(Cracks knuckles) Ahhh, let's see.
Didn't pay any attention to the very first one because it was a Sega Master System staple and I was all-in on the NES. The arcade machine looked pretty nice, though. A few years later, I had my shiny new Genesis and EGM put up a couple of screens of the soon-to-be-released Revenge of Shinobi, my that looked fucking special. This was back in a simpler time, when things were either amazing or terrible, and mags like this were pretty good about hyping things properly. Anyway I snatched the game up at launch and was floored. It looked, sounded, and played much better than I anticipated (and I had some pretty high hopes). It actually felt like a pretty big departure from what worked in the original arcade Shinobi, but that didn't seem like a bad thing at all; meanwhile, I was still riding the Ninja Gaiden NES wave, but this felt different enough to stand completely on its own.
A year or two later, the same mags started talking about the next game in the series, Shadow Dancer. And one day it just "showed up on the shelf" at Electronics Boutique. The cover illustration was - strange - nowhere near badass-looking enough to sell what this game was supposed to be, but Sega hadn't let me down with the previous iteration, so screw it, here's my money! Brought the game home and was surprised how this one felt like a return to the formula of the original Shinobi arcade. Between that and a bit of clunky gameplay/presentation, it felt a bit like a step back from what I loved about the advances Revenge made across the board - but honestly, even so the game still looked and sounded great, and most importantly was really fun to play. In fact because it wasn't simply a further rehash of Revenge it made it feel fresher.
A year or two after THAT, Shinobi III shows up. At this point, the whole thing was getting a bit stale (I tended to get tired of game series by the third iteration in those days, unless they were markedly different). Anyway, devoted Genesis gamer that I was, I still grabbed it upon release. Brought it home, fired it up, and thought - this looks great! This sounds great! It's also fun to play! And it feels like a proper sequel to Revenge!
But also - this is getting a little old! I really enjoy the game, but they are absolutely starting to crib ideas and themes from other games and it is showing! There is a surfboard stage, there is a horse stage - both cool, but veering wildly into gimmick territory. Oh, didn't I see this Slime Lab in ESWAT a couple of years ago? Anyway the game is definitely fun and quite a looker, but the magic (ha, ha) was starting to fade.
Next up was the college years. I'm not playing video games so much anymore, but still keeping an eye on them to a degree. I heard that a new Shinobi game released for Saturn, which sounds like it should be something noteworthy for sure. But - Sega isn't even publishing it themselves? It looks like a very different beast - flash forward a few decades and I've finally bought it on eBay after reading a fair amount about it. It is... weird. On the positive, they took a very different direction with this game across the board, it bears little resemblance to its predecessors in every regard. It looks, feels, and plays different. That's not bad (again, my earlier complaint was that the series was getting stale). But this didn't feel like.. what I wanted. It has a lot of cool things going for it, but overall the stage designs and moment to moment gameplay feel more awkward than the pure fun of what came before. I played through a decent amount of it, and found the fun in there - it's not a bad game - but felt like a real letdown considering the massive hardware upgrade it was running on.
I'll wrap up with Shinobi PS2. Saw this being demo'd at E3 2000 in person and was taken aback.. "okay THIS is what I call different! And stylish! And.. difficult!" A few years later I picked it up on sale, I can't recall if I even beat the 1st level. I believe there was something like "you have to avoid the ground" or something ridiculous feeling like that. But the presentation just felt like something else. I still love that soundtrack. I am happy to be reminded of the game, I would like to explore it a bit more.
And the new one coming out? Well, after this essay I've written you can probably tell that I have some love for the series. The new game looks fine, but nothing I have seen really does much for me. I won't judge because any gameplay I've watched actually looks pretty early; but I will strongly suspect that this isn't a game built with the classic design sensibilities that I would love to see, more like a modern 2D "get through the level and see some cool visuals and gimmicks" type of affair. I know I am being harsh but you've kind of got to be with these things. Anyway it is their ball to drop, so I will wait to see what the reactions to this new one are, and give them the benefit of the doubt in the meantime.
