One Game, One Trip | Shinobi
Making an expedition, to see the evolution of Shinobi, is full of surprises.
I started this Sega trip with the first Shinobi, released on the arcade machines, with obviously hard difficulty and numerous enemies. The objective is to set hostages free, and deal with the obstacles through your way. With dual-plane stages making use of the space and one-hit design killing the player easily, the game is heavily inspired by Rolling Thunder, however versatility is what makes Shinobi different compared to the Namco title; you can throw shurikens in the air, walk while crouching, and fortunately change your direction after each jump. Also the unlimited arsenal of shurikens makes Shinobi super easier compared to Rolling Thunder, merged with a magic power to destroy everything on the screen, with a melee attack being performed in close range. But having these abilities doesn’t necessarily mean to overcome all the challenges, because death can be faced even in less than 5 seconds. For example, if ninjas fall (which is like that of the Rolling Thunder), they’ll get back to you with their sword attack:
Granted, everything is hard in this game, particularly while the bosses taunt the player before getting faced, but you can gain some power-ups to get a weapon, to shoot with your unlimited supply of projectiles that sometimes break the block of enemies.
However, in return, the game has a feature that hardly can be seen in the industry; and it’s dynamic difficulty, which amazed me for a 1987 title. For instance, in my experience with the first boss battle, whenever I died, I made the boss’ lifebar shorter and shorter, but the lifebar couldn’t be shortened than a specific length. Also if you set a hostage, who is next to a certain enemy, free and then get killed, the enemy will disappear next time, making the game easier to progress as a bonus.
Besides that, I have to admit I was amazed by the bonus stages as well:
Now we have Shadow Dancer, another classic by Sega, and a must-play for the fans. This time, there is a dog by your side, and the recipe is the same, but doesn’t remain intact. The dog is super useful and can help you through the stages, the magic power comes with an attractive close-up to present the visuals, and the bonus stages blow your mind, especially when you consider it as a really old title:
But there is a subtle problem: pressing down and attack button together, is the same as commanding your dog to fight the enemies, meaning that throwing shurikens while crouching will command the dog unwantedly, which can be one of the old examples of button mapping problem.
The dynamic difficulty is back again, but at this point with more power. Along with everything the first title had, now every time you get defeated, you get more or less magic powers to perform, to make the game easier or harder depending on your play techniques. However, this cannot be easily seen, since sometimes the game doesn’t change the number of magic powers you’ll have after being defeated; an absolute achievement by Sega.
So, it’s time for The Revenge of Shinobi, which I’ll call Revenge in the article. Revenge attracts the player’s attention with a beautiful NINJA-themed opening scene on the title screen, showing a technical achievement on the Mega Drive system:
It bodes well enough to act as a different sequel, as it has the same purpose from what you can see. The formula changes, more than just one ninja magic exists (including a suicide one), and the object/enemy placement is the reason that creates challenges. Also it’s the first time we can see double jump as a mechanic with a really WEIRD timing to perform (who remembers the Chinatown level and its unreachable scene?). Thankfully you have a healthbar, but the number of shurikens is limited and there are no bonus stages.
The first difference seen by any player after beating the first two titles is the visuals; moving leaves covering Joe, parallax backgrounds, and the moon appearing in the skies being dark… and then facing ninjas coming from the rotating walls with MOON in the background… It undoubtedly was mind-blowing at the time when you consider the attention of the developers to the art direction:
Furthermore, levels like the military section along with the train mission show how hard you can put obstacles through the way of the player:
And the last level is a confusing maze, having you using a pen and a piece of paper to progress correctly.
There are some crates to find items inside, but they’re your mostly appeared enemies, since they sometimes contain bombs. Hidden items exist as well in the environments but they’re mostly hard to find or reach. Another problem with the gameplay is to switch between the planes, because performing double jumps means to go to another plane, which is again, another button mapping in the series, as it’s hard to understand where you’re landing after a double jump, especially in the military level of the game. But if you have a particular power-up collected, you can defend yourself against any projectiles, including bullets.
However, playing the untouched version of Revenge cannot be good for sanity; because of scenes like Spider-Man turning into Batman and so on; and not to mention that it wasn’t the first time that a Spider-Man-like creature made an appearance in the series.
Everything plays great, especially with Yuzo Koshiro’s music and his ability to create memorable moments with some Streets of Rage-1-having vibe (Don’t some sounds seem familiar to Streets of Rage fans?).
But the next title, Shadow Dancer The Secret of Shinobi, is different, as it’s more like a console conversion of the old Shadow Dancer. This time, a play with difficulty comes back, you have the option to choose the shuriken/non-shuriken gameplay style, and the old Shadow Dancer recipe returns, along with the bonus stages. You guessed right, some enemies and locations look like the arcade title, even due to the fact that it’s completely a different game in the series:
Sometimes the environments have interesting behaviors, resulting in situations like solid ground opening up. Also the level design is again a bit different, and a level in the total darkness proves the fact, in which the enemies can hide themselves behind some black layers and lose one of your lives. However, if the impact of Revenge made you see complex missions, then you’re missing the point, levels are now more straightforward and more simple, but the enemy placement is good enough to create a challenging trip.
