Retronomicon 12.02.09: Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master

Posted by Lee Price on 12.02.2009

The Retronomicon slips back into stealth mode this week, taking on the role of a Ninja master as he attempts to bring down an evil corporation thought to have been destroyed. So get practicing those Ninjitsu techniques as this week the Retronomicon looks at Shinobi III.

Hiya guys and gals and welcome to your weekly slice of retro goodness from the good folks at 411, the Retronomicon. I am your host Lee Price and I have decided that there is no better way to celebrate the run up to Christmas than to look at a game starring figures who were historically meant to be difficult to notice, something I hope to achieve when it comes time to be handing out presents. Anyway, my gaming this week has been pretty much taken up by playing Final Fantasy VI. I've had the game for a good while but have never really gotten down to giving it a full play through so after last week's look at Final Fantasy VII I figured I'd give FFVI a play through and make my own judgment as to which is best. I'm definitely liking the more quirky sense of humor, though the game hasn't wowed me in any particular way just yet. I also finished Modern Warfare and I loved the game from start to finish. But enough about all that because you didn't come here to read about my gaming habits. So welcome to the...






Comments

As expected last week's entry for Final Fantasy VII generated a fair few comments so let's get cracking. Space constraints means I'll be skipping a few comments this week. There were a few stressing the need for an HD remake for the game;

Guest#0580 - They really have to remake in HD, look at Sephiroth, he looks like a lego man.

Michael Tyner - I would SOOOOO play an HD update of this game!

After not having the money to keep a gaming hobby the past several years (my PS2 burned out in 07), I recently purchased a 360. So I decided to trade in the old PS1 and PS2 games I still had, one of them being a copy of FF7 in perfect packaging with both booklets; they paid me $30 for that alone, and sat it on their shelf $42.99 before I was gone.

I agree with both of you here, though I'm not holding my breath for one. I just know I'd instantly snap it up if such a remake were to be released.

Now we have AG Awesome;

Amazing write up, though a few spoilers that went unmarked... Also left out the PSN release again! LOL.

I never played the game before because I always hated turn based games, but when it came out on the PSN i picked it up so Id have a fantastic handheld RPG to play on the PSP. Still haven't gotten to play it much, but I am really enjoying it.

Keep up the great work!

How about a Conker review? That game hasn't had much retro love lately.

Apologies for the spoilers, I should really have marked them out but it just slipped my mind. And what is it with me and forgetting PSN releases? This week I will definitely remember the Virtual Console release. As for Conker's, it will come one day, I just kinda have to play the game properly first.

Here's Madcapunlimited

I hear a lot of people complain about the graphics of this game, but if you look at the series chronologically it is definitely a step up from VI (it's actually the logical half-step between VI & VIII), also-- the blocky figures show that it was clearly developed with the N64 in mind originally.

That said, the sheer number of haters show just how long lasting this games influence has been. The numbers on PSN show it as well. Is it better than MGS or even other RPGs on PS1? I think the times have moved beyond that question.

You can't really argue Pac-Man is better than Space Invaders... well, you could but it would be pointless. Both are classics and at this point the conversation doesn't really proceed past that. The same is quickly becoming true of the truly great PS1 games (FFVII, MGS, Soul Reaver, Resident Evil 2)

The real question for Square is: when they heck are they going to release Bushido Blade on PSN? Hell, a new version of that game would be pretty fresh if they released it now too.

I agree in some respects, the whole "this is better than that" thing really does seem to fade with time and the ability to look back at a game without its hype machine is a big part of that I feel. As for Bushido Blade, yes please!

And I wouldn't say its so much complaining about the graphics, more so that the game has such a fanbase that they really want to see what the FFVII world with today's graphical standards would look like.

Next up we have guest

Probably the most overrated game of all time.

Influential, but for the wrong reasons. It had an huge hand in convincing the great unwashed that graphics over gameplay was a virtue, and that the same storyline of every rpg ever made is somehow fresh when you kill one of the party in fmv.

