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Let's Play

Duration: 59:16

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Time for some Shinobi games.

Once a Sega favorite from the 90s due to it's infamous Arcade difficulty, pop culture references and it's similarity to Ninja Gaiden, this version was the first game Sega made that was popular as a game publisher and not a console manufacturer. That's right; this one was the first major title made by Sega, not on a Sega hardware.

At the time this came out it was quite shocking to see how a once beloved Arcade game manufacturer like Sega, went through such great heights and then quickly died after it's viral campaign hadn't worked on securing newer fans and it's consoles Arcade style design didn't appeal to the train of thought going on in the gaming media at the time. After all, how can we go from a console that can be upgraded to become another console, downright into a console with only 4 channels that only work for 2D games (I love the Saturn, but cutting hedge it wasn't people) and the Dreamcast, a great machine with amazing games that sadly lost it's appeal over time because it's best games became re-releases and it's hardware was a PS1/PS2 copy of sorts trying to do something different with compact discs, and failing in the process unlike Sony's BIOS based machine which alongside the DVD component and higher frameworks that allowed for better UI in games, cutscenes and what not, led to a viral marketing campaign that put Sony in the map at the 90s and 2000s as king of console gaming. So without much TL;DR, in the end of the day Sega made Arcade consoles and games, and that's what they stuck with, and that's why they fell. So in a similar way to beloved companies that had moderate success with their shifts in gaming, such as Capcom and SNK, these giants of Japanese game design lost themselves in the shuffle of a changing gaming generation, and Shinobi was victim of this as much as games such as Samurai Shodown or Mega Man were.

Anyway I shall dwindle no longer and just focus on speaking about the game itself. So what is unique or different of this version of Shinobi, and what sets it apart and why was it so highly publicized during that early 2000s era? Well for starters, it came around as a action title for the PS2 right in the time that Devil May Cry and Onimusha had just hit the scene, and at that point Capcom was still a trend settler when it came to action games. So the popularity followed naturally from this. But the thing with this game as well was that, it was a much needed but albeit not substantial upgrade to a series that in my opinion only really set itself to greatness after Revenge Of Shinobi. And by that I mean simply that the early Shinobi titles were painful chores when it came to balancing; they had good early and mid levels, but suffered from painful and annoying platforming and massive enemy counters in the next, so you'd be dying non-stop with really no way to recover from it. It was one of these "you do it son, or you don't" kinda games and it sucked because of these issues.

So with this one the game is mostly fixed on the more annoying aspects, and it's story makes better sense than I can ever hope to figure out the nonsensical plot of Neo Zeed world domination in the original games. Plus in Revenge Of Shinobi, fuck Naoko really, I just let her die whenever I can past that abysmal level 7-1, let alone survive that Godzilla fight. In this one however, the great thing is that it focuses mostly on the action, with some annoyances surely, but mostly the difficulty is enjoyable because you get killed from action based gameplay, and not from ridiculous platforming. As a matter of fact, this title in 3D helped greatly on how Shinobi should control, as he is faster than most games he was in, going back to Shinobi 3's great design of having him actually run and dodge more skillfully rather than flimsy like in previous titles. So it's a large improvement, and one that only gets better when you tap onto the actual Akujiki blade that defines the game's action style, and makes it such a interesting and enjoyable experience, since it's one of the only games where you control a ninja vampire of sorts, due to Akujiki's draining ability on enemies.

So do I recommend this game? Absolutely, if you have a PS2 like I do and can find a copy, this one is great fun. Just be prepared for really annoying but by all means by the books, Sega styled Arcade nonsense to suck on quarters. Sigh... and they never learned unfortunately how to patch this design decision, always sticking to Sega Genesis fast as shit "drawtiles" Assembly programming with contained and punishable movement. And that's why you will probably die a lot and get frustrated trying to play their games. Sigh...