Shinobi 3DS review

Made2Game Shinobi review score: 6 out of 10
Format: Nintendo 3DS
Publisher: SEGA
Developer: Griptonite Games

The Shinobi series has never pandered to the notion of continuity. Making appearances on arcade cabinets, handhelds and home consoles, Sega’s ninja has also starred in what must be a record number of re-boots.

This Nintendo 3DS outing is actually the fourth entry in the series to bear the straightforward title of ‘Shinobi,’ but the game never feels like its own entity – it's more like a grab-bag of past successes.

Ultimately though, the biggest disappointment is how Shinobi struggles to match up to a game 18 years its senior.

In fact, Shinobi 3DS bears the most similarities to that very game, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master on the Mega Drive. Many of the enemies and settings are similar, and the core gameplay is much the same.

You’ll be throwing shruikens, performing wall jumps and battling numerous enemies with your sword, while you’re armed with a grappling hook, a floor slide and even some destructive super-powers which can destroy everything on-screen. Shinobi 3DS definitely can’t be faulted for the number of moves it gives you.

The move you’ll find yourself using the most is the block (triggered by the R button) though, which is a good indication of how much the game throws at you.

There’s an enemy at every turn, and on anything but the beginner difficulty level you’ll have to treat every foe as a significant obstacle. Any other approach is suicide.

Unfortunately, the level design just isn’t consistently captivating enough to make this a challenge you’ll relish tackling.

You’ll fight and leap through forests, lava caverns and laboratories, but there are few set stretches of levels that’ll live long in the memory. As a result you’ll get very tired of chopping down – or rather being chopped down by - the same enemies over and over again.

Instead the more frustrating elements – wall jumps that require millisecond-perfect timing, enemies placed in the cruellest of places – are what end up sticking in the mind.

So it’s up to two Shinobi staples - fast paced vehicle/minigame sections and brilliant boss battles – to save the day. Sadly, even these parts of Shinobi 3DS end up falling a little short, but they do at least attempt to mix things up.

The vehicle sections aren’t lacking in spectacle, with the level that sees you jumping from exploding vehicle to vehicle along a highway a brilliant idea on paper, but all too often these side attractions settle into a groove, seeing you repeat the same actions over and over again.

It perhaps says it all that the section which is ripped straight from the original Shinobi – a first person shooting gallery where you throw ninja stars at enemies that rush in from either side of the screen – works the best of all the minigames.

Boss battles also fall foul of repetition, and after a little trial and error it usually becomes far too easy to exploit their rigid attack patterns.

This means there's no chance for tense and spontaneous duels, and your large moveset often gets rejected in favour of you over-using two or three specific moves to claim victory.

It’s a real shame, as some of the end of stage foes had the potential to become truly brilliant spectacles in their own right.

What makes these problems the more irritating, however, is that there are actually several elements of Shinobi 3DS that actually work quite well.

The presentation is striking, with anime cutscenes linking levels together. You may have no idea what’s going on in terms of the plot, but they certainly catch the eye.

In terms of Shinobi 3DS's graphics, they’re basic but have a semi cel-shaded look that means they’re not completely hideous.

The 2.5D aesthetic is well used, and the 3D can occasionally provide some impressive depth to the busy background scenery, even if it this it's entirely cosmetic. For most of Shinobi, though, you'll be playing with the 3D slider placed in the off position.

Levels still manage to throw up some truly bizarre sights, such as brains leaping at you from jars and a shark somehow surviving falling into a sea of lava and becoming part of a level’s final boss.

On occasion Shinobi 3DS does strike the perfect balance between bonkers design and difficulty, but such moments feel far too fleeting.

Shinobi feels like a missed opportunity then, but for fans of rock-hard platforming action there are currently few other viable options on the Nintendo 3DS.

It’s just a shame that developers Griptonite Games have developed a game that feels more like a tribute to past Shinobi titles, rather than a experience that can stand on its own. Then again, perhaps that was the intention all along.

A serviceable but unremarkable attempt to carry on the Shinobi series, which uses its hardcore status a little too often to help mask its largely unoriginal level design.

Words by Simon Reed (Twitter: @ebtks)

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