Oh, and Tenchu didn't really beat MGS to the punch all that much. Maybe by a week or two?

They were reviewed in the same issue of PSM, and MGS had already been hyped in its development for a looong time.

I'd contend that the game helped accentuate the positives of having great graphics to go with a great story. And yes, I do believe the game has a great story. Any game's plot can be broken down to the absolute basics so that you could say its the same as such and such, but I feel that does a disservice to the game. Obviously there are variations on many a previously used theme and the like, but that shouldn't detract from what is still a top notch story, especially for a computer game of that era.

We also see the return of Ultra Gepetto to the comments section;

FFVII without a doubt the most popular game in the franchise- however certainly not the best IMHO. I'd like to be a nerd and put in my 2 cents about this gaming phenomenon.

This is definitely the game that brought the RPG genre into the forefront here in the west, meaning it was probably the first game current RPG fans had ever played. FFVI I think was by far the best of the series but you'd be amazed by the amount of these "fans" that had never even bothered with playing it among other titles that really laid the groundwork for the genre here in the states like Secret of Mana, Earthbound, Dragon Quest and so forth.

Having said this, I think a lot of old school fans hate on the game because of the sudden rabid attention given to this title from all the new fans this game had produced. Look at any top 10 video game hero/villain lists and it will pretty much be topped by Cloud/Sephiroth almost every time. Personally I can't stand the Cloud character, or Squall for that matter. The brooding protagonist archetype with the heart of gold just bores the crap out of me and just makes the character irritating. Aside from this and very minor gripes, I thought the game was amazing. I liked the materia system, limit breaks, the world map was huge, storyline was pretty good- it truly is a great entry in the franchise. I guess the point I'm trying to make is although it's not my favorite FF I don't hate this game- I just hate the fans that make it the over hyped pinnacle of gaming that it has generally become known as.

I'd agree with you on the point that some old school RPG gamers have an unnatural hate towards the game because of its popularity. Unfortunately it is something that is common with any niche product once it becomes more mainstream. Final Fantasy VII is essentially the "sell out" point of the Final Fantasy series for some.

As for the old school RPGs on the SNES, my living in the UK posed a problem there, as few of these games saw a release (SNES copies of Secret of Mana go for nearly £100 these days which shows how well RPGs sold here). Its a testament to FFVII's success that Western gamers have the sheer volume of RPGs that we have these days.

Relayer71 put in their two cents, I'll just include a bit of his comment;

While not among my favorite FF games, I think this is certainly due more to the game aging poorly. The sprites of the SNES titles just have a cleaner, timeless look (that of course translate well to replays on the DS today) than the ugly low-poly models in FF VII and the low detail over world graphics.

"Final Fantasy VII can quite handily lay claim to being the first game to truly convey a cinematic experience in gaming form"

It definitely applies but I just realized that Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain was possibly released before FF VII and that game had amazing atmosphere and also felt truly cinematic with all the well done FMV, abundance of dialogue (all of it bloody (ha) well written too) a truly hypnotic soundtrack and a great story.

There were also two things that many fans give credit to FF VII for: "losing" a character in the game and it's futuristic setting. But the Phantasy Star series did both first and way before FF VII did.

I can see what you mean in some respects with the 2D graphics, though having said that I'm not a huge fan of FFVI's graphics in particular. They just don't feel as clean as some other RPGs of the era. Embarrassingly enough I have never played Blood Omen so I can't offer an opinion either way there, though I have heard very good things about it and will look to pick it up at some point. This, along with the Phantasy Star point is perhaps fuel for the debate of what is more important, the innovator or the popularizer, but we will leave that for another day.

And finally I apparently can't spell. At least according to MissyNEVERWearsSockswithShoes;

"You also have dodgy translations in some places ("This guy are sick!" anyone?)... ."
"However the company haven't shut the door on the possibility,"

LOL...should be "the company hasn't". Kinda ironic considering you mentioned the Engrish in the game. Other than that, though, GREAT article.

