Shinobi
Arcade
This game and I go back a LONG way together. When I was a small kid, about five or six years old, my grandma used to watch me when my parents were at work. She was in a bowling league, so often she'd bring me along with her. Not being interested in watching old people bowl, I usually spent my time at the bowling alley's arcade.
I look back at my time in this arcade fondly. I can vaguely remember the layout of the arcade units. Alien Syndrome was directly to your right as you walked in. Toobin' and some wrestling game were right nearby. So was Ghosts 'n Goblins. There was Double Dragon, Captain America and the Avengers, Operation Wolf, and many others. But back in the corner were two of the cooler games, in my opinion. They were Rolling Thunder and Shinobi.
Shinobi interested me in particular. I often would sit there in awe and watch the scenes that would play when the machine was waiting for someone to put in a quarter. I was fascinated by the content of the game, with its ninjas and magic and evil villains. Its graphics were amazing, as was its sound. It just flat out LOOKED fun to play. On the rare occasion I actually had quarters to play, I would give this game a try. I'd never make it past the first level or two. But that just made me want to play it more, especially when I would watch the previews and it would show later levels in the game. I felt, more than any other arcade game out there, that Shinobi had a story to tell. I was fascinated by that story, and I always had it in my mind that I would save up enough quarters and beat the game someday.
Unfortunately, that day never came. For whatever reason, we stopped coming to this bowling alley. I never saw Shinobi at another arcade. I never had a home version of this game. I grew up and forgot all about Shinobi. That was, until recently. I was looking for an arcade game to review, since I am doing this whole one game/one system at a time thing now. I saw Shinobi, which I have on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PS3, on my list of arcade games. I looked up screen shots of the game online, and sure enough, this was the game I remembered from the bowling alley arcade when I was a kid.
I decided that Shinobi was going to be my pick for an arcade game to review. In a way, beating the game would bring closure to me. I had been ever so fascinated by this game as a kid, it was only fitting that I come full circle and beat the game as an adult. I fired up the PS3, and got to playing.
Story:
It’s funny how I said that Shinobi always felt like it had a story to tell, because there isn’t actually much of a storyline to this game. There is a big bad guy, and you have to progress through the game’s levels, rescuing kidnapped children and defeating all of the mini-bosses until you get to the end of the game. Then you fight the big bad guy and the game ends. I hope I didn't spoil anything for you!
Gameplay:
This is a pretty typical arcade-style side scroller. Controlling a ninja dressed in black, you start on the left side of the screen. Typical levels have you working your way to the right side of the screen towards the stage’s exit. There are a few stages that scroll vertically as well. Before you can exit a stage and advance to the next level, you have to locate and rescue all of the kidnapped children located inside the stage. Luckily these children are in plain sight and extremely easy to find.
Gameplay reminds me a lot of Rolling Thunder, another side scrolling arcade classic. This is somewhat ironic, because when I was a kid the Shinobi and Rolling Thunder arcade units were located right next to one another. Use the D-pad to move your character left and right. Pressing down makes him duck. You can jump. If there is a ledge above you or you can see another 2D plane in the background, you can hold up and the jump button to jump to that ledge or plane. This is very useful when trying to avoid enemies. You can jump back and forth between planes to dodge bullets while also positioning yourself for a better attack.
Attacking is easy to do. You have an unlimited supply of shurikens at your disposal. Pressing the attack button launches a shuriken across the stage. Hitting the attack button multiple times launches several of them. My strategy for the game was to slowly walk forward, throwing ninja stars ahead of me as I progressed. This way, the enemies would take damage as soon as they appeared at the edge of the screen. I could quickly take them out before they would have a chance to attack me. You can also launch a magical attack against your enemies, which is useful for when you are overwhelmed by multiple enemies on the screen at the same time. You can only use it once per life, though, so use it wisely. Just make sure you actually use it, because I didn’t notice this button until I was already more than halfway through the game. It would have made things so much easier for me!
If you want to have any chance of beating this game, you have to play defensively. One hit and you are dead, and back to the beginning of the stage you go. Luckily I was playing this on Sonic’s Genesis collection for the PS3, which includes the ability to save your game at any time. I was able to take advantage of these save states to make my way through some of the game’s tougher stages. I don’t know what I would have done without these save states. Shinobi is a VERY difficult game. I tried to envision playing this in the arcade. With how many times I died beating this game I can only imagine how many quarters that would have added up to.
The game is broken up into five chapters, each one two or three stages long and ending in a boss fight. Once you clear all the chapters, you have beaten the game. Sounds like this should be a quick and easy game, but with how challenging and unforgiving the game’s difficulty is, a standard play through should take you at least a couple of hours.
Graphics:
Shinobi’s visuals hold up surprisingly well, especially when you consider that this game came out in 1986. Super Mario Bros. came out just a year before this game, to put it into perspective. The sprite-based characters are big and colorful. The backgrounds look really nice. The stages are varied, and each have their own distinct personality. You’ll see a ton of different locations in this game, ranging from a cityscape to a seedy warehouse to crumbling cliffs to a nice little walkway by the river.
If I had to offer one complaint, it would be in enemy variety. Many enemy types are recycled and look exactly the same, just re-skinned in different colors. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of the game too much at all. This is just a slight complaint. But it IS something that many games from this era are guilty of doing.
Sound:
Not a whole lot about the game’s audio stands out to me. Shinobi doesn’t have any iconic sound effects or musical scores that you would recognize immediately. This doesn’t matter too much in the long run, as everything is fine and serviceable as it is. Not every game has to be Final Fantasy or Mega Man with its soundtrack. Shinobi’s music and sound effects may not be its biggest selling point, but at least they aren’t bad or annoying. They get the job done.
Overall:
I will admit, nostalgia probably played a big part in my enjoyment of Shinobi. If I had never played this in the arcades as a kid, it is very possible that I would have played it in present times and just said: “Eh. It’s okay.” Whether or not nostalgia did truly play a factor here, I have to say I enjoyed my time with the game.
The game is challenging, but never too challenging to the point where I wanted to throw down the controller and just give up. For the most part, enemies appear at predetermined locations throughout the game. It may take a little bit of trial and error, but you should be able to plan strategies ahead of time and act on them accordingly.
I took each stage as a personal challenge. Aside from the first few stages at the beginning of the game, they are all fairly difficult. This made it pretty rewarding whenever I would pass one of them. I felt like I had accomplished something.
All in all, this was a really fun game. If I had to change one thing, it would be the boss battle where you have to destroy a screen full of giant gold statues that are coming towards you. I jumped up and down and jammed that attack button like a madman, but still died an ungodly number of times. This is a terrible, incredibly cheap battle. I was beginning to doubt whether I would be able to pass the level at all, when finally I got lucky and broke through.
Again, I am very thankful for save states. I still would have beaten the game without them, but utilizing them properly saved me a lot of headaches in the long run. I am not sure if I would hold the game in quite as high regard as I do without them.
While Shinobi isn’t the greatest game ever released in its genre, I enjoyed my time with it. It’s a good mix of cinematic graphics and music, challenging gameplay, solid platforming fundamentals, and nostalgia. As silly as this sounds, I really do feel as if I’ve come full circle with the game. I can now tell that five or six year old kid inside me, who would stare longingly at the Shinobi arcade unit, that I have played and beaten that game.
Final Score:
B
If you liked my review of Shinobi, please check out some of my other game reviews:
Next up:
A Nintendo Entertainment System game!
I have decided on Kid Icarus.
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