The Revenge of Shinobi
Mega Cruel Game #8
Type of Game
Plenty of pop culture references, but you'll need to own four different versions to see them all.
Release date on our machines
October 1990, on the European Mega Drive—still just a baby, so cute, oh my gosh! Kissy kissy
Developer
SEGA Enterprises Ltd. It's kind of one of their flagship franchises, isn't it!
Publisher
SEGA Enterprises Ltd. Those who didn't know this was one of their flagship franchises should repent immediately!
The Revenge of Shinobi : available on the Nintendo Switch Online, section SEGA Genesis. It's on the Mega Drive Mini, too, BUT only in Asia, actually. Because who else in the world would want to play it again, huh? HUH? You bunch of jerks.
After Toejam & Earl and Dragon’s Fury, this might be the game by my neighbors Nelson and Mortimer Paprika that I’ve spent the most time on. Only the third one, yes, I admit it. Not cool for the game, but there’s a good reason for that. I found it insanely, ultra-super hard. Seriously, the boss of the first level gave me a harder time than a right-wing politician gives human rights a hard time. I’d end up on the ground, sliced to pieces by the enormous katana of that massive samurai in polychromatic armor. In my opinion, I used the word “polychromatic” incorrectly, but I’m going to leave it anyway—those who know the game will understand what I mean. I think I beat that big, color-changing giant only once. Yet he seems incredibly easy to take down in the various longplays I’ve seen. I’d eventually convinced myself that this Shinobi thing was one of those insurmountable challenges, even more hardcore than Super Ghouls’n Ghosts. Well, not really, it seems. That’s not going to help my self-esteem as a kid gamer. And then I had to give the cartridge back to the Paprika brothers, which really broke my little sensitive heart. But they always made up for it—for example, by lending me Moonwalker instead—so it’s all good. In any case, the first level of Revenge of Shinobi made such an impression on me that I spent a lot of time daydreaming about the rest of the adventure.
Bamboo Strike
I never really got around to finishing it on an emulator. So I might as well ruin it all by writing about it. Maybe I was too scared to face the boss again. Maybe I just wanted to stay in that dark bamboo forest infested with thugs and explosives. Alright, I’m slipping back into my frail, six- or seven-year-old Normandy shrimp of a body, turning on the virtual Mega Drive in my mind’s eye, grabbing three or four forks to use as kunai, and off I go.
A mixture of tricks and traps
A few years ago, in the midst of a frantic search for OSTs (Original Soundtracks, kids) to put together my ultimate nostalgic VGM (Video Game Music, brats) playlist, I discovered that there were several versions of the Revenge of Shinobi. The game underwent various revisions to change characters that caused copyright issues—like Rambo, Spider-Man, Batman, the Terminator, or Godzilla—who either got new outfits, new looks, or were removed entirely. I don’t remember which version I was lent, and anyway, I never saw the enemies being referred to, so who cares? Besides, I wouldn’t have caught half the references back then, since my pop culture knowledge stopped at Bumptey Boo and The Fox and the Hound. I would’ve just slaughtered the enemies without even noticing a single cameo. What else is there to do in an action-platformer, anyway? Get your ass kicked like I did? Sure, okay. But let’s assume I actually know how to play. Especially since this Joe Musashi—a.k.a. the Shinobi seeking revenge—has a whole arsenal of items and abilities to take on all these thugs.
Yet another dark “kidnapped girl” plot—which, by the way, made up about 85% of the pitches back then. So, what do we have? A katana strike in close combat, or its kick variant for smashing stuff lying around on the ground. A limited number of throwing kunai that can be upgraded by collecting power-ups, as well as four available ninjutsu techniques: lightning armor, a fire attack that obliterates everyone on the screen, an enhancement to your physical abilities to go farther and higher and higher, and finally a sort of stone transformation that implodes into devastating shards across every pixel of our CRT TV. For starters, I’d never realized you could switch powers right from the start of the game. I thought you had to unlock them later on, like in Mystic Defender. It got off to a bad start, even though all I had to do was read the manual or watch Mortimer play for two minutes to figure it out. Tsss. Come to think of it, the gameplay reminds me a bit of Mystic Defender—to mention a game from the same era as this Shinobi.
Long-range attacks, power-ups to collect, skills… though this one is a bit better designed and a bit more polished. Yeah, there must be plenty of better examples. On the other hand, while the eerie atmosphere of the first stage in the bamboo forest really blew me away (just like all the levels in Mystic Defender—why am I suddenly so obsessed with that game?), I realize it quickly falls flat starting with the next level. The waterfall that follows is okay, but after that? A totally run-of-the-mill city—not even a little grimy like in Robocop vs. the Terminator. In fact, it really veers off the beaten path when you face the ninja boss under the lights of a nightclub. I find that really funny now. At six years old, how would that have made me feel? No idea—maybe a craving for green and purple candy. Next, an airport opens up before us, followed by a cargo plane, with a boss that’s a huge machine firing lasers and containing a brain preserved in formaldehyde. Any thoughts? Hmm, no.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Next, we visit a junkyard lining a major city’s ring road, before entering a hellish factory. Are we facing the Terminator here, or some kind of Hulk? I’ve never seen a T-800 turn green when you hit it, but why not. And then? Well, that road we saw in the distance—now we’re walking on it! On the sidewalk, at least, I hope. Ninja chicks disguise themselves as nuns to catch us off guard. Because a procession of nuns strolling along an ultra-dangerous four-lane highway doesn’t attract any attention at all, to begin with. Alright, one point for originality, because it’s still way cooler than those static soldiers firing machine guns straight ahead, whether their target is in the line of fire or not. Well, I’m really starting to miss the bamboo forest. Luckily, after the chaotic ring road, we get back to the signature style of the first level, in a sort of Chinatown-style American suburb.
