DEEP IN THE SHADOWS A NlNJA WAlTS TO STRIKE It is the 16th century. The once peaceful province of Utakata now lies in a state of despair. The elite ninja clan who once protected the region are all but dead and with no safeguard, Utakata‘s enemies are starting to stir. War is surely near. As the last of the Asuka Ninja you must rise up and choose a new path. Exact revenge on those who sought to end your clan and decide upon a new fate for the land. -Use Stealth or aggression to defeat your enemies -Combine your equipment to form over 150 weapons and items -Create maps and missions and transfer them to Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja on your PSP (PlayStation Portable) (sold separately)
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Absolute chaos when the mech ninjas with canon balls decide to vanquish mortals within a 20 meter radius during payload missions, Mister Goh (Ninja) ragdolls away from explosions along with fellow samurai which battle power is only greater than the savage (dumbest enemy in the game), who roam around the woods innocently and gets killed by falling props; bear shows up for the happiness of many and wrecks everything in sight by simply running and being heavy, add them all into a pot and let it cook while you are on assassination mission to get yourself this +9 Shinobido: Way of the Ninja potion that grants the eternal fun buff.
Meu primeiro Hitman, o sushi envenenado era op, adorava a parte de montar armadilhas na base
The IP Acquire had to create when they wanted to make a ninja game but sold Tenchu to From Software.
Ahead of it's time, very cool idea of 'ninja life RPG', where you choose the feudal lord you will accept works from in a time of war.
Very good gameplay, with good movement with momentum preservation, wall running and wall jumping, and very fast pace overall, as for example, you can use grappling hook without aiming and while in the air even. Can be wonky sometimes but very satisfying when mastered.
A variety of items with interesting effects, and a whole alchemy and buff/debuff system with potions and the like that you can create your own bombs/potions/bait items.
Really interesting mission editor that you could create custom mission of all sorts and play yourself or possibly have other people play them. (Not very well explored as at the time this game came out, network functions weren't that common so you had to practically have an offline circle of friends to really use this feature to it's fullest)
Cool ambience and character designs, overall amazing game that should return with a PC port re-release or a new game.
Ahead of it's time, very cool idea of 'ninja life RPG', where you choose the feudal lord you will accept works from in a time of war.
Very good gameplay, with good movement with momentum preservation, wall running and wall jumping, and very fast pace overall, as for example, you can use grappling hook without aiming and while in the air even. Can be wonky sometimes but very satisfying when mastered.
A variety of items with interesting effects, and a whole alchemy and buff/debuff system with potions and the like that you can create your own bombs/potions/bait items.
Really interesting mission editor that you could create custom mission of all sorts and play yourself or possibly have other people play them. (Not very well explored as at the time this game came out, network functions weren't that common so you had to practically have an offline circle of friends to really use this feature to it's fullest)
Cool ambience and character designs, overall amazing game that should return with a PC port re-release or a new game.
A estética, a gameplay, a ambientação, todos esses fatores me fazem acreditar que este seja um dos melhores jogos que tive a oportunidade de jogar no Playstation 2. Só tive oportunidade de zerar anos depois, quando já me tornei adulto, mas tudo o que descrevi que apreciava quando criança se manteve verdade aos meus olhos veteranos de jogos.
Envelheceu bem.
Ótimo jogo de stealth!
Algumas mecânicas do jogo são rasas, mas, eram boas ideias.
Ótimo jogo de stealth!
Algumas mecânicas do jogo são rasas, mas, eram boas ideias.
One of my favorite stealth games from one of my favorite devs back in the 90s to early 2010s, Shinobido is basically what was born after Tenchu and Way of the Samurai got very much into each other and went to a motel to spend the night. Shinobido offers a gripping story involving the political struggle between three powerful feudal lords for the province of Utakata intersecting the personal story of main character Goh the Crow, an amnesiac ninja from the nearly-extinct Asuka clan who needs to look for mysterious glowing stones known as the Soul Fragments, each revealing a piece of his memories as he finds out what happened to his clan and the villains behind the incident.
