 Shinobi
is back! Shinobi
for the PlayStation 2 is the latest installment in the legendary
series from Sega. This
version of Shinobi
is a darker and more gory installment than earlier Shinobi games.
Unlike recent additions to the ninja genre, most notably the Tenchu
series, Shinobi totally disregards any emphasis on stealth as a
matter of fact; confrontation is your only means of survival. By
relying on a stylish in-your-face hack-n-slash, Shinobi comes off as a
homage to the high point of the arcade scene that spawned this game.
Without
spoiling the story, the plot is about a ninja named Hotsuma, who must
prevent an evil wizard from taking over the world using a horde of
undead ninjas and various demonic servants.
From a practical point of view, the plot is purely secondary to
the action and, basically, serves as something to take up time between
loading screens.
Graphically,
you can think of Shinobi as having the play style of another
PlayStation 2 gem, Devil May Cry, shrunken down to about the
size of the Sega beat-'em-up, Zombie Revenge.
Hotsuma (who has a striking resemblance to Samurai Showdown's
Hanzo) has a red scarf that is by far the most colorful and animated
detail within the game. The
game is animated fairly well and I have yet to notice any slowdown in
the game but that brings me to my first complaint.
The levels aren't varied and you spend most of your time
looking at the same type of environment over and over.
The
first thing that struck me in the sound department was the quality of
the speech in the FMV scenes. Anyone
who is familiar with Sega's games knows that with most of their next
generation games, Sega has done such a horrible job in the Voice
Acting department that it is pretty much a joke.
Shinobi gives the player the choice of English or
Japanese and the player is in for a treat with whichever language they
choose. Musically, the game relies on what I like to call Arcade
J-Techno. Techno beats mixed in with Classic Japanese that ends up
giving you a classic arcade feel.
The sound effects are nothing to write home about but they get
the job done.
 Control
is mixed bag. The good is
that performing Hotsuma's special moves doesn’t require more than a
button press and he automatically sticks to the wall or “shadow”
dashes from one place to another saving you from having to complete
what could have been very complicated moves.
The action can get pretty hectic, especially in the case of
flying monsters or if the target area on a boss is taller than you.
This action can sometimes mean that you will end up on the
wrong side of the camera angle. Fortunately,
auto targeting and the ability to manually adjust the camera by using
the right analog stick helps but in later stages -- where precision is
the difference between life and death (which means starting over at
the beginning of the level) -- very often you will find yourself on
the wrong end of a blade or a little too far from a particular ledge.
But, I don't consider those issues problems but more like
challenges. Once you begin to master the button layout, the control
issue becomes less noticeable.
The
gameplay consists mostly of hacking anything that gets in your way.
At your disposal are 5 skills.
The Wall Walk allows you to easily pass over dangerous ravines.
The Shadow Step allows you to quickly dodge enemy attacks as
well as positioning yourself behind your enemies in order to get a
clean attack. The Dagger Throw can stun an opponent; allowing you to
get close for a quick attack. Your
magic skill consists of a magic bomb, which kills everything on the
screen; invisibility, that, of course, makes you invulnerable for a
few seconds; and, finally, a super sword, which allows for a certain
number of strikes that do massive damage. The fifth skill is by far the greatest of the group and that
is the Tete.
Using
the Tete goes something like this: Once
a group of enemies appears on screen, a group of orbs representing the
number of enemies on the screen appears in the upper right corner.
When you hit the first enemy the orb lights up and you have a short
amount of time to continue the chain, lighting all of the orbs.
If you do that in time, you will be treated to a cut scene of
all the enemies dying at once. The
Tete skill is how you will have to end up killing almost all of the
bosses and even some of the larger creature that you may face.
Without giving up another spoiler something happens that makes
this skill even more important to survival.
 At
the end of the day, Shinobi is a refreshing reminder of the
unadulterated carnage found in quarter munchers of the late 80's early
90's. The game oozes
challenge and is gleefully unrepentant.
The bland level design and some of the challenge in the game
will turn some people off but, for those willing to step up to the plate,
a rewarding experience that allows gamers to come back again and again when
they have a need to exhibit their virtual ninja skills.
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