Review – Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

A congratulations! They got another feat with Shinobi after hitting with other classic franchises, rescuing nostalgia with and. Our legendary ninja Joe Musashi returns on an unprecedented adventure entitled Art of Vengeance, a combat -focused metroidvania, and a very capricious hand -drawn look.

In the plot, the Oborus clan suffers a major attack by the Ene Corp paramilitary organization, led by villain Lord Ruse. With the village in ruins, students and relatives of Joe are found petrified. Luckily, his wife Naoko escaped the same destination. It is up to our hero to seek revenge, facing a great army until he arrived in Ruse, which obtained unimaginable power with the reaper scythe.

The infinite combos of Shinobi

The story of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is simple and direct, with some information here and there during your progress. You face various types of enemies, from weak to strong armor, until you beat the bosses and advance by interconnected phases on a world map. In total there are 12 phases distributed in 5 zones, as well as a training room to improve its combos. And, as in all metroidvania, there will be areas that will only be accessible if you have certain skills (called Ningi), such as climbing claws and a powerful punch that opens tickets.

By far, the best aspect of the game is in your gameplay. The commands are perfectly responsive, allowing you to create combos your way, combining weak and strong blows, throwing kunals, jumping and hitting the opponent in the air, connecting with dash, expanding the hits with a nymph (wind magic, fire, etc.) and finishing the enemy with a fatal cut. You really feel a skilled ninja from the beginning. For those who play Streets of Rage 4, know that in this game you can also keep hitting an enemy already defeated, which helps to fill the ninpo bar even more.

Joe’s upgrades can be purchased at the Youkai store, where you spend your gold coins and the oboric relics collected by the phases, which are used to unlock more shopping options. The store is at a specific point of each phase and can return to them when you want. The quick trip is also super effective, allowing you to choose the checkpoints achieved so as not to redo long routes from the map. Unless you want to find and complete the parallel challenges like Ankou’s cracks, which grants the powerful Dark Katana as a reward.

Still on combat, you have amulets that give passive and combo improvements that work according to the accountant. For example: With the amulet reinforcement of strength, its damage caused increases when it reaches 15 blows. Finally, we have 4 ninjutsus purchased throughout the adventure, which are Joe specials that damage all enemies on screen. You start with Karyu, a dragon that serves fire in general, and the animation of this special is of an absurd whim. By the way, the whole game is visually amazing.

The art of good visual and musical taste

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance has a rich 2D art in detail, with equally neat animations. Everything is very alive, with artistic care everywhere, especially in the scenarios. It has a neon city, has fish market, has the ENE lab, has a little of everything. And all scenarios have a phenomenal composition with Parallax, leaving nothing to be desired in the simplest (bonus) stages, such as a JOE chase mounted on the giant Yamato dog. The bosses then, wow! It is one better than the other. And yes, the classic chiefs are back, as you had and their statues stacked.

The game promises exploration very well, without forcing the player to situations of unfair difficulty. Of course, there are excerpts that you will need to have a beautiful timing on your jumps and dashes, but in most cases the challenge will be focused on combat. So much so that when you finish the game, you can enjoy the arcade and boss rush modes to test your skills. A beautiful invitation to Speedrunners! What’s more, there is a challenge that consists of finding the 6 keys from the Ene Corp laboratory. When you can find them all, just interact with a computer to start a fight against a boss coming directly from Shinobi III.

Finally, but not least, is the soundtrack made by Tee Lopes (composer of several Sonic games) and Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage, Actraiser, Earthion). Think of a game where all songs match the scenarios and turbocharge the player’s excitement in exploration and fighting. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is a case of study, so well done. A collection of good game design choices and special affection for Sega and its history, represented by honors and easter eggs everywhere. You can buy without fear that this is play!