Shinobi

Those looking for a game with lots of challenge and a distinct sense of style would do well to check out Shinobi.

A decent tribute to its source material, but fails to capture its best qualities.

If you want nonstop action with the right amount of difficulty and ingenuity, toss back a few shuriken with Shinobi. [Dec 2002, p.117]

Perhaps the best and certainly the most unique thing about the game is Hotsuma’s thirsty-for-blood sword, which keeps the action at a brisk pace by forcing gamers to keep moving and keep killing.

There are plenty of cool moves, and the lead character is lots of fun to control, but boring level design and highly repetitive gameplay steal a lot of this potential hit's thunder. [Dec 2002, p.40]

The extremely high level of difficulty will leave some gamers a whimpering heap in the corner... But if you don’t mind a challenge, expect an extremely fun, rewarding experience.

Completing Shinobi is not an issue, but doing it with the style deserving of the series certainly is. Achieving those impressive A rankings will keep the dedicated occupied for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of alternative modes and the shortness of the main game, this fact will probably be lost on those who prioritise completion over mastery.

If you can get past the cheap deaths, bottomless pits and no save points, you’ll have a great time with this remake of a classic.

Nothing to get excited over.

We're hugely disappointed in this utterly botched effort by Sega. What should have been the revival of a classic franchise has been turned into a poor rip-off of a Capcom title that wasn't even the dog's bollocks in the first place.

It's a challenging, fun game, but Shinobi is not what it could, and should, have been. [Dec 2002, p.65]

The problem is that the game feels like one continuous palette-swap, and with the exception of difficulty, there is little to differentiate one level from another. And don't get me started on the camera.

I'm not sure if there's such a thing as "too hard," but if you don't have any problem with that designation, it belongs on Shinobi.

I don't think even the greatest purist will care for the save system.

It’s incredibly fun, and incredibly addicting. It’s just too bad that the camera system is incredibly flawed.

An exemplary model for anyone who misses the constant, uninterrupted gameplay that made great 8-bit and 16-bit games the classics they have become.

Ultimately devolves into the same hack-and-slash tedium seen in the old Sega Genesis games that inspired it. [10 Jan 2003, p.77]

Unapologetic about being old-school hard... It’s a rude awakening to how soft and cuddled the masses have become toward games that demand as much from them as they do from the game-makers.

Virtually no health power-ups + enemies that can attack you from offscreen = hurling your game pad at a wall. [Dec 2002, p.66]

A severe disappointment. Mediocre visuals and audio relay the game’s imprecise controls. Lacking innovative level design, the game is uninspired and extremely brief.

This game is hellaciously hard. So much so that I can't even think of the words to describe how difficult Shinobi becomes halfway through. [Dec 2002, p.220]

Bags of style and tons of good ideas - all crowbarred into a game that's slightly too monotonous to sustain them. [PSM2]

The challenge may be too steep for some, but it’s ultimately rewarding for determined gamers.

It will likely frustrate the hell out of you but only if you let it. Once you get into it, it's hard to stop.

Strictly in terms of gameplay, it's a work of art...Unfortunately, Shinobi stumbles in its level and enemy design. [Dec 2002, p.152]

If it looked nicer, and was a bit more player friendly, I'd probably be buying this one. But as it is, it feels like the developers just wanted to make this hard enough so that you couldn't beat it on a rental time span.

Shinobi is, in a word, average. There are other adjectives I could throw at it, such a repetitive and frustrating, but I think average describes it best.

If you're looking for a great action game, with absolutely no thinking required go pick up Shinobi, right now. You won't be disappointed.

For today’s player, Shinobi will quite simply be too frustrating to see it through to the end. Sad but true. Making this one for the masochists of yesteryear.

An extremely difficult, linear, yet well-polished game. While it has its flaws, the game design is excellent, and the graphics are nice.

This otherwise solid game is simply too relentlessly tough on the outside to be worth the journey of frustration to its creamy center.