Man, I was really liking this game. About halfway through Shinobi I was debating whether to rate it as 5 stars, or "just" 4.5. I really wish I still felt that way, because it is really dang cool, at its best.
Shinobi makes a damn good first impression. Look up literally any footage of this game, and one thing will immediately stand out to you. The scarf. It's just so cool, it trails behind Hotsuma, flows dramatically when he attacks, never gets in your view while always remaining an extremely memorable part of the game's visual identity- I've played entire games with not a tenth the style of this one piece of clothing. The rest holds up quite well too, it doesn't have any other incredibly cool tricks (besides the Tate, which I will get to) but it all looks very solid, with the one issue that stages are clearly built out of repeatedly reused rooms, which makes them feel a lot samey-er.
It's really cool to play an action game from this era that doesn't feel like it's just trying to be Devil May Cry at home- besides the basic concepts of the genre, there's basically no similarities. Shinobi focuses on movement and positioning over juggling and combos, which you aren't really able to do here. Your moveset is minimal, just an attack combo and a dashing charge attack, the fun comes into quickly chaining kills. Your sword gets stronger the higher your kill combo is, and if you manage to kill every enemy in the encounter at once, you get a really cool "Tate" cutscene, where their bodies fall apart as Hotsuma strikes a pose. Like the scarf, this somehow always looks cool, partially because of the skill that's sometimes required to do this, and partially because the camera angles and enemy positions are going to change every time, which makes it feel very dynamic, like you're making your own cool animation in real time. It almost feels like a precedent to MGR's Zandatsu- a really viscerally satisfying means of rewarding the player for a job well done. If you fail to string kills you might need to hack at a stronger enemy for like ten seconds straight, so it feels really good to not mess it up and kill them in a single slash.
Some hiccups come in the movement. You're very mobile, with a dash, a double jump and a wall cling/run, but all of it can feel strangely stiff? For example, when locked onto a foe Hotsuma's walking speed is greatly reduced, and since time is of the absolute essence if you want to keep up your combo, that can feel really bad. Similarly, your teleport dash somehow doesn't go through enemies (despite visibly doing so in the opening cutscene...), which means sometimes you'll be trying to circle around them (many enemies block attacks from the front, and even those that don't will take more damage from behind) only to just sort of bump into them and then get hit. The lock on itself can be finicky, too. In its defense, it's actually pretty good for the era, it's just that this game relies really heavily on it being perfect, and when you're on a very strict timer locking on to an enemy you aren't capable of killing quickly rather than the one that's a sitting duck always really stings. All of this works mostly fine, it's just that with how much this game asks of you, it can feel unfair when it doesn't quite meet its end of those expectations.
Bosses are a mixed bag. Something I absolutely respect is that they're built around the chain kills just as much as the rest of the game- you may not deal much more than scratch damage at first, but if you build up a good enough chain you can quite literally one-shot any boss in the game. The problem with that is that this means the entirety of a fight hinges on bosses being a threat both with and without summons, and on them putting up a fair challenge when you try to get a hit in with a big chain. I'd say most of the bosses don't really pull it off. Some teleport around a massive battlefield in such a way that you can literally not have a chance to get any hits in before your chain runs out, including the infamously bad final boss. Those that are stationary or more aggressive tend to fare better.
I have been sort of mildly negative so far but I want to be clear that this is an incredibly fun combat loop- it's incredibly tense but whenever you pull off a hard Tate it's so, so satisfying. The real problem with the game is in its later half's design. They start putting insta-kill bottomless pits everywhere, and the game goes from a tense race to keep up your health (did i mention your health goes down when you're not killing things?) to frantically handling the camera (which just doesn't work when sticking to walls) and the clunky platforming hoping that no enemy snipes you and makes you fall and restart the level from start. The only checkpoints are at bosses but honestly that's fine, most of the time, stages are short enough that I don't mind having to do them over, unless I fall into a fucking pit because the camera sucks and Hatsume's jumps are nearly as high-committal as your average Belmont's. The final boss too, man. I don't even understand how he's supposed to work, it feels like that kid at the playground with the everything-proof shield that just makes up shit on the fly to win every argument. I didn't beat him in the end, I just decided to peace out knowing I'd just get mad trying to.
That's all, really. It's a damn shame that the second half of the game is pretty bad because the foundation is really great. I know there's a sequel, but word is that it isn't as good, so I don't know when I'll check it out. Be really cool if some indie dev picked up the gimmick or something, it's really worth perfecting.
