I have exactly half (32/64) grades in I-Ninja. I have a red belt.

This game is actually starting to feel a little long in the tooth now. I think it's because you have to do each stage so many times. The alternate goals don't really add a whole lot to the game. Two alternate goals--getting all the red coins and killing all the enemies--basically make you explore the whole stage. When the stages were shorter, that was no big deal. But the stages seem pretty long now. This last one took me about a half hour to do.

Anyway, I beat the score goal in the boat stage, and did some of the bonus ball rolling stages. One of them was pretty hard, and took me about 10 tries to beat. As for the challenge, I don't think it deserves Gamespot's "Hard" rating so far. Sure it's harder than Jak, but it's nothing even close to Shinobi.

For one thing, you rarely lose a life. If you fall off the stage or fail a goal, you don't die, you just get sent back a short way. You only lose a life if your lifebar depletes. Moreover, you get an extra life for (I think) every 10,000 points. As of now, I have about 30 lives!

I've also beaten each boss on my first try. So far, all bosses have been minigame-like. There was a punchout one and a couple of rail shooter-type ones.

If I had to score it to this point, I'd give it a 6/10.