There are not a lot of game titles that have had an appearance on almost every console generation I can think of. And a humble old 2D action platformer happens to be one of them. Shinobi is a series that started around 1987. That makes Joe Musashi, the original protagonist of the game series, more than viable to be a father now. And well, he kind of is. The last appearance of a Shinobi title on the market was around 14 years ago with its 3DS release, which definitely makes me want to check on my older consoles that may need to get carbon-dated at this point. But along with the development of technology, so did games try to keep up and push new technological possibilities to their limit. So after so long, what kind of innovation can we imagine to add to a game such as Shinobi? Is it going to be an open-world adventure like Elden Ring? Would it have crazy, strict combat like Sifu? Or maybe it’s a VR ninja experience? Technology has advanced quite a bit since that time, after all.

Well, turns out the developers decided that it was time to go back. Back off into the 2D realm! But not simply to regress into its older forms. We know that the old 2D Shinobi games were stiff and didn’t feel natural to watch. Shinobi – The Art of Vengeance takes back with it the lessons many developers have learned through time. Instead of making its traditional retro combat, it goes with a completely new format that works consistently across the game. It’s oddly a game that really lets me fight however I want instead of being forced to play in an intended way. On top of that, it has designed challenges and puzzles within the level design so well that I ended up playing a lot more than I had intended to.

 

 

 

It truly is a demonstration of artisanship when it comes to game quality. Even with tools or limitations placed upon them by the project’s scope, they were really able to make an admirable game. I commend Lizardcube’s creation for packing so much into what’s basically an action platformer game. So from here we’re going to look at the game in detail, so if you want to hear more, strap in, check your kunai and ninjutsu, it’s time for Joe to go for another run.

 

 

Production (4 / 5)

 

Shinobi – The Art of Vengeance is a 2D game with style; it doesn’t simply make high-quality sprites and put them on a background that doesn’t match. No, I’d have to say this game consistently looks closer to something between Ookami and Samurai Jack. It looks a lot like a fusion between Western and Eastern cartoon styles. Sometimes it looks like it’s an animated comic book, but with the action going wild, where fireballs are flying and Joe is flying through the air, the effects tend to have a more exaggerated ink brush effect to exaggerate the movement. So if you freeze frames, it looks like it’s a painting half the time. Sometimes the background gives you a parallax effect, where elements of the background move at separate rates. This gives you an illusion that you’re moving through a 3D space, but they do it in such a manner that the field you’re moving within is never hard to understand. 

Honestly, this reminds me a lot of MegaMan X4 and how they made some stages more interesting by applying this trick. They also make use of sprites that stick out well enough for you to see them and know what they are, but not so much that they’d clash with the environment to the point that it’s painful. Also, how it handles the camera is well done, as you always have everything important within view. They also have some good art direction that helps with conveying information to you. Of course, you want to avoid red things flying at you, and they’ve employed the good old palette swap to indicate stronger enemies. It’s nothing revolutionary, but how they’ve applied it to Shinobi is something I can appreciate.

The music is much like the visual style of Shinobi – The Art of Vengeance. It carries some sort of crossover between modern tech, traditional orchestral music, with some Japanese instruments thrown in for good measure. More Eastern motifs clearly inspire some of its theming, while others change it up according to the setting. And well, I liked it enough to think it matched the world of this game, which has ninjas that throw shurikens at each other, whilst having to fight against military men armed with guns, robots, and whatever might come out of a laboratory. What almost feels like a running joke is Joe Musashi’s voice acting, and well, it basically doesn’t exist. You see, Joe comes from a time where basically every protagonist never talked, and it looks like Lizardcube has no intention of breaking that lore here. Other characters, on the other hand, perform well and somehow can interpret Joe’s random grunts and hold full conversations with him. Can you imagine how dates went with his wife like this?

So yeah, it brings back old game designs without making the game feel old. Which I think is some praiseworthy work right there.

 

 

Mechanics (4 / 5)

 

Shinobi – The Art of Vengeance knows it’s an action platformer, so you jump around and attack enemies. I think we’re familiar with this song and dance, so let’s just leap to the highlights or what makes this game different.