Hmm, as far as I'm aware both would be acceptable. After all I'm basically just saying "have not", so unless there's some sort of reason to use "has not" rather than "have not" in that context I'm a little in the dark here. But nevermind that, cheers for the compliment.

Anyways, enough from you guys, you all talk too much. Its time to strap on those rose-tinted specs because this week the Retronomicon looks at Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master.



The Background

SEGA had garnered some success with the Shinobi franchise already, with a number of titles already produced. The most notable of these were the original Shinobi arcade game, Revenge of Shinobi on the Genesis and Shadow Dancer (the arcade version, rather than the god awful home versions).

The franchise had gained a solid fanbase through the quality of these titles, especially Revenge of Shinobi which was a massive seller in the early days of the Genesis and has been included on a multitude of different compilation cartridges. So in 1992 SEGA decided that the time was ripe to release a direct sequel to Revenge of Shinobi, starring that game's main man Joe Musashi and the evil ZeeD Corporation that he had previously battled against.

A game was developed and preview, and in some cases review copies were sent out to most major publications. Then it disappeared. And for another year SEGA worked on the sequel, having been unhappy with the results of their first effort to the point where they felt the need to completely re-haul the game so that it would be almost unrecognizable to what they originally had planned. The resulting game was Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master.



The Game

When you first boot the cart up for Shinobi III you get an immediate idea of what to expect. Joe Musashi makes his presence known so you should be able to anticipate some ninja action, if you were a bit too dumb to guess this from the title of the game and box art. What you may not expect are some of the unique ways that SEGA had devised to challenge the last keeper of the Oboro Ninjitsu techniques.

The plot of the game is fairly simplistic, and not all too different from Revenge of Shinobi in all fairness. Neo ZeeD are back, but seeing as they had already killed Joe's master and kidnapped his fiance in Revenge of Shinobi, Joe needs no further encouragement than this and immediately sets off to destroy the group that he thought he had finished off three years previously.

However this isn't the same Neo ZeeD that Joe had faced all that time ago. They are now headed my a new and mysterious man known as the Shadow Master, who is reputed to be a far cry from the previous master of ZeeD that Joe had disposed of years earlier. Not only that, but the evil organization have put a bounty out on Joe's head to be paid to the person that can claim his life.

And... that's about it. But what do you expect? Its a platformer/side scrolling beat-em-up. You don't need a plot that extends too far beyond "Those guys are bad. Stab them in the face". All you need to know is that you are Joe Musashi, ninja extraordinaire and the last Shinobi. That makes it your job to destroy evil in all its forms when you feel it while meditating on your personal mountain in Japan. It doesn't matter that every bad guy in the country is now after your blood for personal gain, because you're a ninja and thus the proper response to bounty hunters and evil doers is to walk around stealthily then kill them. A lot.

So off you trot, into what is quite possibly the best Shinobi game that SEGA ever devised. Joe keeps much of his skills from previous games. You can still throw shurikens to keep your enemies at bay, or slash them with a sword if they get too close. You can still pull off the somersault shuriken throw that peppers the landscape with the sharp little buggers too, especially useful for extermination of large groups of rival ninjas.

But that's all the same stuff as you could do in Revenge of Shinobi right? Surely Joe had been practicing up on his mountain I hear you cry. Well fear not because Joe had indeed been practicing and SEGA saw fit to grant him with a plethora of new moves that he could use to dispose of the worst that Neo ZeeD had to throw at him. He could run for a start, which was an especially welcome feature and made the pace of previous Shinobi games seems almost pedestrian by comparison. Of course this could provide its problems if you went running willy nilly around because that tactic usually ended up with your skull being penetrated by a blade, but its still a useful little feature that helps the game flow much more silkily than previous Shinobi efforts The added pace also helped to create an increased sense of urgency as you make your way through the levels.

