Out for 3 years and no one started a thread on this? Shocked!
I got this last week for the princely sum of ?6.95, it’s been something I’ve wanted to try out for a while being a Shinobi fan…
And it’s really great!
The game harks back to Shinobi 3 (Super Shinobi 2) on the MD, you can really see this was a strong influence for the devs who made this.
You play Jiro Musashi (Joe’s father) and the game is split over 8 levels ranging from Feudal Japan to Underwater Bases to
The main bulk of play is A – B platforming action, there are a few variations of this; horse riding, surfing etc. - *cough*Shinobi 3*cough* which try to use the 3DS capabilities specifically, and while there’s nothing wrong with these sections per-say they’re nothing special and not the real reason you’re playing.
This game is pretty old school and not for the faint hearted. It will happily have you get to a gap, jump and have a ninja on the other side ready to kunai you into a bottomless pit. (The last level is particularly brutal with a lot of strict jumps and timing with instant death below.)
This may feel cheap at first but the game is old school, it wants you to learn levels and enemy placement. Before you know where you are, you’re kunai’ing ninjas in the face before they’re even on-screen.
There is no level up/combo unlocking in this, what you start with is what you get.
The combo system isn’t deep but it’s all it needs to be with enough variation in moves to keep you entertained as you move through a level as enemies only take a couple of hits to die
You have 5 kunais which replenish over time, you can throw them individually of perform a kunai fan from a double jump
New to this version is a grapple hook. It doesn’t allow swinging but it allows you to grab higher areas for roof hanging
He also has double jump, slide, ninja magic, enemy step and parry
There are quite a few enemy types that range from standard kunai throwing ninja to a cyborg commando with a helicopter gun.
Okay, the parry.
This is an essential part of the game, you have to learn to parry attacks. To my knowledge you can parry every attack in the game (I never tried environmental hazards) and moves that come in rapid succession can be parried automatically after the first hit. This allows you to parry a full wave of machine gun fire simply by parrying the first hit. This might sound generous but you still have to time the initial attack. After successfully parrying an attack pressing forward + y allows you to counter with a forward thrust slash that will kill every enemy in the game (apart from bosses) in 1 hit.
You can cancel nearly any move with the parry and can even parry mid jump (which resets you and allows further jumping and attacking)
The game has a high score system and rank system for each level where your multiplier goes up (and is maintained as max 4x) as you hit enemies without being hit yourself.
Learning the enemy layout and move-set can lead to runs like this:
The game has 4 difficulty modes:
Beginner
Normal
Hard
Very Hard
Each difficulty has its own set of rules beginner gives you infinite lives and lets you continue from the last checkpoint when all used. Normal gives you 5 lives and lets you continue from the start of the level when all used, Hard gives you 3 lives, 3continues and very hard gives you 1 life and 3 continues for the entire game!! Each difficult has its own enemy layout too.
Each level has 2 ‘mastery’ coins and 1 bonus coin. The bonus coin simply lets you play the classic bonus stage at the end of a level (where ninjas are jumping forward and you have to kunai them) for extra points.
The mastery coins are particularly hard to find and some require some fancy foot work to obtain. Collecting both mastery coins unlocks a challenge map, which is basically a VR level, again with high score and time.
The game also has a number of achievements with unlockables attached to obtain. It also has a Shinobi history section which tells you about each game in the series as well as some pretty cool ‘did you know?’s
The game isn’t perfect…Graphics aren’t amazing and some of the platforming can be a bit flat but if you’re into skilled based action games you need to give this a try, it’s cheap as chips these days and it’s a great game.
I got this last week for the princely sum of ?6.95, it’s been something I’ve wanted to try out for a while being a Shinobi fan…
And it’s really great!
The game harks back to Shinobi 3 (Super Shinobi 2) on the MD, you can really see this was a strong influence for the devs who made this.
You play Jiro Musashi (Joe’s father) and the game is split over 8 levels ranging from Feudal Japan to Underwater Bases to
The main bulk of play is A – B platforming action, there are a few variations of this; horse riding, surfing etc. - *cough*Shinobi 3*cough* which try to use the 3DS capabilities specifically, and while there’s nothing wrong with these sections per-say they’re nothing special and not the real reason you’re playing.
This game is pretty old school and not for the faint hearted. It will happily have you get to a gap, jump and have a ninja on the other side ready to kunai you into a bottomless pit. (The last level is particularly brutal with a lot of strict jumps and timing with instant death below.)
This may feel cheap at first but the game is old school, it wants you to learn levels and enemy placement. Before you know where you are, you’re kunai’ing ninjas in the face before they’re even on-screen.
There is no level up/combo unlocking in this, what you start with is what you get.
The combo system isn’t deep but it’s all it needs to be with enough variation in moves to keep you entertained as you move through a level as enemies only take a couple of hits to die
You have 5 kunais which replenish over time, you can throw them individually of perform a kunai fan from a double jump
New to this version is a grapple hook. It doesn’t allow swinging but it allows you to grab higher areas for roof hanging
He also has double jump, slide, ninja magic, enemy step and parry
There are quite a few enemy types that range from standard kunai throwing ninja to a cyborg commando with a helicopter gun.
Okay, the parry.
This is an essential part of the game, you have to learn to parry attacks. To my knowledge you can parry every attack in the game (I never tried environmental hazards) and moves that come in rapid succession can be parried automatically after the first hit. This allows you to parry a full wave of machine gun fire simply by parrying the first hit. This might sound generous but you still have to time the initial attack. After successfully parrying an attack pressing forward + y allows you to counter with a forward thrust slash that will kill every enemy in the game (apart from bosses) in 1 hit.
You can cancel nearly any move with the parry and can even parry mid jump (which resets you and allows further jumping and attacking)
The game has a high score system and rank system for each level where your multiplier goes up (and is maintained as max 4x) as you hit enemies without being hit yourself.
Learning the enemy layout and move-set can lead to runs like this:
The game has 4 difficulty modes:
Beginner
Normal
Hard
Very Hard
Each difficulty has its own set of rules beginner gives you infinite lives and lets you continue from the last checkpoint when all used. Normal gives you 5 lives and lets you continue from the start of the level when all used, Hard gives you 3 lives, 3continues and very hard gives you 1 life and 3 continues for the entire game!! Each difficult has its own enemy layout too.
Each level has 2 ‘mastery’ coins and 1 bonus coin. The bonus coin simply lets you play the classic bonus stage at the end of a level (where ninjas are jumping forward and you have to kunai them) for extra points.
The mastery coins are particularly hard to find and some require some fancy foot work to obtain. Collecting both mastery coins unlocks a challenge map, which is basically a VR level, again with high score and time.
The game also has a number of achievements with unlockables attached to obtain. It also has a Shinobi history section which tells you about each game in the series as well as some pretty cool ‘did you know?’s
The game isn’t perfect…Graphics aren’t amazing and some of the platforming can be a bit flat but if you’re into skilled based action games you need to give this a try, it’s cheap as chips these days and it’s a great game.
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