History VideoGame / MarkOfTheNinja

** You can get a [[Franchise/MetalGear cardboard box]] as a distraction item, and the unique stealth kill it gives access to is called Voracious Snake.

*** Using three items in a single Focus earns the achievement "[[Franchise/MetalGear Tactical Espionage Action]]".

*** Killing a guard from inside a cardboard box (as described above) grants the achievement "[[Franchise/MetalGear Inner Heaven]]".

** [[Franchise/MetalGear There's an alert noise very similar to the classic]] [[JumpScare "!" when spotted]]; [[spoiler:[[Franchise/MetalGear a late-game plot twist which completely changes the way you look at the game on your next playthrough]]]]; [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid a number countdown for alerts]] [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2 and caution]]; [[VideoGame/MetalGear2 you get a cardboard box]] [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker from which you can attack your enemies]]; [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2 bodies can be moved to hiding spots where guards will never check]]; [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4 the villain has a personal squad of elite female soldiers who don't wear revealing clothing; an unlockable costume causes guards to freak out instead of going into alert.]]

* MeaningfulName: Corporal Kelly is named after Ned Kelly, the Australian bush ranger "who is something of a RobinHood figure."

* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: In the end, [[spoiler: the poisonous ink takes hold over the Marked Ninja, Ora, now known to be imaginary, eggs him on to murder his master and his entire clan, and the entire environment is hallucinated into traditional art.]]

* EliteMook: First we get a GiantMook aptly named "Elite" that cannot be stealth killed unless you stun them first, either with items or clever usage of the environment.

** Go ahead and try to run into fights like [[VideoGame/NinjaGaiden other kinds]] [[VideoGame/{{Shinobi}} of ninja game]]. Heavily armed mooks with assault rifles, sniper rifles, and shotguns and [[spoiler:later with laser beams]] will make ''real'' short work of you.

''Mark of the Ninja'' is a [[StealthBasedGame Stealth Based]] PlatformGame developed by Creator/KleiEntertainment (the developers of ''VideoGame/{{Shank}}'') and released on UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade, and later on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. The player takes on the role of a {{Ninja}} of the Hisomu Clan who must track and slay the man responsible for the decimation of his clan through modern cityscapes, employing all his stealth abilities and quasi-magical feats granted to him by a [[PowerTattoo mystical tattoo]].

!!Tropes used in this game:

* AssholeVictim: Karajan is established as a snobby and arrogant jerk who [[BadBoss handicaps his own security's safety by selling their equipment for personal goods]]. Needless to say, it's cathartic to see him slowly lose his composure as the Marked Ninja cuts through his forces before finally assassinating him. [[spoiler:His actually have legitimate reason for raiding the clan doesn't diminish this.]]

* BaldOfAwesome: The Marked Ninja is bald.

* InterfaceSpoiler: [[spoiler:Ora makes no sound when running.]]

* HonorBeforeReason: Potentially mixed with WrongGenreSavvy. According to Ora, Corporal Kelly counts on the protagonist invoking this trope. Whether or not the Marked Ninja does so is up to the player. [[spoiler:Of course, this doesn't prevent him from trying to fight the Marked Ninja with ''two'' snipers in the same room...]]
-->'''Ora:''' He expects you to engage him like a glorious samurai. I guess he doesn't know much about ninja.

* RealityEnsues: Go ahead and try to run into fights like [[VideoGame/NinjaGaiden other kinds]] [[VideoGame/{{Shinobi}} of ninja game]]. Heavily armed mooks with assault rifles, sniper rifles, and shotguns and [[spoiler:later with laser beams]] will make ''real'' short work of you.
** Killing Count Karajan. He's just an executive and someone without any sort of combat training [[spoiler:who's completely terrified of the marked ninja in his final appearance]]. The real challenge is ''getting to him'' rather than fighting him.

* AssholeVictim: Pretty much all of them. Count Karajan in particular stands out. The man traded a shipment of body armor meant for his guards for a bottle of white-wine, and doesn't even particularly like it. [[spoiler:.. But come the night where you infiltrate his castle, he's breaking down into a desperate, shivering coward. He even has the Terrified mark above his head when you're about to kill him!]]
--> '''''Count Karajan''': [[spoiler: ... Where is he?... Is he gone?...'']]

* BadBoss: Karajan. During a cutscene with his guard captain, it's revealed that he traded a shipment of advanced body armor -- armor that had been meant for his field troops -- for a bottle of expensive wine that once belonged to UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, just to see what it tasted like. When Corporal Kelly implies that his men got killed because they didn't have the body armor, Karajan's sole remark is: "Then this was more expensive than I thought."