You employ the usual ninja repertoire of moves such as double jumping, air-dashing, and wall-springing. Perhaps one trick that isn’t very common would be the ability to glide, which doubles as a floating ability when you get picked up by the wind. A lot of this, I doubt I have to go into detail about what these moves are, and they don’t really shine unless you’re actually playing the game, in my opinion. Though I’d like to add that the control responsiveness is great, I found automatic ledge-climbing extremely frustrating for one particular situation. And I’ll leave it there.

Combat is surprisingly satisfying, even the most basic enemies don’t quickly die in one strike, making it satisfying to make use of your light to heavy attack combos. They also managed to make the TTK (time to kill) of these enemies largely reasonable, with a few exceptions to what could be considered as mini-bosses.

You can also mix up your offense by making use of kunai or ninjitsu skills that have a variety of effects. One of them lets you throw a fireball, another one lets you slash across the screen through the air, and my particular favorite would be this shadow step attack that makes it pretty easy to chase enemies and extend combos. Yes, combos. It’s a little counter you see on the side of the screen, which not only makes me feel good about myself, as it indicates I’ve been hitting enemies without them being able to hit me back, kind of like Devil May Cry. It also interacts with your equipment, as some of them give you certain boosts so long as you can maintain a higher combo count. You can have bonus gold, more damage, and the ability to automatically replenish kunais, though you can only pick one.

 

 

 

The best part about this whole combo system is that it actually translates to almost all boss battles, so it really pays off to know how each of the attack moves works. How to trigger specific combos or attack types, when to use charge attacks, and how to cancel certain moves into a dodge so you can instantly chase down whoever you’re attacking. It’s rewarding to practice and know how to maximize your moveset.

Finally, the combat also has a sort of stun gauge, which fills as you hit vulnerable enemies. Those who have that full can be instantly killed with an assassination move. This could be handy for handling many enemies at the same time, and yes, it can be done against bosses as well. Those kill screens are a great highlight to end the fight. Actually, there are also stage-clear screens that look great. Really, there’s a lot of care that went into making Joe Musashi feel like the most badass ninja you’ve ever handled, and I’ve no complaints about it.

This title balances you being able to do whatever you want, so long as you can keep up with the pace of the game.

 

 

Content (4.5 / 5)

 

Shinobi – The Art of Vengeance designed its content in such a way that it segments a casual playthrough smoothly from a more completionist one. The onboarding ramp towards being closer to a completionist is very, very easy to get on.

The game separates itself into several stages, which you have to finish in order; some of them you can switch up, but in general, you’re expected to finish a certain set of stages before the next one. Each of them is capped off by a boss fight that feels different enough from everything else you encounter. I’d say the same for stages, as many of them have themes or gimmicks that separate them from each other. One of them might be a labyrinthine maze that can be tricky to figure out. Another one is a straight run where it’s hard to miss any secrets if you pay any attention at all. Others would make use of the new maneuvering you managed to get on that stage or somewhere prior. Then some places are- evil. I’ll get back to that one.

Many of the stages have their own design theme and unique gimmicks to them, but all of them tend to have a sort of Metroidvania flavor. With secrets to be found or places to be unlocked. Either only to be discovered by your observant eye or to be reached when later, when you have new ninja gear for it. There’s a lot to clue you in on that. The stage map that you can access at any time shades special areas in different colors, indicating that there might be something there for you to find. This is doubly reinforced by the information on stage select, telling you what optional objectives you haven’t completed yet. And those indicators, that incomplete percentage, that special map color, really compelled me to look into stages again when I believed I had what I needed.

It led me to combat challenges, hidden treasures that help you upgrade the in-game shop, and it also led me to Ankou Rifts, which is basically a hidden stage within that stage, to let you take on a platforming challenge. And let me tell you, I might have found combat rather fun and forgiving. But man, their platform challenges take me back to the days of Prinny and Super Meat Boy. And in case you have no idea what those are, let’s just say Dark Souls didn’t invent hard games; it just brought them back.

 

 

 

There’s a certain stage where you’re moving around a block, and what you have to pull off is not only very tight in terms of pixels, but also has subsequent timing windows that made me want to tear my hair out. Because most of these challenges don’t really have a halfway point, nor do they let you just get back up and continue from where you left off. If you missed a jump, air dash, wall climb, or whatever. Back to the very start for you. So, what are you likely to hold onto when you’re jumping towards a block about the same size as your character? That’s right, a ledge, and guess what automatically happens when Joe holds on to a ledge? He climbs it, onto the many obstacles I was trying to avoid in the first place. Even if I don’t, I end up wasting precious time trying to reposition and likely have to go back to the start for it. I wasted hours. Like I said, EVIL.

