Shinobi Longplay (Master System) [60 FPS]
25Developed by Team Shinobi and published by Sega in 1988.
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Back in the 1980's, Shinobi was a big arcade hit for Sega and most home computers and consoles of the time received licensed ports of varying quality. Sega developed and released a conversion for their 8-bit Master System console and I remember it being one of the pack in titles included with the console at retail.
I could see from the screenshots on the rear of the packaging that it looked pretty close to the arcade, but I'd never played or actually seen this version running until today.
Unlike the the Shinboi games released on the Mega Drive and Game Gear, this is a conversion of the arcade coin-op version. You still control Joe Musashi and the objective, as always, is to rescue the ninja students who have been kidnapped by the terrorist organisation, Zeed. However, this isn't just a lift-and-shift port; the developers have tweaked some of the game settings in an attempt to bring some depth to the gameplay.
Notable changes include a bigger weapon roster, including grenades, rockets, as well as swords and chains for close range attacks. The player also has an energy bar allowing for more hits before losing a life, plus a higher number of ninja magic tokens can be held at any one time.
Rescuing a hostage will award a bonus of points, weapon upgrade or may even give access to the famous shuriken-hurling bonus stage; unlike the arcade version where the bonus stage occurs after each boss-fight, it's possible to access the bonus stage after any normal level. Completing the bonus stage awards a ninja magic token, while a second is awarded if you manage to kill the (extremely) quick blue ninja that appears during the stage.
Having played through the game, I have to admit that I expected more from a conversion done by a first-party Sega development team. The controls feel a little bit sluggish and certain moves take too long to perform, notably the melee attack moves.
There seems to be a limit on the number of projectiles that can be thrown by the player, as well as the speed that they travel. This limitation extends to the bonus stage and becomes a big issue where you're expected to kill so many fast-moving ninjas before they get to the bottom of the screen. I found myself cursing when I rescued a hostage and found I'd been awarded another attempt at the bonus stage, which is not a good reaction to have.
Although the games graphics aren't bad, I felt that they could have been better. The game also features some slightly jerky scrolling when jumping between upper and lower levels, which feels slightly jarring.
Overall, the additional features don't really improve the gameplay and, despite being based on the arcade version, the slightly awkward controls meant that the core game wasn't really satisfying. Surprisingly, I think the coders on the Commodore 64 version produced a much better game than Sega managed for there own console.
The Master System version of Shinobi is still a reasonably playable game and there's certainly some fun to be had. There are just too many compromises and niggles for it to really shine.
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