Vintage Gaming: Shinobi III
By Miodrag Kovačević | December 4, 2011 | Features | No comments | Share
Since we talked about Castlevania: Bloodlines last week, putting emphasis on the majestic visual presentation, talking a bit about Shinobi III seems like a good follow-up, especially considering that a new title has been released for the 3DS. You’re likely aware of the franchise, as it’s right up there with Ninja Gaiden as the most famous ninja-themed video game series ever. The games have seen various gameplay and aesthetical changes during the years, a natural evolution considering the first one was released in 1987. The focus on Shinobi III is because it was the first major departure from the previously-established gameplay, as well as being considered the best Shinobi title ever by many.
Just to give a short plot recap: evil organization called Neo Zeed returns and our hero, Musashi, slices through evil guys like a 
boss. Despite the plot being scarce, the actual levels do have a narrative in their names, layout and boss battles, so it all feels like watching a ninja movie made up of roughly 90% fighting and 10% everything else. And that’s great! We want to feel like ninjas, and ninjas don’t talk. They’re silent and deadly. Well, you’re not really silent in Shinobi III, because pretty much everything explodes when you kill it and you go through the front door, ninjitsu techniques blazing.
The game feels radically different from its predecessor, The Revenge of Shinobi. While that game was clunky, slow and relied plenty on memorization and a bit on clairvoyance, Shinobi III does away with all of that by making everything fast and fluid. Musashi can run, wall jump, execute a dash attack which makes him invulnerable for a moment, throw a storm of shuriken and is generally quite agile.
The game looks and feels great even after all these years. Sure, the color palette is limited by the Mega Drive/Genesis’s capabilities, but the presentation is one of the best the 2D plane has to offer. The levels are vibrant in the vein of the best Mega 
Drive games and the actual ideas in each of them are quite awesome. I don’t mean awesome like the casual “oh, that’s awesome”. When you’re a ninja who slices through ninja assassins while riding a horse or jet-propelled surf board, or who fights robot dinosaurs and runs through a mist-filled traditional Japanese house with deathtraps everywhere, the only way you can feel is awesome. Shinobi III also contains one of the best platforming levels ever, where you’re supposed to jump from rock to rock while descending a gorge. On par with the levels themselves are the boss battles. In each level, you’ll fight one sub-boss and one main boss. Each of them requires a specific strategy and has their own unique feel, so you rarely feel like the game is repeating itself.
And of course, there’s the music, which goes hand-in-hand with the visual aesthetics and is, for most part, very good.
A story worth telling about this title is that it was meant to be released in 1992. However, after Sega had sent preview copies to magazines, the company wasn’t satisfied with the result, so they spent another year giving it a makeover. Considering that Shinobi III manages to pass the test of time much better than previous installments, it’s obvious that not rushing the release was a wise decision.
Shinobi III was released in 1993 for the Mega Drive/Genesis console. It was later re-released for the Virtual Console, as part of the Sega Genesis Collection and Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, Steam and and iOS.
