Games of the Abstract: Shinobi X (1995)

 

a.k.a. Shinobi Legions

Developer: Sega AM7 R&D Division and TOSE

Publisher: Sega

One Player

Sega Saturn

 

I was of the Sony Playstation generation, if we need to speak of one's childhood experiences with videogame consoles by the most successful, the Playstation and the Playstation 2 dominant, but with the decision my family (likely my father, he more obsessed with new technology) buying a Sega Saturn. Contextually this also means I was also too young for Sega's West prime with the Mega Drive/Genesis, only getting to know killer apps for the system like Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (1993) as part of a compilation for the Playstation 2. One of the unfortunate circumstances, alongside how the games are rarely re-released due to the difficulty with the hardware, is that they are also not released due to them being unknown intellectual properties. The Saturn tried its fair share of new IP - Bug! (1995), Clockwork Knight (1994), Astal (1995), Mr. Bones (1996) etc. - and alongside their heroes now being forgotten, the Saturn for the most part failed to also continue the franchises that the Mega Drive had. The issue with how no official Sonic the Hedgehog game came to the system is a tale in itself, but there were other known titles which never got follow ups, or had to wait until the Dreamcast like Ecco the Dolphin. Some did, become the rarer games like Shining the Holy Ark (1997) for the Shining series, or like Final Fight Revenge (1999) or Golden Axe: The Duel (1994) became maligned attempted to change the genre of their games before. Shinobi X, or Shinobi Legions in the United States, is a curious little piece among those follow ups.

It is effectively a black sheep, in mind even to the transition to three dimensional games later on, and it is a strange little turn from the original 1987 arcade game's franchise, one to this point following on in the sprite world through Shadow Dancer (the 1989 arcade game and 1990 Mega Drive reinterpretation), the 1989 The Revenge of Shinobi, and Shinobi III, which famously was a game when the reviews came in Sega took back and made better, a one-off that to their credit, a brave and costly move, which had benefits because many hold that game as a masterpiece for the Mega Drive and the 16-bit era. Sega for Shinobi X went weird in a magnificently compelling way here, but one which likely made this an embarrassment to talk of even if Saturn's emulation concerns were not a factor. I say this loving Sega's weird turns over the years, but they could unfortunately be the reasons they lost as much as gained success, this being the case that, after the sprite based art of the previous games and polygons on the Saturn a hazardous thing, they caught the bus on a trend here already slowly dissipating of the digitised live action actors.

It comes with the knowledge that, even if this had stayed with sprites and been the most beautiful looking game of that type, we were at a time where polygons were seen as of more interest to critics, but it comes with the curiosity how this game came to be like. For context, from the height of the ninja fad in the nineteen eighties, where they were super popular in the West in media, came Shinobi, which by Shinobi III is a platform hack-and-shuriken game were your lead was a ninja fighting and having to perfectly time double jumps in levels, for that older game, which varied between crowd control, boss battles and increasingly difficult later levels in terms of platforming. Shinobi X is still this basic template, still in two dimensions with a redone combat system, but now has real actors in costumes, and polygonal enemies for monsters and non human figures, who were filmed and animated onscreen.

It is an art style that was briefly famous, entirely because Mortal Kombat (1992) was such a huge success that, until they transitioned away into digitally created characters, they stuck to this template and others tried to capitalise on it, usually in fighting games too. Midway's legendary franchise was not the first to have digitalised actors, though Midway in general from NBA Jam (1993) to Revolution X (1994), where Aerosmith and the player attempt to end a totalitarian rule with light gun shooting and the power of rock, was a developer/publisher who leant on this style greatly and were trendsetters. For the most part too, this was mostly a Western obsession as the Japanese developers stuck to sprite art, but some Japanese games took the ball, and Capcom even had enough of a panic attack about Mortal Kombat they bankrolled Street Fighter: The Movie (1995), arcade version outsourced to a Western developer or the console reinterpretation made in-house, which is the surreal sight of a beat-em-up with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and future pop megastar Kylie Minogue digitised as playable versions of famous Street Fighter brawlers.

Street Fighter: The Movie, its revised console port, and Revolution X had Saturn released, but this trend would become something lost in time soon after like full motion video games which got releases on the console and others at the time. For Shinobi X, it is strange to witness, a compellingly strange aesthetic choice done well barring but likely to baffle more players now alongside where the limitations in the style physically show. Between having real actors performing these moves for digitisation, on worlds built in polygons and real images, in a 2D scrolling platformer, this is before you factor in sights which show this style was ridiculous too. One which could become an infamous meme if this game was more readily available again is on Level 3, a follow up to Shinobi III's level in an evil lab of horrifying bio-weapon experiments where inexplicitly an ill-tempered green dinosaur, a brontosaurus, is among them, their head on a long neck popping into screen to need to be swatted away with the sword to knock them off screen, never to appear as a boss, never to be mentioned again in a later level, and looking all of the time in their digital appearance utterly goofy if for me charmingly so.