Joe has also developed some new offensive moves. Firstly there's the kick that can be performed in mid-air, providing you with attacking options beyond throwing your shurikens, especially useful in close quarters. There's also the running slash, another increased pace move put in by SEGA to emphasize the speedy focus that the company put on the game. The slash has the added incentive of making Joe invincible for a second or two, making it especially useful against bosses that may send an attack your way that is too quick to avoid. Finally amongst his basic arsenal Joe also now has the ability to scale walls via quick jumps, a technique that requires the player to have pin point timing lest they let Joe fall to his death (or at least back to the floor).

This is all without mentioning the fabled Ninjitsu techniques. Joe once again has four of them. The Jitsu of Ikazuchi, essentially a web of electricity which surrounds Joe and protects him from the blows of his enemies. The Jitsu of Kariu basically involves Joe shooting dragons made out of fire at his enemies and is capable of killing any regular mooks as well as damaging the bosses. The Jitsu of Fushin essentially make Joe a little more athletic so he can jump higher. And finally there's the most spectacular and suicidal ninjitsu technique, the Jitsu of Mijin, in which Joe plunges his sword into the ground and explodes, taking most of his enemies with him and losing a life in the process.

So as you can see, SEGA weren't just looking to make Revenge of Shinobi 2. Despite being a direct sequel to the game, SEGA switched the emphasis from difficult gameplay to speedier gameplay, and in doing so upped the tension felt throughout the game and gave it a much less relaxed pace then had been present before. The added attacking moves also lent the game a new layer of depth and provided you with a number of new ways to dispatch your foes. It was essential that you master all of these moves as well as coordinating your limited stock of ninjitsu attacks and using them in the correct places if you had any intention of beating the game on the top difficulty.



The level design in Shinobi III was second to none, and played a part in making this the classic title that it became. SEGA had created interesting levels in the Shinobi series before, ranging from planes to scrapyards, but Shinobi III took that to new lengths. Joe must battle through beautifully drawn forests, caves and even munitions labs and biological warfare labs, fending off wave after wave of attackers. But none of these are the highlights in Shinobi III. Two levels involve taking Joe to places that he hadn't been before. These were also two of the levels that were added into the game after SEGA decided to revamp the whole thing so close to release.

They are, of course, the horseback level and the surfing level. These two levels alone put Shinobi III on a higher plateau than previous Shinobi titles as they added a much needed variety to the usual platforming and shuriken throwing. If executed poorly they would serve to distract from a good game, but luckily the levels were handled superbly, providing a perfect amount of challenge and getting the adrenaline flowing in all the right places. They would have felt out of place in Revenge of Shinobi, but the faster tempo set by Shinobi III was the perfect place for SEGA to include these high octane levels.

One of the most memorable aspects of a Shinobi game has always been the bosses. Revenge of Shinobi had you fighting against Spiderman, Batman and a mechanical T-Rex at various points so Shinobi III had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately the bosses in this game weren't quite so memorable, with many of them simply being remixes of bosses previously seen in the series. The exceptions to this were the hideous Hydra at the end of the biological weapons lab level, and the main villain and new head of Neo ZeeD, the shadow master.

The Hydra was a disgusting figure. Just look at the picture above to get a feel for what it looked like. The monster spends the entire level taking pot shots at you before finally revealing itself in all its hideous glory and taking up half of the screen while doing so. He's probably the most memorable beastie that you will fight in Shinobi III, but he isn't the most difficult. That honor goes to the Shadow Master. Not only is he an equal for your ninja skills, but he was also apparently taking notes from Street Fighter II as well because once you damage him enough so that he stops copying your techniques, he decides to take a page out of Ryu and Ken's books and start spamming you with Dragon Punches and Fireballs. He is a boss that can stand up to any in the Shinobi series, and his difficulty is shown by the fact that the last boss of Revenge of Shinobi is present as the boss of the previous level and he is a cake walk in comparison to the Shadow Master. SEGA really did manage to come up with a worthy final boss, something many games of today would do well to learn from, and the sense of satisfaction upon finally topping the Shadow Master and destroying ZeeD once and for all is immense.

