Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[velo]

Tried the demo for the new Shinobi game, and that completely killed any expectations I may have had for it.

It's a metroidvania-light. I think it has individual stages, but they have maps with backtracking, secrets and such, and you can revisit earlier stages whenever you want. Even in the demo I came across several obvious "treasure hidden behind blocked path that you need to come back with a new skill to access later" moments, which is the laziest school of metroidvania design.

Combat is basically roll-to-win. You can dodge anything by rolling through enemies, and defeat them by spamming attacks. This was just the first stage of course, but everything still felt way too easy, nothing puts up a fight - and every encounter with the same type of enemy is completely identical to the last time you encountered that enemy.


Whatever this is, it's definitely no R2RKMF

Apparently the only thing in the blocked treasure chests are some point items. All it really amounts to is that when you replay the level in Arcade Mode, there are a couple more chests you can get to for additional score. If the rest of the game is like this, you could go straight through story mode and finish the game without replaying any levels. According to the status screen, you've already unlocked almost every special ability by the end of the first stage anyway. It's bound to annoy some people here that you have to finish levels on Story Mode before doing score attack, but in the long run, when you've beaten each stage numerous times anyway, I don't see that it makes much difference. At least you don't have to beat the whole game to unlock it.

The iframe roll at least requires you to commit to movement which creates some danger with stage hazards. Those undodgeable purple attacks also seem fairly common. My biggest problem is that the enemies feel too spongey, but that might go away if I had a better grip on the combo system. Defeating them is pretty easy, defeating them efficiently takes a little more work. It's only level 1 anyway. There's also a no-damage bonus, so for the purpose of rank, this might be a 1HK game after all.

I dunno, I think this is going to turn out the same way as people's issues with GnG Resurrection's infinite lives and skill tree and so on, where it turns out the devs actually knew what they were doing all along.

[Sumez]

I like the optimism, and there's a chance for that I'm sure.
But it definitely requires enemy combat to be a lot more fun in the later stages Because the game hinges on them entirely

[Sengoku Strider]

I'm seeing some rapturous reviews for Shinobi, but I wasn't feeling the demo. The last Shinobi I played was Super Shinobi II, and coming from that, this feels like a step down to me. The combat was a neat way to roll in PS2 Shinobi's mechanics, and the art is a noticeable step up from Street of Rage 4 when you see them side by side.

The thing for me was the pacing. Run along, screen scroll stops, now you're in a kill box. The original had timer bonuses, so even though you just walked along, there was still a sense of urgency and that you were always moving. Super II added the dash mechanic it always needed, and mastery of the game kept the feel of that Sega race game dna. Stopping the game arbitrarily for kill boxes all the time just didn't feel like what I wanted out of Shinobi, it felt more like a Devil May Cry game.

Then there are the unlockable mechanics. Navigation looks like the same old linked movement techs these types of games have been using since a least Guacamelee (right down to unlocking them through a shop). Even the Skill Up review, where he admitted he'd never played a Shinobi game before, said he didn't encounter anything he hadn't already seen in other similar titles (though he did love it all the same).

I dunno. I might get it on sale down the line, but since I still have a copy of Shin Shinobi Den I haven't beaten, I won't rush.

It's a metroidvania-light. I think it has individual stages, but they have maps with backtracking, secrets and such, and you can revisit earlier stages whenever you want. Even in the demo I came across several obvious "treasure hidden behind blocked path that you need to come back with a new skill to access later" moments, which is the laziest school of metroidvania design.

I haven't played it, but didn't GG Shinobi II do the same sort of thing?

[Randorama]

Shameless plug-in: the Cosmo Police Galivan squib is now up, and thus we resume a weekly schedule with squibs.

[Sumez]

I dunno. I might get it on sale down the line, but since I still have a copy of Shin Shinobi Den I haven't beaten, I won't rush.

Got a cheap copy of this (Shinobi X) some years back, but never got to play it until just a couple of weeks ago.

