Andrew Fisher (700) on 1/31/2024 8:32 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I first played arcade Shinobi outside a corner-shop around Xmas '88 so not that long after it came out, I was never good at arcade games at that time, but I liked the look of it. I played Shinobi at a local arcade a few years later when I was more practised and did much better, I made it about half-way through and still think it's one of the best ever arcade games. I was pretty disappointed with Sega Master System Shinobi, a neighbourhood friend had it and I didn't think it played or looked great, didn't like that they skimped on the music and left out two of the stage themes and a little thing, but I like that some games have separate stage clear and mission complete jingles, but Shinobi SMS just uses the mission complete music for stage clear (even though the ROM has one of the missing stage themes and stage clear, but neither are used in the game). The bosses aren't great, but two are particularly bad, Mandara is way too hard and Lobster is way too easy! We could only beat Mandara using a friend's joystick with autofire, holding down jump and fire, now I think at the arcade shooting each idol and the one above it alternately to make efficient use of the time before you're forced into the electrical field and killed is the best if not only strategy for beating Mandara and it can be done without autofire/autojump, not to mention that you can use ninja magic to damage all idols at once then destroy them well before they back you into electrocution, but I just yesterday realized there's a much easier way to beat him on the Master System, you don't need to alternate between idols, if you stand the right distance from the front-most/bottom-most idol and start firing, you'll shoot a steady stream of shots, no delays between, no hits wasted by landing while the idol is still spinning. It may still take time to get it right, but it's better by far than the alternating between idols strategy. Lobster the red Samurai, next mission's boss, is a joke, while you can get stuck having your shots blocked by his sword, he moves so slowly that you have so many chances to finally get a shot past his sword and once you do, keep up a steady rhythm of jump shots and you beat him easily. Lobster at the arcade charges towards you and it's much harder to get a shot past his guard before he reaches you. Then there's the bonus stages which on SMS leave little room for mistakes and take so much practice before you can regularly succeed and gain ninja magic, which might help you. Finally, you beat the Masked Ninja and are rewarded with a black "Game Over" screen. Thanks game. Would it have been too much to have the same ending message from the arcade, the stuff about unmasking the ninja to discover he's your old teacher and formed a terrorist organisation to take over Japan and restore a feudal system of samurai and ninja?(Other Shinobi home ports repeat this message at the end).

But lately I was thinking about arcade ports to Master System and how some ports were adapted to be a bit less arcade and more "home" i.e. longer, slower, more RPGish/adventure-gamish. Other home ports of Shinobi are at best poor imitations of the arcade, but the SMS has a life guage added and you collect power ups to add a pair of extra bars, a bit like RPG leveling up, which helps a lot as the game gets harder. Then there's the weapons power ups, extended beyond the gun and sword of the arcade and you keep the weapons after finishing a level. If you make it to the Masked Ninja with the chain and a long life guage you'll beat him much easier, you can use the level select cheat to go straight to the last stage, but you'll have minimum life guage and weapons, making it worth playing through the whole game to get to the final boss. If you're killed your life and weapons are completely reset, you can build your weapons back up, but if your life guage has like three quarters chopped off, you'd feel like you might as well start again. I think you should keep your life guage length when you die like in RPGs, would make it a lot more playable. I could almost say it's worth owning and playing both arcade and SMS Shinobi, you're getting something a little different on the SMS.