izigame.me

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn, to get the gameplay description out of the way, is an action platformer. It is a decent game, I want to stress it is OKAY, but it does have some glaring issues regarding being annoying for no reason and not utilizing core features and some quality of life to a degree a game should if it's going to demand excellence from players on a gameplay level.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is a remake of an NES action game that, frankly, is a much different game. The new game emphasizes items that you can purchase if you can clear stages with those items still on your person. This asks players to be able to win with their standard kit in specific stages, without using items, so that they can place items in the store. From there, the game puts great incentive on getting a high score, your best score in Arcade Mode, the main game, becomes the budget you have to buy items for your future runs in Arcade Mode AND in the Time Attack Mode.

I don't think the "depth" of having to purposefully offload items is really interesting, it would be more interesting to narrow down how much of an item you need, like actual strategy would suggest, and then make your run even more precise. Instead, there's a lot of fluff in making the controls and gameplay "busy" in uninteresting or needless ways at times.

This game is an acquired taste, it's decent, but not really a great remake in the sense of bringing some of the cool qualities of the original into a modern setting. Shadow of the Ninja Reborn opts to be a Score and Time Attack based game, compared to the original's basic and, I'd argue, extremely elegant design. So a major issue is that the game doesn't really do enough with the two characters and difficulty modes in spite of adding these new modes. The problem this ultimately poses to players is that you have to be okay with designer indulgences that leave you bearing the brunt of any issues of the core design relative to some of the game's rough spots. And boy is there one really unnecessary and stupid rough spot.

To get the worst of this game's problems out of the way, I think it leaves a lot to be desired as a remake, and in this regard I view it as a failure. But it is fun if you play it in very specific ways. For instance, if you play as Hayate, and not Kaede, the system inevitably shines. As long as you don't mind a few failures along the way and some challenging gameplay. Spacing, pattern recognition, rhythm... the game will test you.

Something players will face is the fact that your character will grab ledges, ladders, overhangs and other surfaces automatically, while also having techniques such as hovering or wall runs that require you to rapidly mash buttons. If your hands hurt from repetitive motion, this may be a deal breaker depending on how invested you want to be with the game.

The severe flaw I alluded to relates to the two characters. In the original Shadow of the Ninja, both characters function exactly the same. While they didn't have differences, one character wasn't worse in an arbitrary and stupid way. Yes, that's the problem. Unlike Ninja Warriors Once Again/Ninja Saviours, nothing really sets Kaede apart from Hayate. Their kits are standardized, she just runs faster on the ground and jumps slightly higher, but at the cost of any momentum she has slamming to a crawl the instant she takes to the air.

And so it goes, the brunt of my negative feelings about the game have to do with difficulty decisions the designers made to force errors, coupled with the fact that if you play as Kaede, you're just playing a really unfun character. I don't think a game that demands this kind of excellence in platforming or, at the very least, the attention span and challenge Shadow of the Ninja Reborn requires, should have a character like this. When I see elements in the game like how certain hitboxes require absolute precision in this asinine way, it means a lot of the depth, and Kaede is the biggest offender here, is just marketing flourish. It's the kind of thing you can read on a list of taglines, but actually playing the game can be an extremely annoying experience.

This means that if you play co-op and have to play as Kaede, you're getting the shitty character. I can think of really minute and specific reasons to justify her design, but for a game that pulls no punches in its platforming, I see no reason to be charitable. This is an awful character and an awful decision for a platformer with huge vertical segments that require split decision making, on top of precise strategy and movement, to make. It's trash.

The difficulty in the game doesn't really feel meaningfully applied in this sense. It's indulgent. There are many challenges in the game that are platform based that just do not change with the difficulty and this game really won't shy away from knowledge checking you. Stage 5 can be absolute hell if you don't understand what's happening. So if you're using Kaede, her limited air momentum and mobility makes the game's challenges and difficulty more severe than they should be, because she'll often be behind on timing cycles or struggle in a lot of situations that Hayate just doesn't. In Stage 5, her slow movement opens her up to being shot unless you really have the game memorized.

Kaede doesn't have her own categories in Score or Time Attack... that means there's even less reason to play her than there already was being some kind of picky, top tier enjoyer and nerd, I think that her jump momentum working the way it does is just lazy and cheap. It's such a bad mistake, I cannot stop harping about it. I want to be clear that it is the largest criticism I have against the game. She is not all that rewarding to use and, in some contexts, she never will be relative to another character.

This may not bother you!

So the good? Well, I can play as Hayate! I quite like the character Hayate. He's really fun to play, but I spent my first 22 or so hours on stream and off playing as Kaede trying to iron out if she actually had much going for her. If you're playing casually, for score or for time, I think Hayate is a solid pick. He best exemplifies the system and the "Super Realism" concept of weighty moves the game has.

So what it boils down to, to me, is that this game is just not that good if you are taking the brunt of its flaws. This game is not like other platforming games in the sense that it wants to emphasize its animations and create a strategic experience that, while unique, I think asks much of the player that it doesn't earn out of players. If the game was going to be this difficult, I think Normal Mode should have been put to better purpose and, in my mind, represent the design of the original game a little more closely. To show the appeal of the game before forcing players to engage with its item management concept.

Despite my negativity, I feel like this is one of the best looking and sounding games I've played. That's to be expected from Tengo Project. I think the gameplay can be snappy and varied. I bet the game would even be fun with another player, but take note that if you play on co-op mode the game defaults to hard mode difficulty as a consequence and that I think is, yet again, something that Tengo Project still hasn't learned to do correctly.

With massive caveats. While I think the game has a lot of problems, a LOT of problems, it's decent. It's your typical Tengo Project experience, I just think that while their remakes are becoming what I expect and sometimes better in ways, this game has a lot of slip ups that I won't ignore anymore. They need to do difficulty much better, and a waste of space character is a complete joke. If you can forgive that, you're in for some fun provided the demanding control scheme isn't a turn off.