While Goh's story is linear, the political plot surrounding Utakata is completely molded by your decisions as you're free to accept missions from any of the three feudal lords Ichijo, Akame or Sadame anytime you want, the more missions you accomplish, the more a feudal lord will trust you and the more you'll get to know about their faction and even them as people. You can be loyal to one of them, you can just accept whatever mission pays more, you can betray any of them, it really is up to you to decide what to do when it comes to this part of the game. The journal shows how your choices mold the outcome of the war for Utakata as it greatly affects each lord's army, their thoughts on the matters that get highlighted in the journal, as well as their thoughts on you personally.
Shinobido's gameplay has a bit of that PS2-era jank with dumb enemy AI, camera issues in areas that are too cramped and some collision-related oddities. However, I got used to that jank in a few minutes as I was replaying this game and found myself stealth-killing and fighting without any major issues. Honestly, that was my main concern at first, I feared Shinobido might not be as good as I remembered, since quite a handful of PS2 games I used to love back then (Drakengard, Chaos Legion, Sonic Heroes, Cold Fear) don't really hold up. Regardless, Shinobido's combat is simple, but competent enough, you have a few sword combos which do a decent job at dealing damage to enemies, but being a stealth game, what Shinobido really expects you to do is being stealthy and using tools to deal with enemies instead of just charging at them with your sword like you're Ryu Hayabusa or something.
Shinobido has a variety of tools you can use for a lot of purposes both in and out of combat. Shurikens, caltrops, grappling hooks, potions you can use to heal or buff yourself, as well as spheres you can use to either explode on enemies and cause damage that way, or cause debuffs, which comes in handy when there are a lot of them in one place. Be careful however, because if you're close to the sphere's smoke, you'll get debuffed yourself. You can also use food as bait to lure enemies to a specific place, use a remote-controlled magnetic chick which can either distract enemies or be used to recon the area while it lasts before you decide what to do. Hell, there's an alchemy system where you use ingredients to create your own potions and spheres with unique effects, but I suck at that and got too lazy to look up a tutorial to see how it works, but it's cool that this is there!
Where Shinobido actually falters, however, is in the variety of the missions you're tasked with. It may seem varied at first since there are many types of missions like total destruction, assassination, theft, kidnapping, rescue, attacking supply carts, defending supply carts, defending generals or even one of the feudal lords... However, a lot of these missions end up getting repetitive and samey after a while, even when the game does spice things up after the first few chapters by introducing other ninja clans in the enemy's ranks. I totally understand people who get tired of this game because of the repetitive missions, as well as the pace-breaking enemy invasions on Goh's hideout, which has to be the most poorly-hidden hideout ever since everyone can find this place, apparently.
I personally did get bothered by that, but not enough for my experience to be negatively affected, I was still very much invested the whole way through. Maybe more mission types or more unique missions would have done wonders to make Shinobido feel less tale after a while, but eh, I'll take what I'm being given, plus I had a great time playing around with the ragdoll physics of the enemy corpses, as well as turning Goh himself into a ragdoll with one of the cheat codes that get unlocked when I beat the game, it's hilarious.
That being said, Shinobido is also pretty good-looking for a PS2 title, main character models are surprisingly rich in detail, the environments and the amazing soundtrack manage to create this tense atmosphere in each mission, enemy encounter and boss fights. The game's presentation overall does a fantastic job at selling the idea that you're in the dangerous underworld of Sengoku-era Japan and you'd better watch out because your own throat can also get cut out there. Oh, and do yourself a favor and switch to the japanese voice acting as soon as you start this game... The english dub is quite bad.
In spite of the repetitiveness preventing it from being a masterpiece, Shinobido is still one of my favorite PS2 games and probably my favorite Acquire game as well. I'd love to see a modern installment of this game, which people seem to say Sekiro kind of is exactly that, which makes me interested in trying it out someday. But yeah, definitely worth at least checking out, especially if you like either Tenchu or Way of the Samurai, or both. If you don't, then you just need to get a better taste in video games, sorry.
