Shinobi Review

Despite being a franchise that developed a considerable following throughout the 1990s, we haven't seen an original Shinobi title since 2003, when it appeared under the name of Nightshade. Now some eight years later, and with the arrival of the Nintendo 3DS, Sega decided the time was right to bring this franchise back into the spotlight. And so sees the release of the fourth title in the franchise to receive the name Shinobi, only this time it's in 3D.

Unlike many of the previous games, the protagonist is no longer Joe Musashi, but Jiro Musashi, his father. The story takes place in the past, but as Jiro tries to protect himself from some seriously powerful magic, he gets inadvertently transported into the future – a future where he bad guys won. From here, he attempts to set the record straight, by bringing down the Zeed.

The story is a little bit confusing due to its delivery. While the cutscenes that take place during levels are pretty cool, they don't do a fantastic job of conveying what is actually going on and you may be left with many questions once you complete the game. Still, it's not all bad, as while it's nice there is a story, this game is all about the action.

Shinobi 3DS goes back to the series' roots by opting to return to 2D, well 2.5D. This means it's primarily a side-scrolling affair, and it's also a rather unforgiving one at that.

As a ninja, you have varying levels of movement and attacks. These range from numerous combos with your sword, the throwing of kunai and various jumps, dodges, ducks and parries.

Despite having a simple premise, the amount of things you can do is rather impressive. Depending on your situation, you'll be able to do different things and you can combine many of the different elements to make a free-flowing path of destruction through the game's levels.

If there's one thing the game makes a core focus, it's precision. And this can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing. In the previous 2D Shinobi titles, you were able to sustain a block, but in Shinobi 3DS, you can only parry. The good thing here is that you can literally parry at any time – no matter what you're doing. If you're half way through a sword combo, but there's an incoming shuriken… parry. If you're flying through the air with a bazooka missile coming at you… parry. If you've just parried something and something else happens, you've guessed it, you can parry. The developers also introduced a nice touch whereby, if something has multiple attacks, it'll parry all of them as long as you parry the first one.