Shinobi

Shinobi arcade marquee.

Shinobi is a cross between a platform shooter and beat 'em up with a ninja theme developed and published by Sega for the arcade in 1987-11-16. It was built for the System 16 board and then ported to the majority of platforms of the day, though, strangely, not the Genesis. In the game, you play the ninja Joe Musashi who must fight his way through various stages rescuing hostage children who have been kidnapped by a terrorist organization named Zeed.

Personal

My first memory of Shinobi was at the arcade room in Lakeland Arena in the late 1980s. Since my parents never game me quarters, I never played it myself, but I enjoyed watching other people play it. I thought the game looked pretty cool, but nobody who played it ever got very far into the game. Very rarely someone would beat the first boss, and only once did I ever see someone beat the bonus round. Years later, with the help of MAME, I was able to play the game through using freeplay. I now see it as an important platformer, but not all that interesting.

I do not own any of the port and haven't beat any.

Review

4	4	7	6	4

Best Version: Arcade

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game is technically advanced for the day.
• The graphics and animation are well made.
• Yasuhiro Kawakami composed a good soundtrack for the game.
• Ninjas were really popular in the late 1980s, and this game delivered. There are ninja stars, swords, guns, and scary Japanese bosses, etc. The various ninja magic animations are especially cool.
• I like that merely touching an enemy doesn't kill you like so many other games at the time.
• The depth mechanic where you can jump from the background to the foreground is a cool trick and it makes the stages more interesting.
• One of the Marilyn Monroe posters has an oddly-placed mole as a joke.

Bad

• Only being able to take a single hit before dying isn't unusual for an 80s action game, but it's still pretty ridiculous.

Ugly

• Like most arcade games, Shinobi is meant to eat quarters. In the later stages, the game play becomes extremely unfair. There are all sorts of enemies that dart across the screen faster than most players can react requiring dozens of failed play-throughs before you can memorize the game.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Arcade marquee.

• Shinobi - SMS - EU.jpg

  Sega Master System, all regions.

• 

  North American Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS.

• Shinobi - C64 - EU.jpg

  European Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum.

• 

  MSX in Japan, and some European regions.

• 

  North America, NES.

• 

  PC Engine, Japan.

Documentation

• Shinobi - ARC - Manual.pdf

  Manual - Arcade.

• Shinobi - SMS - Manual.pdf

  Manual - Master System - USA.

• Shinobi - SMS - EU - Manual.pdf

  Manual - Master System - Europe.

• Shinobi - NES - Manual.pdf

  Manual - NES.

• Shinobi - ARC - Ad.jpg

  Advertisement - Arcade.

Maps

• 

  ZX Spectrum.

• Arcade
• Master System

Graphics

• spriters-resource.com/arcade/shinobi - Arcade.
• spriters-resource.com/nes/shinobi - NES
• spriters-resource.com/master_system/shinobi - Master System.
• spriters-resource.com/amstrad_cpc/shinobi - Amstrad CPC.

Videos

Longplay - Arcade.

Longplay - NES.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Pass	Everyone is Japanese.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Shadowgate
Japanese	忍	Shinobu	Ninja

Links