I loved playing the Tenchu Games. I would study the level layout, enemy movements and every way I could get through the game without ever being seen. Levels that required stealth or you would fail were my bread and butter. On levels that didn't require it I would restart the moment that something went wrong.
My friend and I played Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (Yes, the title is redundant) together for hours trying to refine every co-op level they had. The fun was in the strategy of who had to kill who at what time to make sure we were never caught.
There was nothing like going through a level and seeing that Grandmaster ranking pop up. You knew you finally had it all down to a perfected science. When double stealth kills were added to the franchise you could line up your kills in new and exciting ways. Eventually you'd get so good that you stopped bringing items with you on missions altogether to increase the challenge. The PS1 and PS2 were exciting times.
Everything changed with Tenchu Z, where I could now go through entire levels and stealth kill the bosses, until you got to certain bosses and then you were in for a fight. The real big difference was that you could make a custom ninja (I decked mine out entirely in white because I thought the idea of a person in white running across rooftops at night was hilarious) and then take that ninja online to play with others.
Playing online with friends was a dream of ours. We wanted a crack team of ninjas killing off an entire castle together, never raising an alarm or being spotted. It was the ultimate thrill for us. The reality was much worse. Everyone wanted to play a mode called ninja race (or rush?) and I hated it. You had to get to the boss of the level the fastest and kill him. Whoever got the kill got the points they accumulated and everyone else walked away with nothing. It lead to incredibly low scoring rounds because everyone bypassed what they could to just rush the boss. I wanted to kill everything on a level with my friends. I gave up on multiplayer pretty quickly, but I still enjoyed the rest of the game.
It's been 17 years now since the last Tenchu game came out and I've longed to revisit feudal Japan to wreak havoc on the locals. Waiting for that perfect moment to strike and run to kill as many as possible before someone ruins the run got my blood pumping like nothing else. I know I'll probably never see another Tenchu game, but I can always dream.