translates to "Dancing Princess") which he invented for battle.
• Hyakubake, an impersonator who exactly copied Ayame in Rikimaru's story and vice versa. He was battled and killed when he slipped through his words while speaking to Rikimaru. He does not fight on his true appearance.
• Ganda, one of Tenrai's Lords of Darkness whom you encounter at the Great Buddha temple. He will be fought alone when playing as Ayame and Tesshu. But he is joined by Kagura when playing as Rikimaru.
• Kagura, a sorceress who never fights alone. When playing as Rikimaru, you encounter her together with Ganda and when playing as Ayame, you encounter her together with a Kitsune (spirit fox), most likely summoned. She also summons paper ghosts to disrupt Rikimaru and Ayame on their mission. Ganda's triple-backbreaker throw is identical to a move used by Clark Still of The King of Fighters games, and Kagura bears more than a passing resemblance to Chizuru Kagura, also of KOF.
• Onikage, a recurring villain from previous Tenchu games, recruited by Tenrai to retrieve Shichishito, the sword of Lord Mei-Oh. A mysterious shadow-ninja who faithfully serves Lord Mei-Oh, King of Hell and is one of the main antagonist in the game. He kills Echigoya Tokubei to get the Jewel of Earth and was also summoned by Tenrai to stop Rikimaru and Ayame from getting to his fortress. After facing Rikimaru again in the depths of Tenrai's fortress, he shows a side totally unlike himself, by addressing Lord Mei-Oh to forgive his failure, and proceeds to throw himself into a chasm, where he apparently explodes.
• Tatsumaru, the late leader of the Azuma Ninja clan who was an "elder brother" figure to Rikimaru. He was revived by Tenrai eight years after his demise because of his excellent skills. Though he was forced to battle Rikimaru and Ayame, he would eventually break out of Tenrai's mind control, sacrificing himself in order to help his former allies Rikimaru and Ayame stop Tenrai. Tatsumaru wields his sword with great skill and efficiency, but prefers to use methods of unarmed combat.
• Hamada, one of Lord Gohda's men. Under Tenrai's control, he became a traitor to Lord Gohda with the goal of stealing the Jewel of Virtue. Rikimaru carries out the kill without even having to fight, but Hamada puts up more of a fight when confronted by Ayame.
• Jinnai, a former member of the Muzen group, is actually the twin brothers, Sakyo and Ukyo, leaders of a particular organization against Tesshu's master, Zennosuke. Tesshu killed both of them in revenge of his boss whom he is so attached to.
• "Mr. D" CEO, a special boss who is only encountered in Rikimaru's special mission titled, "Through the Portal". An evil company-CEO who is trying to spread a disease and selling the 'only' medicine that can cure it in very expensive prices thus, gaining high profit. When Mei-Oh was defeated, Rikimaru followed him into the portal and ended up at this corporation that makes the disease in the present day period. He was later encountered by Rikimaru and was able to stop his evil plan. Rikimaru was then transported back into the 16th century.
• Nasu, an evil statesman who is very interested in buying innocent young women who are being kidnapped and sold by his trading partner Tokubei Echigoya. He has no affiliation at all with Tenrai. Nasu visited the renovated Echigoya Estate for a deal, only to be faced by the Azuma ninja and be killed.
• Tajima, a bodyguard working for Tokubei Echigoya who fights drunk with a katana and a three-barreled pistol. Aside from working for Echigoya, nothing else was learned from him because he dies on his first encounter with the Azuma.

Development and release

Tenchu: Return from Darkness

Return from Darkness was developed over an eleven month period, with approximately three to four of those months spent on designing new stages, and the rest on porting the rest of the game while incorporating Xbox Live features. Tenchu: Return from Darkness was supported until the termination of Xbox Live in April 2010. The game is now playable online on the replacement online servers for the original Xbox called Insignia. Tench Design and direction was handled by the same team that worked on the original iteration of the game, while programming was done by Japan-based Prosoft Corporation.

Changes in the Xbox port included graphical improvements, two new multiplayer characters, two new single player missions, extra special moves, and the ability to go online with the versus and co-op multiplayer modes.

Three new characters were also added:

• Kanbe Tadokoro, one of Lord Gohda's vassals. He leads a rebellion against Lord Gohda and is killed by his daughter Mifuyu in order to preserve the honour of the Tadokoro clan.
• Mifuyu Tadokoro, daughter of Tadokoro Kanbe. She killed her father when she discovered that Tadokoro is planning a rebellion against Gohda.
• Yuge, a vassal of Tadokoro. Jinnai Sakyo convinced him to lead an attack on Gohda Castle.

Manga

A two-part prequel manga by Seishi Kishimoto was published in the April and May 2003 issues of Monthly Shōnen Gangan. The two chapters were titled Tenchu San, Zenpen (天誅　参（前編）; "Tenchu three, Part One") and Tenchu San, Kōhen (天誅 参 (後編); "Tenchu three, Part Two") respectively; the first chapter also included a color poster. The manga was never collected in tankōbon format, and thus is quite rare.

PSP version

In 2009, FromSoftware published a PlayStation Portable port of Tenchu 3. Designed by Kurogane Co. Ltd and programmed by Prosoft, this port included features from the Xbox port Tenchu: Return from Darkness with the exception of multiplayer.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PS2 Xbox Edge 6/10 N/A EGM 7.17/10 6.67/10 Eurogamer 8/10 6/10 Game Informer 9/10 7.25/10 GamePro GameRevolution B− N/A GameSpot 8.3/10 7.3/10 GameSpy GameZone 8.6/10 8.1/10 IGN 8.5/10 7/10 OPM (US) N/A OXM (US) N/A 7.3/10 Maxim 10/10 N/A Aggregate score Metacritic 79/100 70/100

Wrath of Heaven received "generally favorable" reviews, while Return from Darkness received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Ryan Boyce of Maxim gave Wrath of Heaven a perfect ten score, stating that, "If you're the kind of guy who likes to chop his prey into Sizzlean before he gets a whiff of your bad man musk, then the ninjas of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven are right up your dojo." A 2015 retrospective by Eurogamer described Wrath of Heaven as the apex of the series, featuring "a tangible sense of purpose and poetry".

External links

• Official website
• Official website (PSP)
• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

External links

• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions