For the longest time, I was… unsure how my relationship with Shinobi was going. I mean, it kept showering me with as much love as it could give, in the form of as many games to play as I could feasibly stomach, but after a while, it started to get boring. Sure, the games were still relatively good, excluding some titles which were either really good or flat-out terrible, but aside from a few changes here or there, it was just more of the same, over and over again, with no signs of stopping. But hey, I have good faith that it will bounce back, otherwise why would Sega have kept pumping them out at the time (aside from the fact that its Sega)? So, I may as well go ahead and check out the next mainline entry in the series, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, to see if it got its shit together.

For the longest time, I had assumed that this was yet another Shinobi game to add to the pile, and nothing more than that, but when I looked into it a little more, I figured out that this is a different story. Out of all of the Shinobi games at this point, this one was considered to be the best of the bunch, and is considered to be one of the best games ever released on the Sega Genesis. That was some high praise from what looked like a generic sequel, but then when I decided to actually play the game for myself, I then completed understood where all that praise came from. While it isn’t perfect by any means, this was a fantastic game, one that has made me love the series again, and one that is definitely the best game in the series so far.

The story is as barebones as it gets, with Neo Zeed returning once again to spread chaos all over the world, so it is up to Joe Musashi to rise to the occasion once again to take him out, which is so basic to the point where I could complain about it, but considering all of the games in this series have skimped on plot as well, it wouldn’t be worth getting mad about. The graphics are pretty great, not looking too much better when put side-by-side with Revenge of Shinobi, but it still overall has a great look to it, and the sprites for characters and enemies, especially bosses, and wonderful, the music is fantastic, having plenty of jamming tunes that are not only energetic, but perfectly fit what is going on at that point, the control is about the same as other Shinobi games, except now with plenty of new moves to pull off, which work well for the most part, except for the double jumping being a little wonky, and the gameplay is mostly the same as the other titles in the series, but it does enough to make going through another one of these games fun and exciting again.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Joe Musashi once again, go through a set of seven different rounds each containing their own separate sections, slice your way through many different enemies that will try to stop you in your tracks by using either your main attack or several special attacks, gather plenty of different powerups, health items, and special attacks to help you out on your journey, and take on plenty of small yet quick or big yet threatening bosses. Once again, the mechanics for this game remains relatively unchanged from the previous games, but what it does manage to do is make this gameplay fun once again, having the game go at a pretty solid pace that always makes things fast and exciting, as well as invigorating whenever you take down a challenging obstacle, or even a new stage type introduced in the game.

One of the main factors that makes this game much better then previous outings is the emphasis on speed that is present here. The game was made deliberately to focus on speed and be faster, much more so than the other titles in the series (because, you know… Sonic), and this game manages to accomplish this by not only giving you a run that you can now use at any time, but also by keeping the levels pretty straightforward for the most part to where you can focus more on action rather than other elements. What also helps this greatly is with the amount of new maneuvers and attacks you can pull off, such as a running slash, being able to jump off of walls, and a downward kick that can be extremely helpful in certain situations. All of these moves are very fun to pull off, and they keep the action flowing at a steady pace, while being very useful when they are applied. And finally, one other aspect of the game that does make it more exciting is the obstacles that are placed for you to deal with. There are plenty of different hazards and roadblocks you will need to deal with, each presenting a different way of you needing to progress forward, and while they can be pretty hard at points, they don’t feel unfair. It was really fun exploring these areas and figuring out what to do next to progress for most of the levels, and even if I did fuck up, I didn’t feel discouraged from trying again.

Now, despite all that, I wouldn’t say that this game is perfect all the way through, because it still does have some factors that weigh it down for me. In many ways, this is still yet another Shinobi game, so if you are looking for something new and exciting from the franchise (which is a genuine concern at this point when we are EIGHT ENTRIES IN), then you won’t be getting too much bang for your buck. Yeah, what is introduced here manages to make the game much more fun and exciting for me, but I can’t say that will be true for everybody. Alongside this, while most of the levels and segments were fun to traverse through, there were some that were just a slog to get through, such as several elevator sections, and even one segment that is a maze. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I typically don’t like mazes in video games, especially ones that don’t give you clear indicators for where to go next, so the maze that you do have to go through in this game does hinder it, despite everything else around it being good.

Overall, despite not too much change being present and some annoying segments/levels here or there, this is definitely the best game in the Shinobi franchise so far, and a massive improvement over not just Revenge of Shinobi, but all of the other Shinobi games that had come out after that title. I would highly recommend it for those who are fans of the series, as well as those looking for more quality titles to check out from the Sega Genesis, because I can definitely recommend this game over the other Shinobi titles, and it gets my stamp of approval. Glad to see that this series finally managed to pick up on the slack and deliver on the goods once again. Now I will move onto other stuff, and I will look forward to inevitably being disappointed by Shinobi Legions.

Game #466

Finished replaying Contra.
It has been quite a while since i last played this game so i decided to replay it. My opinion is still pretty much the same, the game is simple but it is still pretty good and difficult. You go trough a bunch of levels shooting men with various different guns that can be acquired during the level. The graphics are pretty good (smb 2 take notes) and the bosses are alright i guess other than punch out NES games don't really have the greatest boss fights. The controls and music are still pretty good and the game took me a short amount of time. Overall Contra still holds up to this day in my opinion and i am quite excited to check out the other games in the franchise because this is the only contra game i have played.
7/10

Played dmc peak of combat.
Wow this was ass. I usually don't judge something too early but this game drowned me with so many flaws that i just could not be bothered continuing any further. First of all Dante and Lady have their dmc 3 character design but they somehow made them look strange like how can someone make fucking Dante look weird DANTE IS ALWAYS HANDSOME. It's a mobile gacha game so i obviously got drowned with microtransactions. Visually the game looks boring as fuck, argueably the worst looking dmc. There was some stuttering in the few cutscenes i saw but that problem might be exclusive to some phones but the gameplay wasn't stuttering thankfully. Time for my biggest complaint which is the combat. I've played as Dante, Lady, Nero and Vergil for 3 seconds. Dante's combat is an immense downgrade from his combat in dmc 3, 4 and i would argue even dmc 1 (i haven't played 5 yet btw). The only weapon he has is the rebellion and most of the time i found myself just mashing 1 button, the combos aren't satisfying at all and they even removed Dante's guns. Lady's combat is alright i guess it's a bit better than Dante's combat but that's like saying the piss i took yesterday was better than the one i took today. Nero can actually use his pistol but they removed his 2nd arm from dmc 4 and a lot of other attacks aswell. Vergil only has 1 weapon and it isn't even the yamato and for the last time all you do is mash buttons. So yeah dmc peak of combat should NOT be called dmc peak of combat because the combat is the definition of mediocre but hey the game is still better than Dmc 2.
4/10

Finished playing super metroid.
Another amazing game finished in 2024. Super metroid along with Castlevania symphony of the night are the most influential games for the metroidvania genre. So far this is my favourite metroid game and it definitely lives up to the hype.You play as Samus and you explore the planet zebes to find the stolen metroid creature. The progression and world design are without a doubt excellent, as you explore zebes you will find various power ups such as the gravity suit and the morph ball which will give you access to areas that weren't accessible before. The combat is simple but still very enjoyable and the graphics and soundtrack are awesome. Not knowing where to go and the backtracking are usually expected in a metroidvania but an issue i had with the game is that all boss fights are kinda meh, their not the worst boss fights ever but their really nothing special, they are ok at best. By the way am i the only person who had 0 issues with the controls? Anyways i would give super metroid a strong 9/10