Historical digression: RT certainly adds a lot with the way of cover-exploiting enemies, something which Shinobi seems to have copied. I've tended to try to separate the two by the additional elements of RT that Shinobi doesn't carry over - Shinobi just expects you to shuffle / shuriken / bounce through enemies. ESWAT is of course not exactly like either, but when I was playing it I felt that it had the most in common with something like the MD Shadow Dancer.BIL wrote:I do get a bit of a Rolling Thunder vibe from the third stage's cover-exploiting baddies.
I just played through Asmik's port of Shinobi to the PC Engine again (best version of the ending theme!) and it's kind of startling how different it feels to what I think of as "normal" Shinobi (the MD versions). Lots of invisible enemies dropping in, and some very precise enemy bounce tactics to deal with if you don't want to use magic. One of the late stages has you facing off against two of the sword and scimitar bros from above; if you jump into the middle of them you'll get bounced repeatedly until one of them chops you. Very picky and in a way unpredictable. Most of the bosses are actually pretty lame - Mandara stands out in particular with its infamous "HA" opening, which I'm sure requires magic on the PC-Engine - and then the wall-mounted face just throws two kinds of fireballs at you (jump over the first, stand for the second; my worst enemy was my own attempt to split-second time jumps, which inevitably put me back in the way of a bouncing fireball). It does have a few differences from the arcade - I don't mind losing the bonus stages, but losing Stage 2 still upsets me, as it has some of the more interesting enemies and some kinda neat early SEGA warehouse/dock scenery. No sword attack, either, so you're just stuck with dodgy shuriken timing and spamming enemies to death.
E-SWAT's slime pit jumpers were kind of odd...I think you're supposed to tank your way through, or else just avoid them entirely. Not sure, I'll have to look again.
I think it's really that final stage with elevators and other fast-reflex stuff, along with the fragile character, that gets me. The character is suited up to really change the Rolling Thunder / Shinobi action prototype, but instead I saw a lot of "cute" puzzle areas with goodies in leaps of faith, and a lot of demand for fast reflex action (or just memorization) in place of the deliberative action I think is the hallmark of Rolling Thunder and Shinobi - and which I mostly prefer, actually.
Dead Fucks was picked up a while ago to the tune of 35 Dollar Menu Items (no mail-in card, but minty otherwise, yay). Plus many other things also.
However I keep it low-key, living in fear of a "YOU WASTIN MY MONEY MUHFUCKA" backlash. 
I'm pondering trying to try jumping over them entirely, though it probably won't work
