I'm only glad the recent titles redeemed the series because this game is BLAH.
User Rating: 5.1 | Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master GEN
The good things- Most noteably here, Joe Musashi is really freaking cool. He's a ninja with no need for camo. In fact, he wears white so enemies can see the guy that's about to throw kunai in their necks. Gameplay wise, Shinobi III offers a system where Joe (main character) can throw kunai(they call them shuriken, or shurikin) when he attacks his enemies from a distance and at close range he'll automatically use his sword. There are some interesting bosses and some of the levels require slightly different gameplay methods (riding a horse, surfing). One of the things I liked alot about Shinobi III was the blocking system. After attacking, Joe will automatically block when the attack button is still being pressed. I thought this was a nifty feature instead of making a redundant "block button". The play control is pretty responsive and the level schemes are pretty diverse. The bad things- Horrible music and little to no sound effects hurt the excitement of Shinobi III greatly. You are better off putting the TV on mute and listening to your own music while playing Shinobi III. Double jumping is very necessary while playing the game although it is sometimes hard to pull off. A frequently used or necessary ability should never be difficult to perform in a videogame. There is not a whole lot of diversity in the enemies of Shinobi III. Pretty much expect to be fighting the same 10 enemies through the duration of the game. The difficulty of Shinobi III is fairly unbalanced and does not show a gradual progression in game difficulty as all action games should. For example, the hardest boss fight for me was about halfway through the game in the water level. This boss's fighting pattern was simple and predictable yet forced Joe to take cheap hits if you don't want to use Ninja magic (temporary invulnerablity). I believe there should always be a way to avoid everything. Vice:Project Doom is the epitomy of game design for avoiding cheap hits, so if you need a basis of comparison, compare Shinobi III to Vice. Although the levels are diverse with respect to each other, they are almost always too long. It gets pretty dull fighting the same sets of enemies and going through the same sets of obstacles. This is probably the second greatest weakpoint of Shinobi III(sound is by far the biggest downfall). Bottom line- Although Shinobi III is the best of the classic Shinobi games and has some fun and innovative factors to it, it's numerous game design flaws bring the fun level way down. I would recommend it only as a cheap thrill, but I wouldn't recommend seeking the game out to buy a copy. The bottom line is, the two new Shinobi's [Shinobi(PS2) and Nightshade] have set great standards for the series. So play them and if you still want more, grab a copy of Shinobi III. Joe is even cooler in the new games anyway. -Geusprime
