There's an undeniable visual flair on show here, but despite trying various levels of the 3D effect the precise positioning of pickups always seems elusive - which seems to rather argue against the whole idea of 3D.
Shinobi's combat is quick and changeable enough to remain enjoyable, but next to something like The Dishwasher this is simple fare indeed - combos are a matter of mashing the same button, stealth kills are entirely scripted, and the magic system is an afterthought.Ĭertain sequences move away from the core 2D play, typically featuring Shinobi riding something fast into the screen. It makes clear how rote everything about Shinobi's design is: what you first play as trial-and-error quickly becomes a game of Simon Says - jump here, throw there, parry now. As frustrating as the platforming is, and it is very frustrating indeed, this constant replaying of previously cleared sections is the real twist of the knife. Shinobi's stages are split up into anything from three to five sizeable sections, for which you have five lives on Normal difficulty - a continue puts you back at the start of the gauntlet. It becomes almost comical how cheap this gets.
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Until the later levels, that is, where it seems most jumps come with a free henchman waiting to knock you into the pit o' doom. The momentum of the character is never quite right for these intricate timing tests, and the wall-jump proves quite the trick to master, but you can just about learn to fudge through.Ī grappling hook is used for basic platforming tasks, but it's a strictly limited tool - even though, on occasion, it's used in scripted combat sequences.
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Shinobi's leap has more vertical lift than horizontal movement, so despite a double-jump that rescues some situations, the platforming is a series of misjudgements waiting to happen. This is not a game built for platforming, but there is an awful lot of platforming - most of which, it has to be said, seems to be re-textured from a bare few templates. You will rarely die from combat in Shinobi instead, your allegedly universe-conquering ninja will fall soundlessly to his death, again and again. But a stiff challenge is not always the same as a fair challenge, especially when mixed with unnecessarily stingy checkpointing. A defining characteristic of the series, and one this game clearly aspires to, is a stiff challenge. In straight fights, it's a clinical and satisfying tool, a trigger that lends a Zen-like calm to the most frenetic encounters.īut the further Shinobi gets, the more it messes things up. The parry is a quick press of the 'R' shoulder button, which you can remap to another button for preference, and which deflects incoming attacks in a generous timing window. Up close, it can work brilliantly: fast, fluid slices through enemy after enemy with perfect blocks leading to devastating counters. It's clearly intended as a kind of homage to the years of Shinobi 3, from the reworked blocking mechanic to a rather dated (and repeated) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gag.
But what it does most is flutter around it, prioritising repetitive platforming and boring distance combat over what proves to be its only real strength. This man-to-man combat is what Shinobi 3DS does best.
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