Mark of the Ninja is a smooth, stylish, ninja stealth action game with beautiful hand-drawn visuals. The remastered edition upgrades the original with 4K renders of all visuals, making the cutscenes more crisp and the environments more stunning. Since it is a free upgrade for owners of the original game with Dosan's Tale DLC, and only costs as much as the DLC for other owners, it is the perfect opportunity for those who have completed the original to enjoy another playthrough, as well as for those who missed the first run to experience this excellent title.

The player controls a modern ninja with heightened senses and abilities afforded by the toxic ink in his tattoos. Gameplay emphasises stealth, with direct confrontation usually, but not always, ending badly for the protagonist. Instead, players are encouraged to get a sense of the environment and the behavior of their foes in order to create the perfect distraction to either slip past or silently dispatch them. Stealth kills are bloody and satisfying, while conscientious objectors will very seldom need to resort to violence. The primary weapons are a sword and non-lethal throwing darts, with some other usuful items to segue, stun, or slay your enemies unlocked along the way.

Cutscenes are brief and used to heighten the action rather than relied upon to convey the story. This allows more of the story to flow during gameplay, creating a more immersive experience. Voice acting is convincing and well delivered. Most enemies come off as a regular person just trying to do a job rather than mindless minions of evil.

For the most part, controls are tight and responsive. It is clear from the context overloading of a few keys and the menu layout, that the game was designed for a controller. The slight awkwardness of using a mouse and keyboard is my one real complaint about the game. Even so, the ninja can be made to run swiftly through open spaces, slow to a silent sneak when near enemies, and dive into the shadows to avoid detection with fluid, mostly intuitive actions. Visual indicators cue the player to noises or other factors that may draw enemy attention, although some of these are removed in New Game+.

I highly recommend this game. Mark of the Ninja is one of only a handful of games to have jumped my queue when I purchased it and it is the only game to do so twice.