Buuuut we find ourselves right on the roof of some kind of regional train speeding along. After knocking people around for a while, someone finally manages to find the brakes—unless Musashi himself takes care of it. We crash into a rail yard—so far, so good. And then Spider-Man shows up! Come ooooon ! And he transforms into a winged demon—I guess just to avoid any conflicts of interest with the old Batman sprite. Man, Joe must still have some nightclub drugs running through his veins. So, Batman has a higher copyright status than Spider-Man, is that it? Poor Peter Parker. I think the harbor area that follows is pretty well done, especially the water, even if it lacks animation frames. It rekindles my phobic fascination with harbors, big ships, and all that, so take that with a grain of salt. From a purely objective standpoint, is the commercial harbor better than the bypass full of belligerent nuns? Not necessarily!
Okay, so we go inside the military frigate you can see in the background—at least, I guess. And that’s where we face off against Godzilla. A scaled-down version, of course. Not the 300-meter-tall behemoth from the more recent movies. What were they thinking, cramming him into a destroyer’s hold anyway? It doesn’t get any more nonsensical than that. Although, if they’d turned the ship on its side, they could’ve fit the real Godzilla inside standing up. While in some versions, you face a living fossil, the world’s most famous kaiju lets us enter the final stage: a secret base still located in the harbor—so it’s still very visible from any nearby beach, I imagine. And there you go! Finally, it’s time to save the girl from the clutches of the ultimate nemesis: nothing more than a big headbanger straight out of Hellfest, who still has enough energy left to dance. But go finish your night with the ninja on MDMA, will you ! The guy hopes to knock you out with his mane of filthy hair, all while letting out digitized laughter that would make even the toughest samurai pass out
I’ve been saying for ages that metalheads aren’t the softies they claim to be. I could have used this game as proof, if only I’d made it past the first level. But all’s well that ends well. Rescuing his sweetheart, cuddling in front of a magnificent sunset in a rolling natural park… See you next time—in Shinobi III, to be exact! I realize I’ve basically just written a reaction to the list of stages. Without even having played through them myself—or rather, with my taibi or jikatabi, whatever. A word on the level design? Umm, well, without any actual experience, I’d say it’s not bad—decent, but nothing more? I don’t know why, but I always thought that Revenge of Shinobi transported its players into a world increasingly shaped by Japanese mythology, building on the first level but becoming more and more fantastical, dreamlike. Unnerving and dangerous, too. It was sort of the original inspiration for Muramasa: The Demon Blade, which, in the end, didn’t really need it. Man, that was just pure kid’s wishful thinking. I did the right thing by stopping at the bamboo forest, didn’t I?
Probationary Period
Yuzo Koshiro made huge strides between this soundtrack and the one for Streets of Rage. Okay, a little free jab at him. There’s nothing wrong with these compositions, but they don’t necessarily stand out from what was being done at the time. Except for the bamboo forest theme. The brand-new Mega Drive hadn’t yet revealed its full audio potential—far from it. Unsurprisingly, I only knew the intro, the first stage, and the death sound—especially that one. Believe it or not, it never gets any better from there, just like the artistic direction of the stages and their sometimes rather bland enemies (not the fighting nuns, I’ll admit). Every now and then, you can recognize the style of the guy who revolutionized music on the Mega Drive. Eeeeeh, no! I’m not talking about Tommy Tallarico, even though he must have believed it—that narcissistic megalomaniac, and a Trump supporter to boot. The effect is all the more striking during the really energizing beats. But the sounds don’t quite measure up, most of the time. Yeah, I know—original release date: 1989. I’m being a bit harsh. The guy had to practice before becoming the god of 16-bit soundtracks (still not Tommy). Anyway, I would’ve idolized the whole thing if I’d heard the tracks at age seven, but not as much as the music that accompanies the first level. I’m not just saying that because I don’t feel nostalgic for the others. It’s absolutely mind-blowing—in every sense of the word. I absolutely love this track—it’s in my top 10 best MD tracks, or top 20, whatever. Dark but catchy, rhythmic but brooding… everything I love; perfect for dancing while looking grumpy—arms in the air, but staring at the ground. I also love that the sound effect for the score countdown at the end of a level is the same in Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage. So cool. I wonder why I’m bothering to critique this as if I worked for a video game magazine when I’ve barely even played the game. Oh wait, actually, it makes perfect sense in the end!
Shinowaste ?
So, is this Vengeance of the Japanese Spy a little overhyped or what? Yeah, I asked a guy from Quebec to translate it just to see—you’re never disappointed. Yet this game has gotten some insane reviews, so I wonder why I’m still a bit underwhelmed. I find it clunky, not very responsive, and once you get past Level 1, its world just makes me raise a perplexed (and messy) eyebrow. Then again, what did we have back in 1990 to compete with it? Altered Beast? Hahah. Ghouls ’n Ghosts ? Okay, that makes sense. And Mystic Defender, of course!
I really need to stop with thie game, but I’m having a hard time. His ultra-creepy world has traumatized me—I need to clear my head a bit. Okay, I’m exaggerating, to be honest. Revenge of Shinobi is still really fun to play, despite a protagonist whose movements are a little rusty—which is pretty bad for a ninja—and three different types of enemies to take down. Oh crap, here I go again! I wonder if I would’ve loved the whole game if I’d discovered it in its entirety as a kid. Then I’d know for sure whether nostalgia just makes me love anything and everything. Though I’ve known this for a long time—just ask me what I think of Mystic Defender. And what about all those who adored the game back then? Would they have enjoyed it as much if they’d only explored the famous bamboo forest as kids and discovered the rest today? HAHA! No one will ever know for sure, but I’d rather imagine they’d say the same thing I do. As for ego issues and misplaced pride—we’ll deal with that later.
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