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Review
By: |
Hoover |
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Date: |
11/27/2002 |
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Released: |
11/11/2002 |
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Publisher: |
Sega |
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Developer: |
Sega |
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Platform: |
Playstation 2 |
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Rating: |
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Retro is cool. Vintage clothing,
retro gaming, and re-made movies are all the rage today in
late 2002. Shinobi is a remake of a great side-scroller arcade
game that was later re-released for the Sega Genesis. The
latest iteration for the Playstation II will look very
unfamiliar to arcade burnouts like myself. This Shinobi is
completely 3-D and takes full advantage of the platform it was
made for, the PSII. Now that Sega has given up on the game
console market and is sticking to games expect good things
from them.
First things first, Shinobi is hard. This
is not a game that you will finish in one sitting or even a
week straight of playing. Prepare to be frustrated to say the
least. If you can make it past the basic learning curve the
game will get exciting for a little while until it gets
repetitive. |
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A typical level is broken down into three sub-levels, and each
sub-level has a maze of alleyways, spires, building tops, and
shrines to thread your way through – you being Hotsuma the
ninja. At the end of each level is a typical boss character to
defeat. You are equipped with a cursed sword and throwing
knives and you have the ability to jump, swing your sword,
throw a knife or speed dash as you fight an endless stream of
enemies in your path. The speed dash is pretty cool and allows
you to shoot Flash style down the path, leaving an image of
yourself behind. It is a quick way to move around and becomes
a necessity in later levels for sidestepping attackers and
getting behind them to avoid their defenses. Your cursed sword
requires death and destruction or it begins to suck your life
– so kill often or beware. Your Shinobi character does have
the ability to cling to walls Spiderman-style which is kind of
cool. However while climbing on walls the typically over the
shoulder camera angle gets skewed and makes it difficult to
jump off walls and land where you want. There is also a
“special” button that allows you to do a Ninja magic move that
affects all of the surrounding enemies, just like the original
Shinobi where the move looked like a ricochet-rabbit affect
with your ninja bouncing all over the screen. The new affects
are a little more polished of course. Other than that there
isn’t much to the game. As far as I can tell you never get new
weapons or new abilities; the scenery changes a little and the
enemies get harder – that’s it.
As I played Shinobi I kept comparing it to a similar
action/adventure game I played a couple of months ago – Mark
of Kri. That is probably one of the reasons Shinobi continued
to disappoint. Mark of Kri filters in different moves and
weapons as the game progresses making it more enjoyable and
rewarding players for beating more and more of the game. Mark
of Kri also has much better graphics, fighting style and
environment as a whole. In Shinobi all you do is mash the
buttons and hope to hit as many attackers as possible,
throwing in some jumps and dashes – that’s all. The Shinobi
worlds are also very linear with very little room to explore
the environment. Different areas in the same level also look
very similar to previous areas making the game that much
harder.
One plus of this game are the different cut scenes where the
artistry really shines. Cut scenes are used if you kill all of
the combatants in a certain area at almost the same time –
give or take a couple of seconds. When this happens there is a
stop in action and a cool visual as all of the bodies you just
sliced fall in half. Also the story is advanced along in
between levels with very good cinematic visuals.
Sound is typical slice and dice style but the backing music
doesn’t fit the whole ancient Chinese secret theme of the
game. Voices are OK during the story cut scenes, but almost
non-existent during game play. Voices can be set with an
option between English or Japanese though.
Finally, my biggest issue with the game is the save intervals.
There is no way to save the game mid-level. And each level has
a bunch of bad guys, followed by some tricky maneuver,
followed by a boss. Fail any of these tasks and it is all the
way back to the beginning of the level. Basic levels in the
beginning of the game take about 15-20 minutes each and they
only get longer from there. This is the most frustrating thing
about the game and there just isn’t enough innovation or
visuals to make up for it. For my money I would stick with
Mark of Kri over Shinobi, but if you are hankering for some
retro-feel give Shinobi a try, but bring your patience.
Hoover Rating:
2.5 out of 5 Planets
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Buy It @
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