Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Reviewed by Dyson Turner
Shonobi 3 without a doubt is one of the best games on the
market, when it came to Genesis games in the year 1993. With
all the graphical improvements it's hard to believe that
this was still the same game that I played on NES called
Shinobi. The graphics were leaps and bounds over the
original Shadow Dancer for Genesis and you just more options
and more things to do. My first impression of this game was
Wow! This was better than I heard, it was literal eye candy,
and one of Genesis's most finest efforts. The music in the
game, the sound and even the looked were all great, and
everything was perfectly inclined with everything else. The
story on this in my opinion was the finest of the series,
and it was truly inspirational it went along with everything
that happened.
Story 8.0/10
The story was great on this game and I'm a little sketchy on
details since it's been a while since I played this one.
Well your Shonibi the Ninja master, you are out to get your
revenge against a guy who killed your father. The guy who
killed your father was some time of a cyborg named Neo, he
was a mixture of all the best ninjas in the world and in the
past. He has also threatened to take over the world, and it
appears that no one could have stopped him. Shinobi
returned, and was going to put a stop to Neo's evil
treachery. You Shinobi must avenge your father's death, and
save the world. Not an easy task to say the least. This seem
to follow the typical plot of man revenging some one and
saving the world in the process, at least this is a good
game that can back up such a strong and over used story
line.
Graphics 10/10
The graphics on this game were drop dead gorgeous. You could
not have asked for better, Sega sure played their heart out
in this one, and put up a great game. The Shinobi sprite was
vastly large; he was way larger than he appeared on the
original Shinobi for Genesis. The en my size was about the
same as Shinobi for regular Ninja like enemies, and the
bosses were mostly large and highly detailed. The boss that
comes to my mind is the big robotic dragon you fought on one
of the later stages on the game. This guy was mega tough
though, and one of the hardest guys to fight in the game.
The sequences were you used your special skill, even though
most were brought over from Shadow dancer they looked better
than ever in this adaptation. The overall look of this game
was just better especially when you were riding the horse,
and the guys on the kites were in the background. The
graphics were the best feature in this entire game.
Sound 8.0/10
The music was good in this game, but I was expected more of
a feudal Japan Tenchu like music. This music was nice but
sounded more like generic side scroller music. Even though
it was some of the best and most memorable music on Genesis,
in my opinion it could have been better. Only during the
beginning of the game I felt that this music sounded
Japanese. The rest of the game was good, but could have been
better. The sound effects sounded great, and were vastly
improved ver the effects heard in games like swords clashing
and shurikin's being thrown. You heard a few voices form
Shinobi he sounded more like Axel from Streets of Rage. Some
of the bosses had voices as well, and they all had
distinctive screams when they died. I have to say the
majority of the music on this game was good and it
complimented the graphics well to make everything appear
better rounded than before.
Game Play 8.0/10
This game was for one player only. You controlled Shinobi
and he had most of him moves that were in Shadow Dancer. He
had his usually Shurikens and when you got a POW he could
use his sword when he ran out of Shurikens or was up close.
Besides the usually side scrolls you got to ride what
appeared to be a surfboard of some type. You got to ride a
horse as well; the controls were the same though. You had a
nice array of flips and you could climb up walls. Every
stage I think had a boss at the end and they all had
different technique or pattern to figure out before you
could beat them. You got Ninjitsu as well, which were the
same ones from Shadow Dancer. They all had valid uses like
and were great to use against bosses especially some of the
later ones. The difficulty on this game was intermediate and
their wasn't' a save or password feature.
Overall 9.0/10
This was a fabulous game and marred by nothing of the sort.
The only small problem I had with this one was the fact that
the replay value was significantly low. I'm talking real
low, to the point where if that you picked this one up once
or twice after you beat it That's saying a whole lot. The
fun factor was pretty high during initial play through,
since you had more moves and techniques than the ones you
had in Shadow Dancer. The low replay value is the only
downer on this other wise good game. The only other small
problem I had with this one is the fact that the music
didn't sound Japanese enough, that is just from a nit picker
stand point. For the most part though this music is better
than most of the genesis games that were out at the time. If
you still got your Genesis and your looking for a good one,
you can't go wrong with Shinobi 3, any fan of games like
Tenchu or the Ninja Gaiden series will find this just as great.
OR
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