Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (1990)

Preliminary: Undeniably a high-quality game. The Genesis really is so impressive. But usually these Shinobi games get too hard for me, to the un-fun point heh especially with the one-hit kills, so I usually drop them despite the overall high quality. We shall see this time. Not in love with there being a time limit with a requirement of saving a certain number of people, but I got through the first two levels, sooo.

Day 1

Nice and I'm done with the first boss/round. That wasn't bad for a Shinobi game! Great Look too, with a pretty generic but very arcade-y Sound

The bonus stages are beautiful (see below) but don't really add much to the game, really just bogs down the fast-paced action. Now that I mention it, this game is very fast-paced. I keep wondering if it's actually a Shinobi game cuz it's been doable so far without abusing savestates and more enjoyable than the other Shinobi games and the levels are so short!

And tho it is frustrating when you get to the end of a level but don't have enough people saved, I haven't had to resort to a guide or map at all to find them all. And even stumbled upon a 2-up on my own, things like that always make me happy with games, and I expect it more and more in the 90s :)

Gotta love the Statue of Liberty green with shadows and all. Moody

I was gonna switch to OldSchool RuneScape by now (ugh now I started an Ironman smh), but I'm already on Round 4 of 5 and still enjoying myself! First Shinobi game I got into?!

Ugh 4-1 is starting to get annoying though. I like hard level design, but I don't like when it's built around the very faults of the game (like Ghosts n Goblins did and many early platformers did too, heck even the true Mario 2 aka Lost Levels). The jump is an issue in this game, because you don't have much power over its height/momentum. And the level design is starting to build around that flaw/"mechanic."

Definitely abusing savestates near the end here but by far the most doable Shinobi game I've played so far! On the final boss now! The dog was a nice feature but barely used. The final boss is a bit "boring" in the sense that it's repetitive and you can only get 1-2 hits in when he's vulnerable before repeating the process of the ninjas being summoned again. Never a fan of that.

Great credits music and absurdly simple yet cool ending screens, I like these :-p silly but nice

Look: 8.5/10 Not necessarily a favorite of mine, but excited how it harkens the 90s Look that I've been looking forward to.

Sound: 8/10 Some real good tunes but mostly sounds a lot like an arcade game.

Play: 8.5/10 I'm really surprised how much I liked the gameplay here. Didn't expect that. I usually got annoyed with the sword-wielding ninjas in the other Shinobi games but I had it down quite well here. The level design helped for that too. And the bosses being intuitively figured out is also nice. Didn't have to look up a guide once!

Feel: 8.5/10 I suppose I am just excited to finally have a Shinobi game I like, especially since many others seem to love them.

Attachment: 9/10 This is the Shinobi game I will return to. And I will remember it as one of the good early Genesis platformers, since they have mostly been disappointing (despite usually great Looks and Sounds, the Play usually suffers trying to manage full sprites). Slightly over-rating this in my excitement to feel the 90s are officially upon me after much of 1990 feeling like it's just the leftovers from the 80s as publishers waited to release their good games around the Christmas season.

Overall: 8.5/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: ~45 mins

(This is the 32nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Usually when I am this negative on a game, the reviews online reflect that somewhat, by having the score be something like 2.xx/5 (though every game has its nostalgic fans under a YT walkthrough calling it amazing no matter how shitty it is in hindsight, and more power to them, nostalgia is a beautiful thing). This time, Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi is a game that scores much better than I would have anticipated, because in anything related to its gameplay, I disliked this very much. Though due its critical reception as well, I wouldn't say the game is necessarily objectively bad.

This game released on December 1st, 1990 for the Sega Genesis and is a platformer/hack&slash game. There is a tiny story explaining the setting, but nothing worth playing the game for. And that's fine because the game was always meant to be played for its gameplay and its gameplay alone.

The game has a soundtrack that is not bad but not a memorable one in my opinion if we compare it to the OSTs of all these other games I've played in 1990. Still, it's nice enough to listen to and overall, the game does plenty right in just about every way apart from its gameplay, at least in my opinion.

The graphics and special effects are pretty good for its time, the animations are well done and the boss design is great for the most part.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't ever get acclimated with the gameplay and the design of the levels. First off, you are this bad ass Ninja that dies after his heel is touched slightly because you only have one hit point. That's already something I dislike (see Silver Surfer) but it's something I could live with if death didn't come so cheap as it does in these games.

The first 10-20 minutes were filled with death after death after death with every new step I took because enemies would come from the front, the back, the front and back, have wild attack patterns etc. This is fine of course, that's the intention behind the start of the game and you're supposed to overcome that. But as I neared my end of a 1 hour attempt to slog my way through this, I kept dying to the way these enemies were being positioned. Jump down into one enemy and immediately duck because someone else is firing at you. He does that every 2 seconds, so you better time your get-up right or else you'll die. Gotta fend off the other guy though, so better make sure you have your eye on both guys. Kill them, take a step to the left and there is this green dude who throws his shield at you. Jumping over it is not gonna work because you'll touch the tip of the shield with your toes and die. Instead, die, restart the whole level, go back to the same spot and make sure you go exactly to the point where you can see him, but where he can't reach you. Now send your companion dog at him so he distracts him while you come in for the kill. Oh wait, your dog is useless because he has both shields up, which knocks out the dog for 15 seconds.

Ugh, even if I know I will get through this part with repetition, it just is not fun. Gameplay is in many ways similar to Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, but just worse because of insta-death, and without the charm.

OVERALL

Again, I'll give it props for graphics and animation, but it's not a game I enjoyed as someone who had no prior experience with this series. It received praise at the time of its release though, so I guess I might be overly critical here? Nah, this just was bad.

The Shinobi games of the 8 and 16-bit days are a solid bunch. Generally they are action platformers, but the original Shinobi was an arcade title that was a challenge requiring level memorization and quit reaction time. Shadow Dancer is reminiscent of the arcade original, but this time our shuriken-throwing ninja hero is accompanied by a dog.

The dog is actually something of a game-changer, giving you a new way to tackle each situation you face. You can time your own attack just right, or you can time the dog's stun attack just right -- allowing you to follow through to finish the enemy off afterward without fear of sudden one-hit death. (Well, at least from that specific enemy.) There's a risk-reward factor there too though. If the dog gets hit in the process, it turns into a helpless puppy (a very cute little puppy, but still) and can't be used for assist attacks for a while.

This is a game where you'll die a lot, but as you learn the levels you'll progress a little farther. It's an addicting entry for the Shinobi series, and probably my second-favorite after Shinobi 3.

Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi may not reinvent the wheel like The Revenge of Shinobi does, but it knows what works and uses the best that the Genesis has to offer while building upon its core mechanics. Fighting alongside your trusty dog against the reptilian ninja menace Union Lizard, the game has the player fighting through five worlds with three stages each.

Not much has changed about the formula this time, but the game is gorgeous, even in comparison to The Revenge of Shinobi's efforts. Fiery skies burn in the background, rock monsters extend their limbs, and ninjas free-fall along buildings as the Genesis really starts to flex its graphical power.

The main unique mechanic is controlling the dog, which is quite useful. By holding down the attack button, a charge meter raises which will fire the dog at a foe. Many of the harder foes will strike back the dog, but pesky foes with guns and others will be incapacitated just long enough for the player to strike through defenses.

Rather than clumsily try to incorporate a new system for gameplay, Shadow Dancer is fit to take the original Shinobi and Shadow Dancer and make it feel even better than before. One-hit kills and timers remain, but it's still an enjoyable journey nonetheless.