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
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