Shinobi

With its neon-lit visuals that are spare yet beautiful, its atmospheric sound and music, and above all, its innovative and well-implemented game play mechanics, Shinobi is sure to be a winner with any true connoisseur of Action/Adventure games. A word of warning, however: Shinobi is not in the least for casual gamers, i.e., those who are unwilling to be trounced time and time again before being able to successfully complete a level or defeat a boss, and/or those disdainful of gameplay mechanics or control schemes that are in any way a departure from the norm.The player-character, Hostuma, controls very responsively and has a host of groovy ninja moves at his disposal, including wall running, double jumping and a very neat dashing ability which can be executed consecutively on the ground, once in the air under normal circumstances, and an additional time immediately after striking an opponent while airborne. This means that if you have a swarm of aerial opponents about you, you can leap to one, strike him down, dash to the next, and repeat until the entire group is decimated, all without touching the ground. Hostuma's dash also has another, special application, aside from the fairly standard uses of evading attacks, reaching and attacking enemies quickly, and traveling longer distances in the air by combining it with double jumping： every time Hotsuma dashes, he leaves behind an after-image. If you dash away from an enemy and leave them standing before an after-image, most of the time the foe will attack it instead of pursuing you, giving you a window of opportunity to strike. This can be a life-saver at times (particularly on Level 3-A, in which you are set upon by hordes of highly aggressive, sword-wielding zombie dogs).Even with just the mechanics described above, Shinobi would have had very good gameplay. What really makes the gameplay great, however, is the Tate (pronounced tah-tay) system, the proper employment of which allows you to cut down a large group of opponents quickly with a minimum of hassle. Every time you defeat a foe who is by his lonesome, he falls immediately. However, if you are fighting two or more foes, each foe leading up until the last will be frozen in place a short time after defeat and your sword will become just a little stronger, making it much easier to "freeze" successive foes. After the last opponent falls, or when you wait too long before defeating the next -- at which time the frozen enemies fall regardless of those remaining -- your sword returns to its original power, so it is in your best interest to hit your enemies as quickly as possible. Killing three or fewer enemies in rapid succession, however, while advantageous because of your sword's power accretion, is not a true Tate; that comes into play when you quickly defeat four or more opponents, whereupon you are rewarded with a stylish cutscene in which Hostuma performs a sword flourish and all enemies fall together. It is especially advantageous to attack all the weakest enemies of a group first, since that makes it easier to down the real toughies, direct, drawn-out confrontations with whom might result in significant damage to yourself. In fact, some tougher foes take much more trouble and time to defeat if you don't Tate them. This goes doubly true for the bosses; it is far more satisfying, but far quicker to defeat a boss by quickly freezing the various demons he/she has conjured until you have amassed enough power to Tate the big baddy along with them. Nothing feels more awesome than vanquishing a big, bad boss beast with one sword stroke! A final word about Tate: Hotsuma's demon sword, Akujiki, requires constant nourishment in the form of dark energy, which you gain automatically upon defeating a foe. Wait too long between feedings, and the sword will begin to drain your life. A Tate however, will usually fill up your sword's hunger gauge, and if you make it a habit to Tate whenever possible, Akujiki will almost never go vampiric on you.Shinobi's graphics are quite simple when compared to most games of its generation, but they are beautiful in that simplicity. There is no gross over-texturing, as evident in disappointments like Halo 2 and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, as each object is textured just enough to give it personality. Also, neither the character models nor environments are polygon-rich, but the hard angles resulting from the relatively low-poly count never look ugly, having been placed so that they fall into line with the game's art design. Due to this graphical economy, slow-down is almost completely absent. The dark, brooding colors highlighted by bright neons, along with the game's unusual character and enemy designs, lend the game an 80's anime aesthetic. Since all of the game's character models have so much personality in-game, it is easy to imagine that they lost little in the translation from design to implementation; the enemies, and most especially the boss characters, are all very interesting to look at and well-animated, and Hotsuma himself, with his flowing red scarf, four-eyed helmet and confident demeanor, will surely go down in video game history as one of the most stylish player-characters ever.Overall, Shinobi's sound is exceptional. The grunts, slashes, clashes, explosions and the like are all pretty standard, though never inadequate. The chorus of death cries let out by a flock of enemies during Tate, however, is really titilating! The Japanese voice acting, though there is little of it, is excellent, and really lends itself to atmosphere-building. Kudos to Sega's U.S. branch for not excluding the Japanese track and forcing us to listen to the kind of lack-luster English dub-drivel that has marred many a game imported from Japan! By far the best part of Shinobi's sound is its wonderful techno music. It has a fast enough pace to perfectly compliment the quickly-moving gameplay, yet is so thoughtfully composed that at the same time it projects an atmosphere of complex mysticism.If you are up to the challenge, I cannot recommend this game enough. I am at a loss to understand why so many supposedly hardcore gamers, even editors at some major video game review mags, regard it shabbily. I can only surmise that they are indeed not hardcore gamers, that they are only willing to scarf down one deriviative FPS or cookie-cutter sports title after another, completely unknowing of what a great Action/Adventure truly is. What happened to you, Sega? Put Sonic on ice for a while and get back to making games like this!