The gameplay wasn't the only aspect that had been massively improved. The graphics for Shinobi III were stunning. Levels looked gorgeous, and all of the bosses looked suitably evil and imposing. Best of all was the added effort taken on Joe himself. His ninja outfit was much better designed and the increased size and detail of his sprite made him look almost a new man when compared to his previous incarnation. Add to that the smoother animation that was a requirement for the fast paced gameplay and you have the closest that SEGA had come to capturing the feel of being a ninja who is as fast as the breeze and able to kill you in a heartbeat up to that point.

Joe's animation is such a step up that he can quite handily compete with the Sonics and Aladdins of the Genesis world in terms of quality and smoothness. It is almost like SEGA took a leaf from their own pages when it came to increasing the speed of the game, and everything has been paced perfectly so that you don't go running into everything at the new high pace, and if you do its because you're simply not good enough. Joe is just a joy to handle compared to the static version of him in Revenge of Shinobi, and the return effect is that Shinobi III almost feels like an entirely different beast altogether.

Yuzo Koshiro returns to compose the sound for the game as well, and this is immediately evident as there are few, if any, who could get as much out of the Genesis sound chip as Koshiro. The music in the game is top notch. High octane when it needs to be and subdued and stealthy when Joe isn't making as much noise. Everything matches perfectly, and the track is good enough that it can rival Koshiro's efforts with Streets of Rage and Revenge of Shinobi, though it probably doesn't top either

So the main thing to know with Shinobi III is that it is an evolution of the Shinobi franchise. No longer is our hero a slow and steady ninja who dispatches all in his path in an extremely calm manner. In his place is an adrenaline junkie ninja who dispatches all in his path with unbounded style. While both gameplay styles have their place, and Revenge of Shinobi at the very least will get a Retronomicon entry as well, the previous titles in the series can't match the adrenaline rush of fighting off hordes of opposing ninja while surfing and making jumps. The game did sacrifice some difficulty, angering some Shinobi purists in doing so, but the trade off is justified and Shinobi III is perhaps rightly considered by many to be the best game in the entire series.



The Aftermath

Shinobi III was released to pretty much universal critical acclaim, with most publications giving it very high marks. There was barely a flaw in the game and it is possibly the closest SEGA have come to perfection in the Shinobi series. Having said that, it never gained the following that Revenge of Shinobi did. Perhaps this is due to a preference of some for the slower and more refined gameplay of Revenge, or perhaps SEGA simply didn't market the game as much. After all you didn't see Shinobi III on multi game carts.

In the end the point is irrelevant as both games are class acts. The Shinobi series after this game has faltered, making Shinobi III the high water mark of the franchise thus far. Shinobi X on the SEGA Saturn is possible the definition of a Marmite game. You either love it or hate it. The later 3D iterations of the series have fared pretty poorly in comparison to its 2D heyday. Having said that, Joe Musashi did make his return in Shinobi on the PS2, though in the form of a secret character.

The unreleased version of the game is also doing the rounds, and has a lot to offer in its own right, with a number of different levels, enemies and even techniques on hand for fans of the series to get to grips with. Check out a video of the game HERE and see if you can make your mind up as to which you would prefer.

The Final Word

So there you have it. Debatably the greatest Shinobi game to ever be released, its only real competition being its predecessors rather than any of its successors. Shinobi III is a thrill ride from start to finish and is beautifully designed at every point so that it is easy to see where the extra development time went. Playing this directly after playing Revenge of Shinobi is the best way to see the marked difference in gameplay between the two.

The Price is Right

Shinobi III saw release on the Genesis, but I will also remember this week to include the Virtual Console price, something I've been forgetting to do in recent weeks. As usual higher prices for better packaging;

UK

Genesis - Wildly fluctuating prices abound on eBay. Look to spend around £20.
Virtual Console - 800 Points.

US

Genesis - $10 – 30.
Virtual Console - 800 Points.

The Guy Who Can do it Better Than You

OK this week we have a pretty cool boss run through all the major baddies of Shinobi III.



Enjoy and catch you all next week.