Review Mazinkaiser 2/5 · Apr 14, 2019
The Cyber Shinobi: Devolution
The Cyber Shinobi is an attempt to bring the Shinobi craze onto Sega's 8-bit Master System. Does it succeed? No, not really.
Taking place in the future 2XXX, where Joe's grandson fights the new organization Cyber Zeed, you'll be hopping across six stages. Instead of these levels being split into stages, it's pretty much just a straight shot followed by …
The Cyber Shinobi is an attempt to bring the Shinobi craze onto Sega's 8-bit Master System. Does it succeed? No, not really.
Taking place in the future 2XXX, where Joe's grandson fights the new organization Cyber Zeed, you'll be hopping across six stages. Instead of these levels being split into stages, it's pretty much just a straight shot followed by a boss. Time limits can range from three to ten minutes, as the stages are sometimes lengthy gauntlets of beat-em up screens or just a drop across a waterfall.
Gameplay is now reduced to using the sword as a beat-em-up attack with the shot reduced to a limited subweapon (likely because they couldn't fit all those shuriken on this system?). Ninjutsu is now slowly gathered through powerups and releases an attack based on how many powerups are gathered. It's not particularly useful. Jumping high by holding down the up button and jumping can get Grandson Joe to slightly higher places, but things like falling platforms happen waaaaay too fast for this slowpoke to really get anywhere with it.
Visually the jagged movement of Cyber Shinobi is jarring to behold, but as your eyes get used to it you won't see anything too extraordinary. The 8-bit chiptunes are ok, but nothing to write home about.
A revamped set of mechanics for a less advanced system unfortunately doesn't make anything uniquely fun. The stages are a slog or end too fast, and Joe's movement can't be relied upon for beans. As a curiosity, it remains as another dead end for Shinobi to make.