Developer: Sega Publisher: Vik Tokai Released: 1995 Genre: Action
Shinobi III is one of the greatest action games of the 16-bit era. Sega practically mastered the genre with that game and even to this day I still revisit it often. All they had to do to continue that streak in the 32-bit era was take that exact gameplay and spice it up with some ridiculous 2d graphics. The thought of what that game could have been haunts me. Well they did do something ridiculous and that was make a FMV action platformer. As odd as that may sound it largely works. Shinobi Legions is an odd duck that turn away some but is pretty good overall, weird premise and all.
The first things you will notice are the graphics. Shinobi Legions uses digitized sprites for its characters and the effect is jarring to say the least. The sprites themselves look pretty good and they have definitely put effort into their various costumes and such. As cheap as they often look there is still decent enemy variety throughout the game. But the animation is rough and looks wooden. While the human enemies look good whenever demons or animals show up they look goofy. The dinosaur in the bio lab looks like someone is moving it with a Popsicle stick. The bat demon that follows after looks just as bad. Someone on the team must have known this as these elements are-minimal.
The backgrounds are possibly the best aspect of the game’s presentation but that comes with a few caveats too. They are often photo real and are exceptionally impressive. But because of this you lose the fantastic art and creative locations of the later titles. Prepare to spend most of the game in generic forests, temples, and cities. The digitized sprites do not often match up with the backgrounds, almost as though they are cut and pasted on top. I’ve made many digs at the game’s graphics but I can at the very least respect the effort made, even if I do not think it was worth it.
The choice to go with digitized sprites is both intriguing and baffling. The Saturn is a 2d powerhouse and would have had no problems pushing out a hand drawn ninja action that would have melted our eyeballs. Digitized sprites sounds like a project that might have been intended for the Sega CD or 32X. But the game was a victim of timing. By 1995 the market was sick of FMV games and digitized graphics. Sega of America would pass on Shinobi Legions and Vik Tokai would handle its release, which probably says a lot about their confidence in the game.
Shinobi Legions plays similarly to Shinobi III to an extent. The jump kick is no more but you can still dash, double jump, guard, and spray a rainbow of shuriken. There are separate buttons for shuriken and the katana now and with good reason. The focus in gameplay has shifted to relying mostly on the katana. Shuriken are slow and not too common. In addition most enemies will simply block them and they inflict little damage. Swordplay has been expanded with combo strikes, a spinning slash, a downward thrust attack and the ability to deflect almost every projectile. Ninja magic is largely gone unfortunately. Instead you can find two items that grant a more powerful sword strike or clones that protect from damage.
While it has the look Shinobi Legions does not have the exact feel of prior games. Whether it is the digitized sprites or not the controls overall are sluggish. It feels like there is a slight delay in all of your movements that, while you can adjust, never feels natural. The double jump that has always been finicky in prior games is even worse here. I’ve even had trouble wall jumping at times. Unfortunately later in the game some of these skills are called on heavily which makes the game frustrating.
Yet in spite of these flaws I could forgive Shinobi Legions if it had good level design. The stages are not so much poor as they are pandering to longtime fans of the series. You have your bio lab, Japanese temple, forest, and even another platforming sequence among boats on a river. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but they were all done better in the older games. Each level is one long stage rather than multiple smaller acts. This hurts the game as well since it does not have enough assets for these far too long levels. Not even the few cool boss battles can redeem the boring levels. Coming off such an incredible high in Shinobi III makes Shinobi Legions look worse.
In Conclusion
Shinobi Legions is not an outright bad game but is lacking. There are better action games for the Saturn to spend your money on before settling for this. Shinobi Legions in the end fails to live up the series sterling reputation.
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