Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Shinobi Arcade Game Review


Shinobi is an side scrolling ninja fighting game released by Sega as an arcade machine in 1987. The success of Shinobi lead to many home ports including the Sega Master System, the NES and on collections including Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection which is how I played it.



PLOT

In Shinobi you play as Joe Musashi, a ninja master who's students have been captured by terrorists. You set out to rescue your students in 5 action packed levels. As with a lot of games from this era the plot is just an excuse for the game itself. This doesn't detract from the game at all though.

GAME PLAY

You control Musashi as he makes his way through each level rescuing his students. He has a katana sword for up close work but his main weapon is his unlimited shurikens (throwing stars). Each level is harder than the last. After playing the first level I though this game was a pushover but every level after became harder and harder. The trick to the game is to memorize when and where enemies are to appear and stop them before they kill you. One touch of an enemies weapon will kill you.



Each level consists of four different areas to play in, the last being a boss fight. The game has a lot of action and is a good arcade game. Because the game is from the arcade when you die you can continue as many times as you want until you hit the last level. In the last level you need to make it through without using up your last life or it's game over.

Between each level is a bonus stage where ninjas attack and you need to fight them off with your shurikens. There are three layers that the ninjas come from. They start at the farthest one, if you don't hit them they jump to the next layer that is closer to you. If you don't kill them they will jump to right in front of you which ends the bonus stage. If you defeat all the ninjas you will receive an extra life.



PRESENTATION

The graphics of Shinobi aren't as good as Space Harrier but it looks fine and plays well which is all that counts. I liked the way the bonus stage looked and that was my favorite part of the game. The game took me about two hours to finish including about half an hour trying to figure out to to defeat the final boss.



SUMMARY

The arcade version of Shinobi is a lot of fun and if you didn't play it back in the day I suggest you give it a try as I had a lot of fun playing it. I rate Shinobi 7 out of 10.

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