Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn (Switch)

33 years ago Natsume solidified themselves as one of the top 3rd party developers for the NES when they released Shadow of the Ninja. Now the Tengo Project and Natsume Atari have come back to create a remake of that game with Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. Has the game held up after all this time and has the spark been recaptured? Let’s find out.

Story

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is a 2D Action Side Scroller that focuses on two characters, the male ninja Hayate and the female Ninja Kaede. In the year 2029 which was far in the future back in 1990/91. The world has fallen into a techno dystopia the Demonic Generals have taken control and it is up to the brave duo ninjas to save the day.

A very basic story, typical of early video games where stories were more of a window dressing to the action. But giving players a simple easy story to digest suits this type of game perfectly and also means no constant stopping for prolonged exposition dumps.

Gameplay

Gameplay for Shadow of the Ninja Reborn takes the player on a wild ride through 6 gruelling stages each split into multiple zones. 5 of these levels are remade from the original NES game and a new 6th stage has been added to this release. The player is taxed with not only using their katana and kasurigama to defeat the robotic and enhanced enemies but also to use ninja-like reflexes for wall jumping/running abilities in the platforming areas. At the end of each mini section there are boss fights, each one getting progressively harder. From a robot who is hellbent on frying you to a hulking presumably steroid filled hulk who loves nothing more than charging you down from across the screen. Shadow of the Ninja Reborn loves to always up the ante and keep its players always on guard for the next challenge.

Like many NES era games Shadow of the Ninja was notorious for its difficulty and this remake is no different. When you die you lose all the equipment you have picked up over the level. Thankfully there are checkpoints, conversely those only activate once you have cleared the first mini section of a level after beating the sub boss fight. Tengo have been kind though and if you get wiped out enough they will generously give you a bonus item to help you on the way.

The items that you pick up in this game range from clubs which do more melee damage to bombs which allow you to hit moving targets (great for the steroid hulk). Health items come in the form of onigiri. You health bar also acts as an attack powerup bar. When at full health and having picked up the attack power up you are able to swing your katana and release a projectile perfect from keeping enemies at distance. But as you take damage and your health bar goes down your attacks will weaken this adds to the challenge you need to keep at full health as much as possible.

Multiple items can be held at once and using the right shoulder button and pressing directional pad you are able to cycle through your collected items. This was one area I felt the game could have been improved. It would have been better in my opinion if cycling could have been done with multiple taps of the shoulder button or using the right trigger to cycle as the current method was clunky especially when you needed to quickly grab your healing item.

Defeating enemies and bosses grants you money which can be used in the tool shop, this can be done from the main menu meaning you can give yourself a leg up for your next attempt.

Now the difficulty this is something that is subjective but I will warn you Shadow of the Ninja Reborn can be NES hard, be prepared to restart and replay levels thankfully the game is never impossible but learning patterns can be key. This game is also 2 player co-op and it in the later levels its definitely feels like that having a second player would be a big benefit. Unfortunately at the time of reviewing I was unable to test that mode so I will not be able to venture an opinion on how well that works.

Graphics and Audio

Shadow of the Ninja was originally an 8 bit game, but with this remake Tengo project has turned this into a 16 bit remaster greatly improving on the graphical fidelity and detail that doubling the pixel count allows. To keep the game as authentic as possible to the source material Tengo brought in Dynamic Productions to work on key art and characters. The same company who worked on the original in 1990. This allows the games to feel refreshed but at the same time not feel too removed from the original. All the characters and backgrounds have a high amount of detail and the use of colour to convey each area allows for distinct and varied level design.

For the audio Iku Mitzutani was brought in for fans of retro Natsume NES games you will be definitely familiar with his work and his compositions for this game adding a rock inspired soundtrack really do enhance the aesthetics and fit perfectly with the action occurring on screen. At no point did it feel like it took over but also at no point did it feel just like background noise. Both Visual and sound design on this game was very close to perfect in my opinion.

Final Thoughts?

For a remake Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn is everything a fan of the original could ask for, the addition of an extra stage and the addition of a Time Attack mode gives the game plenty of replayability. Whilst the overall difficulty may put off a lot of casual gamers I do believe this game is well worth the try; even if its just to soak in the visuals and audio which I will say again are close to perfect. The only real downside I had was the item changing which could have been implemented better, whilst clunky it does not massively take away from the overall game.