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The morality of this game can get really murky. [[spoiler:Hessian has all the markings of being a corrupt MegaCorp, but their attacks on the Hisomu are pretty understandable once it's found out the clan attacked and robbed from them first. Things get even more confusing when the Marked Ninja comes into play, who may have been an UnwittingPawn or a willing accomplice in the whole affair before his sanity began to dwindle. In the end, it's all but impossible to tell if there ever really was a "good" side in this conflict.]]
* BlessedWithSuck: The marks given to people in the Hisomu clan, and the game never tries to hide what it will do eventually. Enhanced reflexes enough to stop time while focusing and a myriad of other benefits would be great weren't for the "go insane after getting it" thing.

* DeadpanSnarker: Ora has some shades of this if you play sloppily: if you trigger multiple alarms before you make it to the first target on the map on the second level, she flat out says: ''"If you planned to trip every alarm, you should go back and make sure, since you might've missed one or two".''

* DiscOneFinalDungeon: [[spoiler:Hessian Castle, Count Karajan's stronghold.]] After that, [[spoiler:it turns out [[EvilMentor Azai]] has his own plans...]]

** [[spoiler:The "Seppuku" ending has you kill Ora, your DeadpanSnarker MissionControl who had never been anything but loyal to you, despite not being real, and you do this by stabbing through yourself, committing suicide. While this adheres to the laws of the Hisomu -- and may be necessary, since it's implied that the Marked Ninja is losing his grip on reality thanks to the DeadlyUpgrade of his tattoos -- the clan will also degrade as Azai remains in charge, and will phase out the old ways for advanced technology and weaponry.]]
** [[spoiler:The "Kill Azai" ending sees the Marked Ninja run his master through and take the title of clan leader for himself, and Ora, an extension of your consciousness, implies that you'll go on to purge the clan for their perceived dishonor. The last scene of this ending is of the character turning into the "marked demon" from the background story, possibly indicating he's gone completely insane from the ink's poison.]]
* DrivenToMadness: The fate of those who wind up marked by the tattoos, leading to them committing suicide in order to avoid becoming a danger to their clan. This practice was put into place after Tetsuji, the clan's founder, wound up obtaining tattoos of his own to restore his youth and went on a madness fueled rampage. [[spoiler:The Marked Ninja begins to have this happen to him as well as the game progresses. If he chooses to kill Azai in the ending, he passes the point of no return.]]

** [[spoiler:The Marked Ninja can choose to do so in one of the endings, staying true to his vow of ending his life before going completely insane]].

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:An extremely rare example where the main protagonist does it, and you get to see his point of view. Azai's true motives also count, but his case is somewhat justified by the fact that the toxic plant that grants the Hisomu clan their powers died out a year ago, and the clan needs ''some'' kind of edge to survive in the modern world]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the final level, [[spoiler:the ninja hallucinates further, seeing ghastly images on the walls, watching him. One of these is of a young girl, who morphs into a monstrosity when you get close. It heavily resembles Ora, foreshadowing her identity as a hallucination brought on by the mark.]]

* GasmaskMooks: Found in the areas with poisonous gas, as can largely be expected. They also have night vision goggles by default.

* HundredPercentCompletion: Aside from the main mission, there is plenty of stuff to collect and do, all of which are required to buy every available upgrade as well. The game is designed for multiple playthroughs; fortunately, you can restart from the last checkpoint (which rarely force you to redo more than the room you restarted in) if you trigger an alert or screw up one of the special actions.
** To earn honors, you must:
*** Collect three hidden scrolls per stage.
*** Do three special actions per stage. Normally, they are [[SelfImposedChallenge Self Imposed Challenges]] like "break 20 lights", or ''not'' breaking any lights until a certain point and sometimes trickier stuff like getting guards to shoot each other.
*** Score high enough to get three honor marks.

* ActionCommands: Used whenever the player character performs a [[BackStab Stealth Kill]] or picks a pocket. Failure to execute this properly will result in a ''much'' messier and noisier incident, resulting in fewer points and potentially alerting others.
** However, failing the quick-time event against Elites '''will''' make them retaliate, even if you had stunned them previously.

* AssholeVictim: Pretty much all of them.
** Count Karajan in particular stands out. The man traded a shipment of body armor meant for his guards for a bottle of white-wine, and doesn't even particularly like it. [[spoiler:.. But come the night where you infiltrate his castle, he's breaking down into a desperate, shivering coward. He even has the Terrified mark above his head when you're about to kill him!]]

