Shinobi Legions

"Eh, not bad."

OVERVIEW

Shinobi, the SEGA side-scrolling action classic, found itself on the Saturn very soon. I may be a SEGA nut, but I'm not a Shinobi nut. I never was too fond of difficult side-scrollers, but hey, I like to cut guys up (in video games only people!), so I gave it a shot.

VISUALS

This Shinobi game has digitized 2D graphics. Yeah, there weren't too many Sega games that wanted to fall in the same boat as Mortal Kombat, but hey, the animation is fairly smooth. The backgrounds are pretty nice: I like the look. It would be nice if there was more blood after striking an enemy. A huge gush of blood... Like in Tenchu. It pumps up the adrenaline, you know?

One thing that really bugs me though is the game screen doesn't scroll in and out (Samurai Shodown style) at certain parts. It would've been a nifty effect, and very helpful gameplay-wise. For example, in the level where you ride the mine carts, when you jump up to get items, you don't see the mine carts below to land back on them, so you end up falling down and dying for stupid reasons. Scrolling out in such situations would have been a lot more practical.

THE CRAPPY MUSIC

Hmmm... Basically, I've concluded that the soundtrack is really weak considering this is a ninja game. There is some cheesy 80's rock, some generic Japanese-style themes, etc. The sound effects themselves aren't great either. No deep sword slices, no hard hitting sounds, no screams of pain, etc. Nothing special.

STORY & PRESENTATION

I have the Japanese version of the game, thus I do not really understand the story. Well, I sort of do. You know why? Because I watched the totally awesome video scenes. For some insane reason, Sega decided to hire actors and make them play out Power Rangers-like fighting scenes. Cheap plastic costumes, cheap sword fighting... What more could one want? Before you say it, yes, there is awesome guitar rock music playing in these scenes.

GAMEPLAY

Onto what matters most... The gameplay. Until Shinobi 3 (for Genesis), I thought Shinobi had horrible control; it was stiff and unresponsive. Well, Shinobi 3 had good control, but on the other hand, it still relied mostly on throwing shurikens.

This game feels more responsive. It stinks that the shurikens are very weak now (and take longer to throw), but your trusty sword is more powerful than ever. The biggest change is that the sword and shuriken attacks are two separate buttons, unlike previous Shinobi games, where the sword/mini-dagger would only be used in close combat or if you ran out of shurikens. I really welcome this change!

You can slice guys up with tons of different sword attacks, based on the direction you hold. In addition to this, there is a running attack and a rolling attack. You can double jump with a flipping sword attack, jump and drop with a falling stab attack, etc. Many more moves than in previous games. Holding down the sword attack button will also give you a block, which you can move with, which is pretty conveniant in certain levels. All in all, I found that these controls made Shinobi more enjoyable then its prequels.

I remember reading that this game is not as hard as previous Shinobis... Maybe I just suck, or maybe the previous Shinobis are just impossible, but this game is just about up in the ranks of Ninja Gaiden 2. I believe there are 9 levels, and last time I played, I was able to get to level 7 after over 10 attempts to get through the game (only 5 continues).

FINAL WORD

Saturn collectors, you simply must get this game! It's cheap, it's funny, and it's legendary Shinobi! Otherwise, you're not losing much.

OVERALL -- 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/01, Updated 08/20/03