Shinobi makes a damn good first impression. Look up literally any footage of this game, and one thing will immediately stand out to you. The scarf. It's just so cool, it trails behind Hotsuma, flows dramatically when he attacks, never gets in your view while always remaining an extremely memorable part of the game's visual identity- I've played entire games with not a tenth the style of this one piece of clothing. The rest holds up quite well too, it doesn't have any other incredibly cool tricks (besides the Tate, which I will get to) but it all looks very solid, with the one issue that stages are clearly built out of repeatedly reused rooms, which makes them feel a lot samey-er.
It's really cool to play an action game from this era that doesn't feel like it's just trying to be Devil May Cry at home- besides the basic concepts of the genre, there's basically no similarities. Shinobi focuses on movement and positioning over juggling and combos, which you aren't really able to do here. Your moveset is minimal, just an attack combo and a dashing charge attack, the fun comes into quickly chaining kills. Your sword gets stronger the higher your kill combo is, and if you manage to kill every enemy in the encounter at once, you get a really cool "Tate" cutscene, where their bodies fall apart as Hotsuma strikes a pose. Like the scarf, this somehow always looks cool, partially because of the skill that's sometimes required to do this, and partially because the camera angles and enemy positions are going to change every time, which makes it feel very dynamic, like you're making your own cool animation in real time. It almost feels like a precedent to MGR's Zandatsu- a really viscerally satisfying means of rewarding the player for a job well done. If you fail to string kills you might need to hack at a stronger enemy for like ten seconds straight, so it feels really good to not mess it up and kill them in a single slash.
Some hiccups come in the movement. You're very mobile, with a dash, a double jump and a wall cling/run, but all of it can feel strangely stiff? For example, when locked onto a foe Hotsuma's walking speed is greatly reduced, and since time is of the absolute essence if you want to keep up your combo, that can feel really bad. Similarly, your teleport dash somehow doesn't go through enemies (despite visibly doing so in the opening cutscene...), which means sometimes you'll be trying to circle around them (many enemies block attacks from the front, and even those that don't will take more damage from behind) only to just sort of bump into them and then get hit. The lock on itself can be finicky, too. In its defense, it's actually pretty good for the era, it's just that this game relies really heavily on it being perfect, and when you're on a very strict timer locking on to an enemy you aren't capable of killing quickly rather than the one that's a sitting duck always really stings. All of this works mostly fine, it's just that with how much this game asks of you, it can feel unfair when it doesn't quite meet its end of those expectations.
Bosses are a mixed bag. Something I absolutely respect is that they're built around the chain kills just as much as the rest of the game- you may not deal much more than scratch damage at first, but if you build up a good enough chain you can quite literally one-shot any boss in the game. The problem with that is that this means the entirety of a fight hinges on bosses being a threat both with and without summons, and on them putting up a fair challenge when you try to get a hit in with a big chain. I'd say most of the bosses don't really pull it off. Some teleport around a massive battlefield in such a way that you can literally not have a chance to get any hits in before your chain runs out, including the infamously bad final boss. Those that are stationary or more aggressive tend to fare better.
I have been sort of mildly negative so far but I want to be clear that this is an incredibly fun combat loop- it's incredibly tense but whenever you pull off a hard Tate it's so, so satisfying. The real problem with the game is in its later half's design. They start putting insta-kill bottomless pits everywhere, and the game goes from a tense race to keep up your health (did i mention your health goes down when you're not killing things?) to frantically handling the camera (which just doesn't work when sticking to walls) and the clunky platforming hoping that no enemy snipes you and makes you fall and restart the level from start. The only checkpoints are at bosses but honestly that's fine, most of the time, stages are short enough that I don't mind having to do them over, unless I fall into a fucking pit because the camera sucks and Hatsume's jumps are nearly as high-committal as your average Belmont's. The final boss too, man. I don't even understand how he's supposed to work, it feels like that kid at the playground with the everything-proof shield that just makes up shit on the fly to win every argument. I didn't beat him in the end, I just decided to peace out knowing I'd just get mad trying to.
That's all, really. It's a damn shame that the second half of the game is pretty bad because the foundation is really great. I know there's a sequel, but word is that it isn't as good, so I don't know when I'll check it out. Be really cool if some indie dev picked up the gimmick or something, it's really worth perfecting.