* DrivenToMadness: The fate of those who wind up marked by the tattoos, leading to them committing suicide in order to avoid becoming a danger to their Clan. This practice was put into place after Tetsuji, the clan's founder, wound up obtaining tattoos of his own to restore his youth and went on a madness fueled rampage.
** [[spoiler:The Marked Ninja begins to have this happen to him as well as the game progresses. If he chooses to kill Azai in the ending, he passes the point of no return.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: The upgraded Hisomu Poison Dart will make enemies blow their brains out, out of sheer terror after a set period of time (or in the case of dogs, just makes them drop dead).

* FogOfWar: A rare non-strategy game use of this trope. You can't directly see anything that your ninja is unable to see. Guys behind doors or on different floors become invisible, but you do see visible indicators of the sound of their footsteps so you can get an idea where they are, and later a type of sixth sense that lets you see through walls.
** Taken UpToEleven in NewGamePlus, which vastly increases the fog of war so you can't even see anything your ninja has his back to.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the final level, [[spoiler:the ninja will hallucinate further, seeing ghastly images on the walls, watching him. One of these is of a young girl, who morphs into a monstrosity when you get close. It heavily resembles Ora, foreshadowing her identity as a hallucination brought on by the mark.]]

* InSeriesNickname: The Marked Ninja is referred to as "The Champion" by Azai. [[spoiler:But in truth, they are known as "The Severed" by everyone else]].

* KungFuProofMook: Elites and [[spoiler:Stalkers]], who cannot be killed with stealth attacks without stunning them first.

* NonstandardGameOver: In ''The Trail of Shadow'', raising an alarm or killing the courier before he gets to the tracking device will instantly kick you back to the last checkpoint.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: [[spoiler:That girl who helped you from the beginning to the end? She never existed. Notice how nobody addresses her directly in any of the cutscenes or asks about her, and how she just basically leaps off the level into the background whenever enemy soldiers approach her during scripted events.]]
** The main character also [[spoiler:hallucinates the normal ninja found in the final stage as the mooks found in earlier stages, who revert to their normal form when you kill them: this also comes with a hint of YourMindMakesItReal, which Ora states to be reason why their nonexistent guns have the same range and lethality as the actual mooks' despite the fact that the ninjas aren't carrying any.]]

* VillainousBreakdown: Corporal Kelly. Unlike others, he doesn't panic, but becomes really infuriated after the Marked Ninja bested everything Kelly threw at him, to the point he issues a challenge against him.

** [[Particularly noteworthy for Azai, whose fear of committing seppuku for his failure in the first place is what led to the events of the game.]]

-->'''[[spoiler:Dosan:]]''' Listen to me. [[spoiler:[[PunctuatedForEmphasis You. CAN'T. CUT. THE CHAINS.]]

* SuperSenses: The main effect of the Mark, along with enhanced speed and reflexes.

* MugglesDoItBetter: Sure, you get to do all kind of cool ninja powers based on your magic tattoos, but you are forced to be stealthy because even a basic goon with a gun can kill you in seconds in a straight up fight.[[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity The tattoos also come with the side effect of insanit.]][[spoiler: The player's master is entirely aware of these facts, and wants to keep the clan relevant by adopting high tech ninja suits that don't come with the risk of uncontrollable rage]].

** You gain an achievement for doing a Ghost Run, called "[[CaptainObvious Ghost]]", for managing to go through an entire level undetected and without killing any guards. This can be profoundly difficult without the Path Of Silence outfit, which allows you to run without generating noise, and lets you carry two stealth items.

* BadassBoast: The second [[EliteMooks Elite Guard]] the player encounters is overheard boasting to another guard that he has studied several different martial arts and is in the [[UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts MMA]] hall of fame. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Doesn't stop one from getting one-shot by getting a chandelier dropped on the head, though.]]

* MobileShrubbery: The [[MetalGearSolid Cardboard Box]] has this effect wherever you are, no matter how illogical the place seems to be.

Published by Creator/MicrosoftStudios, the game was released on September 7, 2012, and a DLC was released on August 16, 2013. An enhanced version for ''UsefulNotes/PlayStation4'', ''UsefulNotes/XboxOne'', and ''UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch'' scheduled to be released in Fall of 2018, thanks to the rights to the game lapsing from Microsoft back to Klei.