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Okay, here's a recipe for you. Take a liberal dash of Last Ninja and peel off the 3D graphics. Add two teaspoonfuls of 2D graphics. Now remove the game ideas from the Last Ninja and add it to the mixture. Stir well and stick it in the oven for 20 minutes. Take it out and leave it to cool. Congratulations, you've just made yourself a Sword of Honour.

So, Sword Of Honour is a little more than a 2D version of Last Ninja. Sure, it's actually quite nice to play for a while, albeit a very short while. It's actually a pleasant game to look at with oriental style graphics, and big, colourful backdrops which set off the large sprites really well, but then the programmers go and spoil it all by making the character move.

Alright, the movement is sluggish, but just this once, because I'm in a good mood today, we'll let them off with that seeing as everything else looks tasteful enough. What other elements can we examine instead?

The puzzle element is a contradiction in terms. The puzzles are so easy to figure out, it's more like common sense (if you think Shadow Of The Beast III is obvious, this'll blow your mind). You want an example? You come across a monk who says he is ill. On the very next screen is a health potion. Well, I wonder, what should I do? Mmm. It's a wild and crazy idea, but maybe I should give the health potion to the sick guy.

Never mind, maybe the combat could make the game worthwhile. Unfortunately, it really isn't a great deal of help in the 'making this a bit of a better game' department. You'll come across several different characters in your quest but they will all fall victim to the same move. The only exception are the ninjas but they all succumb to another move. So, just two combat moves are all you'll need to hack your merry way through the whole game. When there are so many potential moves to use, it is a real shame that you only need to use a couple to finish off anyone you come across.

Just to be a bit different, the programmers have included some icons on screen that you can use to control your ninja by mouse. Unfortunately there are only six of them so your moves are somewhat limited, not that that is much of a loss. It's completely pointless and a waste of screen space.

So let's see what we have. First, Sword Of Honour is based extraordinarily closely on Last Ninja. Well, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad game (though it's a bad start). The graphics are very appealing, but then again, looks aren't everything. The music is nauseating and actually had me wishing Stuart would put one of his 'interesting' tapes on the office stereo. The gameplay is almost non-existent and the combat really is much too easy. As if that wasn't enough, each individual screen is loaded in as you move through the game, which means you can literally spend longer waiting for the screens to load than you do playing them. If all this seems to be the recipe for a bad game, you're right. Sword Of Honour sets a low standard, and still fails to reach it.

With nothing original and an awful lot 'artistically' borrowed from Last Ninja. It's a poor man's copy however because it is very slow to play and gets boring too soon due to the combat being so easy. With this little challenge, why bother?