The only Shinobi game in which the bosses taunt the player was the first one, however, in this game this feature exists but only with a helicopter, which is an invincible enemy in an elevator stage. And of course, there is a level totally dedicated to ELEVATOR, and since it’s the only Shinobi title that focuses extremely on an urban area, the elevator level shows a beautiful landscape for the player; going further and further to reach the top of the Statue of Liberty… and the landscape containing a ninja with an urban area couldn’t be more beautiful than this. I mean “city and ninja” is in its most beautiful view as a ninja game:
And what’s the play with difficulty? Each difficulty you set from the options, makes a different experience, meaning that not only the enemy/obstacle placement changes, but also the title screen says “I’m a different game”:
But that’s all the remarkable differences you can see by each difficulty, and in the hardest one, there is no power-up to find.
Shadow Dancer is the most polished version for the newcomers till this point; movement is more smooth and the levels are not hard at all, creating a beautiful experience that every ninja fan can enjoy. But it’s not an absolute breeze, since the one-hit system is back and things get tense through your playthrough.
The next title is something I don’t want to waste time sharing my experience about. Cyber Shinobi is a package of issues; scrolling problems, repetitive soundtracks, worst obstacle placement in the series, objects without any fade background (!), and… I tried hard, but there is nothing that much to say, unless we consider its cover artwork which is totally different from what I experienced!
So this time the Game Gear system tells the tale of the old Sega ninja. With two titles, both injected with metroidvania vibe, and more than one character to select, they managed to create two great portable titles for the Sega system. The close-up for the magic powers returns, and the non-shuriken style of Shadow Dancer affected these games, as you start the game with no opportunity to shoot projectiles (like the Master System exclusive), but in return another character can do so as their unique ability, because each ninja has something unique to offer. You can switch between them in every section of the game, but keep in mind that your lifebar represents the life of every ninja, meaning that they don’t use separate lifebars for themselves.
In the first Game Gear game, one ninja can do double jump, one can walk on the ceilings, another one can run on the water, and the last one can throw his kusarigama weapon to swing like in Bionic Commando. This level of variety is insane for an old portable game, especially while each magic power and weapon for ninjas differs in many ways, the rules that can be applied to the second portable title.
Now you can choose your missions in any order you want, and since you set every ninja free after a mission, then you can select them to finish the next stage as fast as possible, creating a different experience by each ninja.
As far as I played these gems, in any order you play the levels, the games won’t be subject to softlock, unless the maze level in the first Game Gear title, in which you’ll face so in one case (at least from my experience). The maze structure of the last level of Revenge is present here, in both Game Gear titles with non-linear stages. And the art of developers to create super hard platforming scenes can be seen in the two titles; walking on ceilings, lighting up dark environments, and using kusarigama to swing, are all little part of platforming in these two hidden gems:
But there is a difference. In the first Game Gear title, there is no such thing as backtracking; once you complete a mission, it’s no longer available to select, which is against what you can see from the second Game Gear game, adding more metroidvania vibe to it. The music is again great on such a system, thanks to Yuzo Koshiro’s abilities to create an unforgettable retro trip.
Now it’s time for Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master to act as the pinnacle of the series. The formula from Revenge gets an improvement and everything related to movement, combat, and art direction, results in one of the best ninja games ever.
The opening scene at the title screen is another interesting one, but not blowing that of Revenge out of the water. However, with the boot screen showing a play with the Sega logo, it bodes something unique as a sequel, and sure it is; the movement is in its smoothest form, with running, wall jump, blocking and kicking in the air as mechanics, and levels varying in many ways with the formula injected by Revenge. The movement is so smooth that you can’t understand, unless you play the title itself. And the same for the levels.
Now you have the opportunity to grab onto ceilings, and experience levels on a horse, and on a surfboard. The levels above skies, and even in the alien lair add more variety to the environments, with a maze level as a tribute to Revenge. Everything can be said about the levels, but if I don’t admire the art direction, then I don’t show any respect at all. In the first level for example, when you enter the cave, everything gets dark, with the new background appearing to notify you’re entering a new place in an artistic way:
Or when you throw shurikens and see different effects with each:
Or when you climb through the falling pieces of debris, with MOON in the background:
Or when you first hear the sound of the horse’s hoof at the horse level, before playing the main music of the stage, or… The words are many, but my article is not able to explain all of them, since this way the game loses its charm for the new audiences who are reading this piece.
The music is again perfect, even not composed by Yuzo Koshiro, managing to create the best title so far, especially in the maze level. However, in addition to all the beauties Shinobi 3 has, there is only one problem in the whole game which is the weird timing for double jump. Of course, the game inherited this from Revenge, and while there is no huge problem with this, when you reach the falling debris level, you’ll face a nightmare, and everything turns inside out by the auto-scrolling nature of the level, in which, quick reactions are required sometimes.
Thankfully the size of sprites has increased compared to Revenge, like what Sega did with the SoR series, and characters are more detailed due to this fact. But still, the only title that has more than one ending is Revenge, and there is no such thing in this game, like the rest of the titles. Also, bonus stages are gone, and there is nothing to fill the void left by not having a dynamic difficulty.
So that’s all I had to say about the series till this point! Hope you enjoyed reading this and wait for the next parts of this series of articles!