However, the rewards you get from completing them feel pretty good to have; it’s a lot like the relief I felt when I finally beat Margit from Elden Ring for the first time. It was relief, happiness, and maybe a bit of spite against the challenge itself.

The story is really just to serve as a signpost to point you in the right direction and give your characters a reason to fight on. Maybe also give the characters some context to further flesh out their respective stories. Otherwise, the real meat and potatoes you’ll have to play through would be the stages themselves, and the reasons to explore or return to them, as I’ve mentioned before. And to be honest, I think that’s quite plenty for a game like this.

 

 

Features (4 / 5)

 

After clearing the game, you get to visit another challenge, which is a boss rush, testing how you’ve mastered each of them and giving you a limited amount of recovery every time, meaning you’ll be carrying the momentum of your performance across fights. I think this is fine and kind of expected for a game like this. So I’m perfectly happy to see this added.

Next to that is an arcade mode for every stage, allowing you to challenge it in how fast you can clear it. Though I personally don’t see a lot of value in doing this.

I didn’t mention this before, but the Shinobi has voice-overs except for our big man Joe, who has turned random grunts into their own language. And those voice-overs come in Japanese and English dubs. Now, this could be just the old anime fan in me, but the Japanese voices don’t seem to match the characters all that well, or they sound around the same as many other characters I’ve heard before. Not that I’d call their acting bad, but I do find the campy English dub a better fit for the experience, personally. All of the ideas mixed into this game do make it feel like a world born of a boy’s imagination. And I think Lizardcube is well-aware of that, so they opted to have a script written that teeters on the line of self-parody without being too obvious about it.

 

 

Appeals of the Game

The people behind Shinobi: The Art of Vengeance have demonstrated that even with less advanced tools or setups, you can still make an attractive game. Working with restrictions can help define the identity of its final form. And I do think that this is the correct approach. Look at the top-selling games we’ve had for the past few years. The most popular ones tend to be simplified games that have a social aspect, like they’re almost offshoots of Minecraft. REPO, Content Warning, Schedule 1, Balatro, Peak, the list goes on.

They weren’t trying to create a huge open world that can offer theoretically infinite content; they aren’t games trying to get you to log in every day. They came with a specific idea, with a specific purpose, and with the intent that they could be finished and be left behind one day. And to top it all off? They cost so little compared to their market contemporaries. So you don’t feel cheated if the game is a little janky or different from the experience you had expected.

This Shinobi title is something like that; instead of expanding or experimenting, it returns to its roots, taking with it what they know works. They refined the experience to be something fun turned me, who was initially just a guy who was planning to zoom through the game and write a review on it, into a person who obsessively tried to clear as much of the game as possible. To the detriment of my sleep. And it’s what, 10 US Dollars on Steam? How can I not recommend this?

 

 

Possible Shortcomings

Now, if you’re used to Free-to-Play games that are excellent sinks for both time and money, you might find yourself shortchanged by a game you can probably clear in a day. And if you’re going for a challenge, maybe clear in a few hours. The way it’s designed is very much like older games that can probably be put on a speed run if people want to try. Honestly, that sounds interesting. But yeah, if game length is a big factor for you, this could be an issue. Though take it from me, just because a game doesn’t take you months to prepare for a banner or event or something, doesn’t make it hard to enjoy.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

I find my journey back to a more retro style of gaming pretty refreshing, to be honest. Thanks to the developers for smoothing out the rough edges of the more vintage style of gameplay. Making tight controls, making great quality of life additions like easy-to-understand maps, fast travel points within a stage to get you to challenge areas quickly, and enough gimmicks and new ideas to keep the game feeling fresh.

Things could get difficult, but they never felt impossible, and in the end, all I really had to do was learn to play better. And that’s what a good, challenging game should be. 14 years later and Shinobi’s still got it.

 

Shinobi: The Art of Vengeance scores 4 grunts out of 5 ninjas.

Available on PC, PS4/5, XB1/X, and Switch 1.