[SGF hands-on] Shinobi: Art of Vengeance: Conducting the hero orchestra

I died a lot in Shinobi, but it was music to my ears

Joe Musashi is back, and now he’s being hunted. In the bold return to the world of Shinobi, Joe is a family man and teacher, but when his combat school comes under attack he’s once again thrust into action. Like past Shinobi games, Art of Vengeance is 2D platformer focused on precision platforming and hack-and-slash battles that feel more like one on one fights. It’s cinematic, it’s brutal, and I kept failing, over and over again.

Before I get to the reason, though, let me discuss the game itself.

The Summer Game Fest demo I was able to get my hands on with had two levels, the game’s opening area and one a bit further in.

The first level is meant to teach us the basics of the game, including platforming, abilities and learning the ropes of the battle system. Taking place in a few different zones, such as a swamp and an enemy base, the importance to getting our feet wet with the fluid motion and traversal is key. Shinobi was always a series about jumping around and hitting things, and making sure that we can get to wherever we want, so this has to nail that first and foremost. And here it’s constantly pushing us forward — the design of the levels, albeit big and broad, aren’t overly complex. Essentially we’re meant to slash our way through, climb a bit, and get to key battles. The viewpoint is more zoomed in around the characters making Joe and his enemies bigger on the screen, so we’re not meant to see things like 50 platforms at once, just the ones we’re meant to get to. We learn about dashing, about climibing, about weak and strong attacks. We learn about chaining combos, about double jumping, and about disarming enemies. It’s a lot to take in at once, but all of these are necessary for what’s to come next.

The level ends with a battle against a giant hulking boss. This ape/demon/man has powerful melee attacks. If we can survive his hits he will take up position in the center of the screen, spin around on his spear, and launch himself into the air, coming down on us if we’re not careful. The battle essentially employs all of the skills we’ve learned so far, right down to double jumping over his wave attack.

The second level is much more advanced, focusing on a lantern festival and a village setting. Here we pick up wall climbing, we learn about charged attacks, we find shops and ability modifiers. This area is much more challenging because we have to juggle using our different skills together just make it through to the end. And then there’s a giant spider-like mech waiting for us to try and tackle — good luck!

It has some lite metroidvania elements built in, but they’re not necessary for completing it. Rather, as we unlock new abilities we can head back into levels to open up new paths, allowing us to collect items and loot. There’s a collectathon aspect to the game that has us exploring more if we want to. For myself this is dangerous, because as a completionist I want to see EVERYTHING and get EVERYTHING. But it’s also completely optional, so it’s more or less something to have when we want to come back to it later.

The game is a straight path; we can jump past a lot of the enemies and zoom to the end, with only some gated combat areas and battles that slow us down. In fact, one of the aspects that held me back was trying to defeat everyone and collect everything, so when I finally abandoned that (in order to finish my demo timeslot) I was able to blaze through with minimal attacking, only when I really needed to.

Art of Vengeance is all about treating the battles as notewworthy events. We need to understand a sort of rhythm to them, when to use what combo, when to block and when to jump through an enemy to land on the other side. The game isn’t difficult, but it is challenging – only because its modernization of combat is focused on enacting combos and using our abilities to their fullest. It’s a little like a coordinating an orchestra, where we have to juggle and manage different instruments to make the music its best. To make Shinobi its best we have to dance and attack and be sure that we’re hitting everything perfectly. Then, it’s music. Then, it’s ART.

I died a lot because it was completely self inflicted. Instead of focusing on the battle, on that rhythmic beat of fluidity and motion, I’d find myself drifting into looking at the amazing hand-drawn art in the backgrounds, or by focusing on only the enemy in front of me when another is clearly going to launch a lightning attack on me as well. I played one instrument instead of the whole band.

This modern Shinobi captures so much of the original’s essence, and if this brief demo for SEGA & Lizardcube’s Art of Vengeance is any indication then the final product could end up its symphony.