Cyber Shinobi has through time, been seen as the misstep, the bottom of the barrel, the one to avoid.
This is perturbing for a number of reasons. Firstly, while it has it's issues, the gameplay is truer to the original Shinobi game than Shadow Dancer was.
While in Shadow Dancer it became a uninspired action side-stroller where the antagonistic essenailly walked in a straight line with no real upgrades or power-ups, in Cyber Shinobi, much like the original title features layered levels peppered with power ups to upgrade your character. In this, it's closer to a modern RPG/action game where stats themselves are raised increasing the proficiency of abilities, as opposed to purely extra HP points or new weapons.
Much like the original, enemies work in tandem with the levels, becoming less hack and slash, and more logical (granted very basic) puzzle solving with their placement working in direct correlation with the to the level design, usually as barriers. These static enemies are combined with enemies that track the player on the offensive creating fun little drips of combat.
Boss battles are much easier, it is debatable if this is better or worse, but I did find some of the bosses in the original frustrating and cheap, using exploits to win, rather than skill. These are straight forward, learn how it's done and do it affairs. Much more forgiving.
The game messes up the lore, but do you really care? Really?
Visually it's pretty decent, it looks slightly better than the original but nowhere near as good as Shadow Dancer or the G.G.. Shinobii's. In most 8 bit titles, attacks uses instantaneous 1/2 animations, here it looks like the character is physically pulling off a martial arts move using multiple animations, it's a small, but nice little touch. The main issue is the performance, the game runs very sluggish, it feels like it is struggling most of the time. Because of the slower game-play in comparison to something like Shadow Dancer, it isn't frustrating as that title was.
Much like Shadow Dancer though, this is a very short game, completed in the space of 20-30 minutes. I never felt the same level of disdain wish Shadow Dancer though, as the game-play, what there is of it, was much more engaging.
One jarring design decision is the UI. To put it bluntly, it is fookin massive for no apparent reason, taking up 1/3 of the screen. I am left wondering if this is to help render the game and keep the framerate chugging along? Who knows. But it's hilariously large. The game has a timer (10 minutes) but I never found myself at any point feeling a need to rush through the level or lost. It seems like an archaic obligation of the day, than something that actually fit the game.
Is this the worst Shinobi? I would say no, The Master System Shadow Dancer takes that title. It's nowhere near touching something Shinobi G.G, and not as good as the original title, but it's not bad, and I would recommend giving it a try, with a forgiving mindset.