This game is good. The action, the boss battles, the level layout, so epic and so imaginative. I've heard a few complaints that this game doesn't do justice to the original Shinobi game, and I haven't played it. But that aside, this game is incredible. The action and adventure of a Playstation 2 game, and the classic feeling of going through stages/levels. The more combos you get, the stronger your sword becomes. The only complaint I could find in this game, is beware of the water level. That's probably one of the hardest challenges in PS2 videogames I've ever encountered. Touch the water, you die. What can you stand on? Buildings and walls, but the water keeps rising and falling and the shadows cover almost everything. Even so, this game is an instant classic. Give it a try.

When I couldn't find my old Shinobi (PS2), because I felt I lost it and I had to order a new one! I'm glad I did and it's been one year since I played and enjoyed it! In fact, it was an awesome video game to play! But the only two complaints I have are how hard the Last Boss is to defeat in the Final Stage of this game and that the extra stage I unlocked is hard to clear and get an "A" Rank on! Anyways, I haven't tried the game yet! I will eventually!

this game is OK to but very addictive its 2013 and im still going back and playing it its not anything speashle whith todays modren games but its simple and awesome game if you can look the other way for alot of the bad thingsthe bad things are1 your health gets drained just by not doing anything2 if you die once you go back the start of the level3 the story is not that good4 the ninja from the futer cant swim??5 the fact that its called shinobi!!!shinobi was an awesome old game on the genseis and old systems this is not shinobi what so everyes you can unlock the old hero character but its still not shinobiwhats wrong calling it something ales?

I loved the Shinobi series, and its games were amazing thus far, but this one doesn't really live up to its predecessors, and on top of that, its difficulty can rip a metal grinder into shreds. I liked the fact that the main character spoke in Japanese, but anyways, to the important part here... Most enemies are exaggeratedly hard to defeat, and not even the original arcade Shinobi from 1987 was *this* punishing when it came to defeating enemies, and that is saying a lot, since I actually like the original Shinobi arcade game and the Revenge of Shinobi Sega Genesis installment. While I don't mind a bit of challenge, I definitely don't find being ripped to shred every time I play the game in seconds with that obnoxious game over screen my idea of fun. No thanks, I think I'm going to just replay Super Metroid, thank you very much.

This game is great.Loads of enemies to kill at a fast action pace, different areas you have to explore to open new options that have the ???????,and amazing special effects(graphics).If you're new to the Shinobi series,you will need to know two things about this game.When you die, you have to start from the beginning of the level,which makes it kinda challenging,and the camera view,which will take some patience because its inverted(up is down,down is up). Overall, its fun and will keep you coming back.8 stages broken into 3 sub-levels you'll go through,including 8 moderately difficult bosses,and 3 elemental magics you'll have to acquire throughout the game.Trust that this game is very rare,you'll never find this at any retail store.Thanks Amazon,for the memories.

I forgot why I put this down years ago. It’s so boring. Waste of time

game is in very good condition works perfectly with no issues ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️