While Goh's story is linear, the political plot surrounding Utakata is completely molded by your decisions as you're free to accept missions from any of the three feudal lords Ichijo, Akame or Sadame anytime you want, the more missions you accomplish, the more a feudal lord will trust you and the more you'll get to know about their faction and even them as people. You can be loyal to one of them, you can just accept whatever mission pays more, you can betray any of them, it really is up to you to decide what to do when it comes to this part of the game. The journal shows how your choices mold the outcome of the war for Utakata as it greatly affects each lord's army, their thoughts on the matters that get highlighted in the journal, as well as their thoughts on you personally.
Shinobido's gameplay has a bit of that PS2-era jank with dumb enemy AI, camera issues in areas that are too cramped and some collision-related oddities. However, I got used to that jank in a few minutes as I was replaying this game and found myself stealth-killing and fighting without any major issues. Honestly, that was my main concern at first, I feared Shinobido might not be as good as I remembered, since quite a handful of PS2 games I used to love back then (Drakengard, Chaos Legion, Sonic Heroes, Cold Fear) don't really hold up. Regardless, Shinobido's combat is simple, but competent enough, you have a few sword combos which do a decent job at dealing damage to enemies, but being a stealth game, what Shinobido really expects you to do is being stealthy and using tools to deal with enemies instead of just charging at them with your sword like you're Ryu Hayabusa or something.
Shinobido has a variety of tools you can use for a lot of purposes both in and out of combat. Shurikens, caltrops, grappling hooks, potions you can use to heal or buff yourself, as well as spheres you can use to either explode on enemies and cause damage that way, or cause debuffs, which comes in handy when there are a lot of them in one place. Be careful however, because if you're close to the sphere's smoke, you'll get debuffed yourself. You can also use food as bait to lure enemies to a specific place, use a remote-controlled magnetic chick which can either distract enemies or be used to recon the area while it lasts before you decide what to do. Hell, there's an alchemy system where you use ingredients to create your own potions and spheres with unique effects, but I suck at that and got too lazy to look up a tutorial to see how it works, but it's cool that this is there!
Where Shinobido actually falters, however, is in the variety of the missions you're tasked with. It may seem varied at first since there are many types of missions like total destruction, assassination, theft, kidnapping, rescue, attacking supply carts, defending supply carts, defending generals or even one of the feudal lords... However, a lot of these missions end up getting repetitive and samey after a while, even when the game does spice things up after the first few chapters by introducing other ninja clans in the enemy's ranks. I totally understand people who get tired of this game because of the repetitive missions, as well as the pace-breaking enemy invasions on Goh's hideout, which has to be the most poorly-hidden hideout ever since everyone can find this place, apparently.
I personally did get bothered by that, but not enough for my experience to be negatively affected, I was still very much invested the whole way through. Maybe more mission types or more unique missions would have done wonders to make Shinobido feel less tale after a while, but eh, I'll take what I'm being given, plus I had a great time playing around with the ragdoll physics of the enemy corpses, as well as turning Goh himself into a ragdoll with one of the cheat codes that get unlocked when I beat the game, it's hilarious.
That being said, Shinobido is also pretty good-looking for a PS2 title, main character models are surprisingly rich in detail, the environments and the amazing soundtrack manage to create this tense atmosphere in each mission, enemy encounter and boss fights. The game's presentation overall does a fantastic job at selling the idea that you're in the dangerous underworld of Sengoku-era Japan and you'd better watch out because your own throat can also get cut out there. Oh, and do yourself a favor and switch to the japanese voice acting as soon as you start this game... The english dub is quite bad.
In spite of the repetitiveness preventing it from being a masterpiece, Shinobido is still one of my favorite PS2 games and probably my favorite Acquire game as well. I'd love to see a modern installment of this game, which people seem to say Sekiro kind of is exactly that, which makes me interested in trying it out someday. But yeah, definitely worth at least checking out, especially if you like either Tenchu or Way of the Samurai, or both. If you don't, then you just need to get a better taste in video games, sorry.