Shinobi was one of the most popular arcade games of the 80s. Ninjas were all the rage and Sega were quick to capitalize on that with this massive arcade hit. As great as it was in the arcade many anticipated a home port rather than spending a king’s ransom on the arcade game. And unfortunately your options were not that great in the US. The Master System version might as well have been a completely new title loosely based on the arcade. The less said about Tengen’s NES version the better. But in Japan the PC Engine received an excellent port that, while missing content, was probably the closest to the arcade for a long time.
Shinobi’s story is incredibly simple. The criminal organization known as Zeed have been kidnapping children all around the world and Joe Musashi is here to save the day. Shinobi was just in time to cash in on the ninja craze of the 80s and incredibly successful. It was also a decent clone of Namco’s Rolling Thunder with just enough differences to avoid court proceedings. Who would have thought Sega and Namco were copying each other long before the early 90s?
The most striking aspect of Shinobi is its look. All of the various ports of Shinobi suffered greatly in one area or another. The PC Engine game adheres to the look of the arcade better than most other versions. It loses out in terms of detail and missing parallax scrolling but is otherwise surprisingly faithful. The large sprites and animation are near identical which comes as no surprise as that is where the system excelled. It also has almost all of the music but none of the digitized speech. There is some missing content but otherwise this was the version to beat for the longest time.
For those not familiar Shinobi is closest to Namco’s Rolling Thunder in terms of its design. Enemies are meticulously placed as you go about rescuing the kidnapped children in each stage. You won’t be ducking behind doors for a breather but will jump between two planes to avoid enemies and such. Both games have a similar pace although the home version eliminates the clock. Because Joe is a fragile protagonist who gains no extra weapons Shinobi relied on strict memorization for survival. In that regard the game’s level design was exemplary. It regularly tempts you with children out in the open only to spawn a group of enemies seconds later. Many situations seem impossible but if you exploit its mechanics are easy to circumvent. But it is still an arcade game and as such is ruthlessly difficult.
While it is mostly faithful to the arcade the PC Engine version of Shinobi is both missing content and slightly changes others. There are no melee attacks which doesn’t alter the game as much as you think. The entirety of stage two is missing, including the cool but harrowing boss battle against the helicopter full of ninjas. The boss of stage three is no longer a group of rotating statues. Instead they are a single row and approach in single file. The most egregious cut however is the loss of the awesome shooting gallery mini-game. Ask almost anyone about Shinobi and they will more than likely say either the difficulty or the bonus round. Its absence robs the game of both a cool extra and the opportunity to earn extra lives, which you’ll desperately need.
Shinobi is an arcade game first and foremost. That fact is reinforced by its near impossible difficulty. This is the type of title that punishes you whenever you treat it as a typical action title. Shinobi is the type of game that rewards slow, methodical progress. But even that has its share of frustration. Enemy placement is deliberate but the game still has way more gotcha moments than I like. For a game with no life bar it is unfair to spawn four to five enemies at once with no warning. Couple that with the lack of checkpoints and I can see many quitting out of anger. There is a lot of great content in Shinobi but the journey to get good enough to see it all is fraught with frustration. This is the type of game that could have used some adjustments for the home market.
In Closing
High difficulty aside Shinobi is a solid port of the arcade game. Of the many Sega ports to the PC Engine Shinobi is one of the better ones. But it still lags behind many of the dedicated action titles for the system.