As people has said before, even though the game look like absolute puke, it really does play super well (and honestly, it's kinda awesome to see CDi-core aesthetics paired with solid gameplay).
But I played several stages in, and it feels incredibly toothless, with way too much leeway for mistakes.
Is there a difficulty setting that I overlooked, or does it get better further in?

[Sweatlord_STG]

I dunno. I might get it on sale down the line, but since I still have a copy of Shin Shinobi Den I haven't beaten, I won't rush.

Got a cheap copy of this (Shinobi X) some years back, but never got to play it until just a couple of weeks ago.

As people has said before, even though the game look like absolute puke, it really does play super well (and honestly, it's kinda awesome to see CDi-core aesthetics paired with solid gameplay).
But I played several stages in, and it feels incredibly toothless, with way too much leeway for mistakes.
Is there a difficulty setting that I overlooked, or does it get better further in?

I think the game looks awesome. It's a nice change plus it fits perfectly into the b movie setting.
I haven't played mine in ages so I don't want to say anything about the gameplay.

Either way I'm sure it's better than the new one

https://youtu.be/pnPWPxMEDx8?si=ycccd6976_uTO412

https://youtu.be/M0uP-oD87v0?si=KQmjvjiQKOWTHpvD

I wasn't interested in the game anyway because I don't like its art style, but those two videos are just shocking!

I can't believe that all the companies that own those old brands, that not only they don't dare to make sequels themselves (or remakes, etc.), no, apparently they also don't think that any other Japanese developer can do it either, so they hire all those gaijins to get the job done.
SEGA had MegaPixel Studio remaster some of their House of the Dead and Panzer Dragoon games, they also remade "Squaresoft's" Front Mission games. Nobuya Nakazato was mainly responsible for Contra: Rogue Corps but that didn't go so well, lol, so Konami had WayForward make the next Contra game. The new Shinobi was made by Lizardcube and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound by The Game Kitchen.
None of the teams I named here are Japanese. And all the sequels and games they made look so awful that I don't even want to find out how they play. Maybe Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound looks okay, but I didn't like the forced gimmicky gameplay that gives you no freedom. Once these IPs were super hype and became legendary. But their latest entries are bland disgusting shovelware I wouldn't want for free.
What the fuck happened? How in the world is it possible that Japan absolutely dominated the entire video games industry for over two decades and now they can't even remake their own games (or make sequels to them)?
I know it is nothing new, but it's an ongoing shock I can't get over. It seems like somebody flipped a switch, in like 2006 or so, and it made a whole country forget how to make cool games (with a few exceptions).
I feel sorry for them. They probably feel ashamed themselves every time they ask WayForward or whoever to make another game for them because they forgot how to do it.
It's not even nostalgia. Their old games just have a certain charme, polish, and quality, that gives them a certain appeal, which makes them timeless.
I just don't understand why this fairytale had to come to an end. They still make that magic happen at times, but by far not as often anymore.

[velo]

As people has said before, even though the game look like absolute puke, it really does play super well (and honestly, it's kinda awesome to see CDi-core aesthetics paired with solid gameplay).

People do say that... personally, I like the goofy Mortal Kombat graphics but could never get into the game. Guess I just can't accept ninja pogo.

Anyway, I marathoned the new Shinobi. It's not really a Metroidvania or an aRPG and feels like a proper entry in the franchise. I sincerely enjoyed my playthrough but "arcade mode" doesn't live up to billing: it doesn't raise the difficulty, it's too easy, and the dead air really sticks out on replays. I was hoping it would add a lot of extended replay time the way score attack and arcade mode did in SoR4, but I can't see myself working on no-damage runs of underpopulated stages that can run 20-30 minutes and are even possible to get lost in. No online leaderboards, only saves your top score and rank.

SS2 and the 3DS game (and X too maybe) somewhat have the same issue of giving you a character that feels so great to control, only to have you running across blank screens a good chunk of the time, but this game is something like five or ten times longer than SS2. I got my money's worth out of it, but if they had only cordoned off some of the empty areas and adjusted the enemy placement for arcade mode, I wouldn't put it down for another 100 hours.

