Shinobi (game gear)
Introduction
Shinobi was one of the first original games released with the game gear in 1991 after it had a big hit in the arcades and on the main sega consoles. People had no idea what it was going to be like for the hand held console, compared to the previous Shinobi games which as I mentioned had a big hit, so it was a big risk by sega to make it work on the game gear but their main rivals Nintendo hadn’t made a action/platform game for the game boy so it was a do or die by sega. But that’s enough of the boring bit lets get on with the interesting parts!
Story
Like a lot of games an evil villain comes in and threatens to take over, which is what happens here. The evil is based in neo city and has spread it self out in different areas around the city. Hearing this the ninjas from the Oboro School go out to try and find what is going on and try to stop it. But the evil is too powerful for them so they end up getting captured (surprise, surprise!) On hearing this news one more of the ninjas decides to go out and carry on this mission, he is the oldest and most powerful of them all, so he decides to go and rescue the captured ninjas first so they can team up and defeat the evil and return the peace to neo city once more.
Gameplay
The gameplay and picture quality were very basic considering the
quality the Game Gear had to offer, you could only walk jump and
attack but it did make up for the restrictions with the challenging
gameplay, and the techniques you can do as the ninjas, but I’ll get to
that part in a min. let me talk about what you had to do first of all. So as
I explained in the story there are 4 ninjas pink, blue, green, and yellow
which have been captured and located in different parts around the city
and in the city itself and the first objective is to rescue them. You don’t
have to do it in a particular order (just like the megaman series) but it
can be a bit easier if you get the easier ones first obviously! E.g. if you
have the yellow ninja it’s easier to free the blue one which I’ll explain in
a bit more detail. They all have different abilitys, the
pink ninja can throw
bombs and climb ceilings, the yellow one shoots energy beams and can
walk on water (just like a powerful Jesus!), the green one throws
ninja stars and can double jump and the blue one just has a grappling
hook so you can reach far away platforms (he defiantly got dealt the
worst hand when they were giving the ninja powers out that day).
Anyway each time you rescue one of the ninjas, you can switch
between them at anytime to help you complete the stages set before
you. Once you have rescued them all you go in to neo city itself to
destroy the evil that lurks there.
How it plays now
I personally love the game despite the very poor picture quality I still find it an addictive and slightly challenging game to play even to this very day. If you’re a fan of shinobi games or even just a fan of action platforming games in general, then I suggest you try tracking this game down and giving it a go.
Overall score
The shinobi series were popular back then and still is today, and this game is no different. If you want a great shinobi game, or just looking for a great game gear action platformer then look no further!
8/10
HAVE YOUR SAY!