The Revenge of Shinobi- You
walk from left to right, you slash at cookie-cutter enemies, and you keep doing
that until you're finished.
Sega's Master System,
Genesis, and Game Gear platforms played host to five different games in the
Shinobi series. This game uploading by thejinnni blogspot. Besides the abundant presence of ninjas in
these games, which is never a bad thing, they were all pretty much similar to
any of the other beat-'em-ups available at the time, albeit with plenty of
platform-jumping tasks thrown in. What made them enjoyable, however, were the
areas full of platforms and hazards that really put your reflexes to the test,
as well as bosses that were ugly, intimidating, and full of different attack
patterns. Imagine if all those challenging gameplay situations and clever
bosses were missing, though. That's what you get with Revenge of Shinobi for
the Game Boy Advance, a brand-new game that shares its title with the second
installment in the series, but doesn't possess anywhere near the level of
polish or charm of its Genesis namesake.
Slash the enemy, the
beehive, and the pot and move to the right. Repeat. You assume the role of
Shinobi. Your task is to free the world from the effects of an evil curse by
collecting five elemental swords. Standing in your way are hundreds of samurai
and ninja warriors under the command of five evil shoguns. After a brief
cinematic that establishes this plotline, you're sent into a basic area where
you'll be able to figure out the controls by walking from left to right,
climbing steps, and slashing at things with your sword. Unfortunately for you,
the game never becomes any more clever or complex than it is at this point.
Throughout roughly 25 different stages, you'll perform the same tasks over and
over again: walking from left to right, slashing at enemies, and sometimes
entering a house in order to climb steps and activate a switch.
To the game's credit, the
number of abilities you have access to is rather substantial. From the outset,
you can walk, run, crouch, somersault, and grab onto ledges, as well as slash
with your sword and hurl throwing stars. As you visit the dwellings located in
each stage, you'll earn new skills, such as four different types of attack
magic, a double jump, and a stealth move.
Unfortunately, all these
actions are meaningless for two reasons. First, there are precious few moments
when you'll actually need to use any of your abilities to bypass an obstacle or
navigate a tricky environment. Unlike in a game such as Castlevania, in which
you need to discover the best route through a stage and then figure out the
proper timing for jumps and switches, there aren't any specific routes or
puzzles in Revenge of Shinobi. As long as you move cautiously to the right,
you'll be able to see and avoid most hazards. There are few times when you need
to climb upward or backtrack--so few, in fact, that every level feels like a
journey from left to right.
The second problem is that
while you have a number of different abilities, you're always using them to
shatter item boxes or trigger switches that unlock the route to the next area.
You can use magic or hurl throwing stars to open boxes and trigger switches,
but there aren't that many situations that actually require you to do so. At
the same time, the enemies you'll face aren't really susceptible to any
particular type of attack, and they don't exhibit any sort of intelligent
combat behavior. They'll stand at a distance and swing a chain at you, and
sometimes they'll jump into the air, but mostly they'll do nothing to avoid
your attacks. The game is painfully repetitive, and the only breaks in the
monotony are the frequent occasions when a tree branch suddenly falls on you or
a samurai pops out of a thicket. However, these sequences are repeated so often
that you learn to recognize the visual cues and avoid them without fail.
It's unfortunate that
Revenge of Shinobi is so dull to play, because it does a nice job of capturing
the look and feel of previous Shinobi games. The backgrounds resemble the
pastoral gardens and hills of feudal Japan, and there are plenty of examples of
artistic detail, such as flittering butterflies and tranquil streams. Every
level in each of the five main settings constantly recycles objects from
previous stages, which is distracting, although not terribly so. Even though
the character sprites for basic enemies are limited to four or five color
shades, Shinobi and his enemies feature a relatively wide variety of animations
and move without choppiness.
The female ninja stands
there as Shinobi chucks a throwing star at her face. The biggest bright spot is
the game's audio. There aren't that many background music tracks, but the
tracks that are included are done in an overdramatic style that is reminiscent
of old-fashioned samurai film music. Additionally, the music lacks the tinny
aspect that seems to plague so many other GBA games, and the bass and stereo
separation are ample enough to offer the illusion of a three-dimensional
soundtrack. This level of quality extends to the game's sound effects as well,
which consist of a pleasing assortment of metallic impacts, meaty strikes, and
ghostly moans. Soundtrack aside, there isn't anything that's particularly remarkable
or good about Revenge of Shinobi for the Game Boy Advance. You walk from left
to right, you slash at cookie-cutter enemies, and you keep doing that until
you're finished.
Windows 95/98/XP/ME/Vista/7
Processor 800 Mhz or better
RAM: minimum 1024Mb
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