The Cyber Shinobi

Gameplay

The controls and rules of the game are very different from the original Shinobi. Although the objective of the game is still to reach the end of stage and then fight a boss, the player is prevented from proceeding when reaching certain points of each stage until certain enemies are eliminated, similar to a side-scrolling beat-'em-up.

The player attacks primarily with his sword and a crouching kick. The height of the player's jumps can increased as well by holding the d-pad upwards while pressing the jump button. The player has a total of four gauges on the top screen. In addition to his "life" gauge that shows the amount of damage the player can sustain before losing life, there's also a "power" gauge that determines the strength of his basic attacks, a "shot" gauge that shows the remaining ammunition of his current sub-weapon, and a "Ninjutsu" gauge that determines which spells the player can use. By destroying item containers located throughout each stage, the player can pick up power-ups marked by the letters "L", "P", "S" and "N" to fill out each individual gauge by one unit.

When the player first picks up "Shot" power-up, he will wield a shuriken launcher, which can be replaced with an automatic "Vulcan" gun, and then a supply of grenades, by picking up subsequent "shot" power-ups. Each sub-weapon can only hold up to eight shots each and when the player's current sub-weapon runs out of ammo, he will revert to the previous one and so-on until his last sub-weapon runs out as well.

"Ninjutsu" spells are performed by pressing buttons 1 and 2 simultaneous. There are a total of four Ninjutsu spells and although, each one requires a different amount of units to perform, only two units are actually consumed when one is performed. As a result, the player can max-out his Ninjutsu gauge, use the powerful spell, and then work his way down to the weaker ones. The Ninjutsu spells available are "Fire" (requires one or two units), "Tornado" (four units), "Lightning" (six units) and "Earth Element" (eight units).

Plot

Set sometime during the 21st century, the player controls the grandson of the ninja master Joe Musashi, also named Joe, who is on a mission to defeat the minions of Cyber-Zeed, a terrorist organization founded by the remnants of the Zeed organization that the original Joe Musashi destroyed. Joe must fight his way through a series of six stages in order to prevent Cyber-Zeed from launching its stolen stockpiles of plutonium around the world. The stages consists of a construction site, a harbor, a heliport, a jungle, a waterfall, and the hideout of the enemy.

Reception

The game was rated 58 out of a 100 by Sega Pro, which criticized it for its lack of content and easy difficulty. Richard Leadbetter gave the game a score of 46% and compared it unfavorably to the Master System version of original Shinobi.