Games of old, or what we just call retro games, had many challenges in teaching how it works. The concept of tutorial stages just wasn’t a thing in the 8-bit era. You learned the game through whatever’s printed on the arcade cabinet or the little manual that came along with the box. Something that the toddler version of me had no look through, or had any opportunity to because good luck finding something like that in those 99-in-1 game cartridges for the Famicom. So learning about the little secrets of how to do specific moves in a fighting game, or how to find the hidden healing items, and most especially knowing how to gain 30 lives in Contra, these were moments of discovery that become one of the highlights of your experience. In a sense, its modern equivalent would be figuring out the mechanics and the rhythm of a souls-like game. This is when a scary dark dungeon becomes an obstacle course, or when the demon lord becomes a boss you think you can defeat.

Whoever was behind Shadow of The Ninja’s remake was very much aware of this. Even though I found some of it initially frustrating, I understood the intent as I found myself later flying through stages that I figured out. This will be a quick one because of how the game is rather simple and honestly quite short. So what are we waiting for? Let’s break it down.

Production (3.5 / 5)

The choice to bring it up to 16-bit, or what some might recognize as Super Nintendo graphics, is a great choice. It doesn’t lose the retro feel but at the same time, is clearly an upgrade in its graphics. Plus points for looking good on an LED display since pixel art was typically more designed towards CRT-type displays.

It also makes use of the faster frame rate that even the Nintendo Switch can produce, so even with the retro feel of it, it can still play as smoothly as a modern game. The sprites look clear and easy to discern which is matched with good animation. The colors they use to contrast the terrain against other interactable items such as enemies, their attacks, and item powerups made it easy to understand what was going on and for the most part where I wanted to go.

If there was anything I’d wish Shadow of the Ninja would let me do it’ll have to be the ability to pan the screen around the stage, so I can at least plan how I’d deal with whatever’s coming ahead.

That being said, the audio dimension of the game does particularly well for the background music, the lively instrumentals just throw you into a mood of getting more focused on the action, and that’s great because you’ll definitely need it. When it comes to sound effects and cues you’d be given, they’re not very effective, but I do think that’s part of how they want to obscure the secrets of mastering this title.

Mechanics (4 / 5)

The game is pretty simple, get to the end of the stage. It’s how that’s the challenge. You’ll be placed with many enemies in front of you, traps that can be difficult to get past, and bosses that give you no hints.

At this point, I usually break down the controls and how the functions work, but I do think that discovering these is part of the experience, so I’m just not going to spoil that for you. However, if you want to find out and skip the frustration, I’ll show you what I’ve figured out somewhere else.

What I can tell you is that the game works very much like a retro platformer action game, there’s a time limit, the goals are easy to understand, and if you know what you’re doing, easily achievable.

Now the game isn’t going to be making itself impossible to clear just because you do not know how it works, there’s a rather generous HP bar that gives you some leeway for mistakes, and a huge array of items that you can pick up and make use of to make the journey a little easier. It’s a great help to keep them on you even after clearing the stage since that’s going to make it available for you to buy at the start of a new run.

Content (4 / 5)

Shadow of the Ninja is going to put you up against 5 stages that are broken down into smaller levels. And each of those stages ends with a boss fight, the cool part about these boss fights is that it’s possible to defeat them without taking one point of damage, and without having to rely on any special items. It comes down to knowing what to do, which I feel like I’ve said several times already at this point.

These bosses are quite unique, so simply rushing them down in the hope to out damage them is definitely not the choice. You’ll have to figure out when it’s your turn to attack or dodge, and where exactly you should be hitting.

Stage and enemy variation is also healthy, with basic goons running at you to get a hit to hidden enemies waiting in ambush. Some stages are very narrow and restrict movement, while others are filled with floating platforms where you can easily fall to your death. My personal favorite to hate would be the one where you are descending into a furnace. Where you have to watch out for flame throwers in whatever direction, heated cubes of metal, lava pits, and even lava creatures. Fun times.

 Features (3.5 / 5)

This title doesn’t have an online function, at least, directly. It should be possible to play this online with a friend on Steam since it allows for a second player to join you on your run. I never got to play this with another person, so I’m not sure if there’s any sort of scaling when there are two of you instead of one, but I’m going to guess that there isn’t. The game is hard enough as it is, really.

Speaking of difficulty, you can also play Shadow of the Ninja Reborn in tougher settings. Which I have been too chicken to even try.

To help ease the pain of getting floored by whatever death trap you have to go through, the game is quite generous with being able to continue your run from the start of each level you last left on, though over time this becomes less relevant as you master the craft of flawlessly coming out victorious.

Finally, you can upload your score online to see how you do on a leaderboard. Something that I think is rather nice to have, but doesn’t really have that much weight in my experience of the game.

Conclusion

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is an opaque game, it throws you into the action like a trial-by-fire. It tells you nothing because it knows that experience is a far better teacher. Nothing will make you learn harder than failure. Where you flounder if you are clueless, just like how I was. But the little progress you make ensures that you’ll do better next time, and it feels like sweet revenge when you do. This game also never makes victory too far out of reach, what it really asks is if you have the discipline, skill, and determination to get there. There are always ways to inch out a victory if you’re desperate, and you can get creative on how you get over each challenge with the items you can carry.

It hasn’t forgotten the charm of retro gaming but knows well enough that it can’t simply rely on nostalgia, it has clearly innovated the controls and enemy design to keep the game fresh yet familiar at the same time.

This rather brisk game is, at least for me, a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch as you can treat it like an arcade game of old. Turn it on at any time and play as you like, if you’re with a friend, split a JoyCon with him to see how well you two can cooperate or cause each other to fail. At a price of a little over 30 USD, it’s a nice pickup without being too heavy on your budget.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn brings retro gaming to a new light, scoring a 4 / 5.

Available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.