[Sengoku Strider]

But I played several stages in, and it feels incredibly toothless, with way too much leeway for mistakes.
Is there a difficulty setting that I overlooked, or does it get better further in?

I dunno, it sounds like you might've gotten further in than I have.

]https://youtu.be/pnPWPxMEDx8?si=ycccd6976_uTO412

https://youtu.be/M0uP-oD87v0?si=KQmjvjiQKOWTHpvD

I wasn't interested in the game anyway because I don't like its art style, but those two videos are just shocking!

...now that's what a toothless Shinobi looks like. If it's got a decent hard mode or two then whatever though.

they hire all those gaijins

Streets of Rage 4 was a bigger success than Sega had any reason to expect, of course they earned another shot. As for why they're hiring them, if you're a really talented dev, why are you working on Sega's IP instead of your own? It's by definition the type of small-mid tier grinder dev you're going to get for these projects. And I'm sure it's no accident that the developers attracted to them lean heavily toward PAL land, Sega has much more nostalgia mindshare there than in Japan.

[Sumez]

I don't think this was made by the SOR4 devs though, was it?

LizardCube worked on both, but I don't think Guard Crush has any involvement at all

[velo]

If it's got a decent hard mode or two then whatever though.

That's what I kept thinking. Turns out it doesn't.

[Sengoku Strider]

I don't think this was made by the SOR4 devs though, was it?

LizardCube worked on both, but I don't think Guard Crush has any involvement at all

Huh, you just taught me something I didn't know. All the media I'd seen had just credited Lizard Cube, I didn't realize this whole time they were only behind the artwork in SoR4. Including the time I finished SoR4.

I made a typo inserting the quotes though, I was responding to Sweatlord there rather than you, sorry that wasn't clear. He was talking about the art style turning him off the games entirely.

If it's got a decent hard mode or two then whatever though.

That's what I kept thinking. Turns out it doesn't.

Eep. One would have to be surefire DLC though, right? It's content without requiring new assets, it's the easiest (ok, least resource intensive) thing they could do.

[Sumez]

Huh, you just taught me something I didn't know. All the media I'd seen had just credited Lizard Cube, I didn't realize this whole time they were only behind the artwork in SoR4. Including the time I finished SoR4.

I think you might be on to something in your original point regardless.

When you're talking about marketing video games, the actual inner workings rarely matters to anyone outside of hardcore nerds like us. I'm sure Shredder's Revenge was as big of a success as SOR4 despite the latter obviously being a much more solid beat'em up.
To make it big, they need to have a marketable production value first and foremost. And LizardCube stroke gold with their work on both their Wonderboy remake and SOR4 - both of them being games designed by other people. The aesthetics of both games were some of their most widely cherished assets.

So when Sega wants another hit to follow up on those, do they go to the guys who actually designed the inner workings of SOR4, or the ones that made it look really cool?
If you look at how Guard Crushs's previous game looked, the answer is obvious
(that said, I'd imagine doing a new Shinobi game was LizardCube's own idea and not Sega's - but obviously they'd get the green light)

[velo]

Eep. One would have to be surefire DLC though, right? It's content without requiring new assets, it's the easiest (ok, least resource intensive) thing they could do.

imo the pacing/padding is a bigger issue for arcade mode than the raw survival difficulty. Seems like it would've been simple enough to streamline the "arcade" versions of the stages, but I'm not counting on them to redesign the optional post-game challenge content to my personal liking.

As for why they're hiring them, if you're a really talented dev, why are you working on Sega's IP instead of your own? It's by definition the type of small-mid tier grinder dev you're going to get for these projects.

I don't know... maybe if we're only talking about devs who know they're sitting on billion-dollar ideas on the level of Minecraft or FNaF. Bitmap Bureau for example are going to move a lot more units with their official He-Man and Terminator games than they ever did with Final Vendetta or Xeno Crisis. Getting your hands on a recognizable IP seems like one of the smartest things an indie can do.