Then there is the miniature ninja movie within the game between levels, with the lowest budget computer effects contrasted by good fight scenes, which feels like a straight to video movie you would adore late one night from a video rental store, not to be expected in the middle of a video game. More so this was a curious inclusion of the film's staff have all the end credit details devoted to than anyone who coded the game itself. I enjoyed it, witnessing a low budget b-movie, where the exposition is in the US manual or in the extra cut scene for the other versions, centred on our lead and his sister Aya, who is able to use the technique as a woman to power a man's strength to even cut a boulder in half with a sword. A simple story of this woman being kidnapped and our lead having to rescue her, it really does stick out and feels especially like a promotion of the Saturn's capabilities for full motion video. It is also likely, alongside the game itself, this sort of thing would be considered embarrassing to look back on, a peculiar choice to have done too if enjoyable for me. Resident Evil (1996) had a live action opening too from Capcom, but like its infamous English translated dialogue, the 2002 remake of that game excised this cheesy tone. The lack of credits for the developers can be factored in for who actually developed the game, or helped to, depending on what accurate site you look to for this information¹. Sega AM7 R&D Division are credited for the development, but there is also nods to there being assistance from Tose Co., Ltd., the legendary "ghost developer" whose existence since their entrance into the video game industry, for Sega and Nintendo alike alongside other publishers in Japan, were to develop and co-develop games without taking any credit for them whatsoever. Founded in 1979², they have existed in the shadows and can claim at least a thousand plus productions they have been involved with², and the likelihood is that, without credits on this game, if their involvement if fully confirmed they may have had a huge involvement with this particular production they were not to take credit for.

The irony here is knowing, gameplay wise, this is just following up and improving upon what came before, the game not broken at all, still difficult by the later stages with tricky obstacle platforming, but also controversially for me improving on Shinobi III in its combat system. That game emphasised the shurikens, the bane of secondary school metal craft classes once ago in the eighties boom of ninja pop culture, a limited amount available of them but constantly acquirable and a perfect source of crowd control unless you were after the "Shinobi special", i.e. that the same button up close to enemies provided only close combat with the sword and that you finish levels making sure not one of the sharp implements let fly. For Shinobi X, they have separate buttons, which allows the shuriken-less achievement to be easier to accomplish, but you could also find that you do not even need them as the sword combat is elaborated on. Alongside a block button, a gem from this era of gaming to have, the sword has multiple attack combinations with the controls that are fluid and diverse, even the ability to block or hit back projectiles from enemies to strike them back with. You will still need to learn the perfect timing for a double jump, but even this seems easier to pull off unless you slip and mistimed it, thus slipping into the rivers of Hong Kong on a level where it is first emphasised as an important move to learn.

Honestly, it only gets mean in the final level, between dodging explosive payloads in a giant conveyor belt, which is unfairly narrow in its limited time to escape touching them, and the final boss being a game of collect the gems, but it says a lot that, even when it is difficult, you see a fairness within this production's challenges for the most part. In fact, being forced to have to stick to mostly grounded bosses to, i.e. because of the digitisation, actually adds a distinct wrinkle away from Shinobi III, less having to dodge tight repeating attacks but actual combat with another humanoid opponent, which is one of the little moments where, if this version of the game whatever visual form had lasted into the later games, would have been fairer than even Shinobi III ever was at times and been a fascinating turn for the series that could have won the fan base too. The game's decision to have its weird visual turn is likely what people look to this game with, and that is not even factoring the music, which has its own curious history. The Japanese and North American releases have the original score, but in a move which could have been a huge risk, the producer at Sega Europe David Nulty felt it was not suitable, hiring for his first production for Sega the British composer Richard Jacques, the future composer for Sonic R (1997) among other video games, to bring his own score which is hailed as a superior version^3&4.

Honestly, the tale of Shinobi X is entirely that the gameplay itself, the game within itself, is perfect in mechanics, but that the aesthetic choices are either going to be off-putting, weird and/or compelling even if a one-off. I find it is all three at the same time and Shinobi X a game tragically lost to time when it should be available, worst of all as this is one of the rarer games that (least for the European PAL version) can set a British gamer back over a hundred pounds plus. No game should cost that much new or second hand, and Sega not re-releasing this is tragic as, hilariously, it is not Shinobi III which won me over to the franchise but this miscreant from the franchise's basement whose charm appealed to me and for the franchise as a whole.

======

1) Moby Games' Shinobi Legions page.

2) Interview: Tose: Game Development Ninjas, written by Brandon Sheffield for Game Developer and published on May 19th 2006.

3) Sega Retro's page on Shinobi Legions.

4) Interview with Richard Jacques, written by Gavin Matheson and published for Good Cow Films on June 3rd 2000.