Attack of the Constipated Ninjas

 

They're dream makers, in the same sense as
Freddy Krueger or Doctor Destiny.
(image from Giant Bomb)

You'd think I would love Shadow of the Ninja Reborn, the latest release from Natsume-Atari. It's an old school experience with driving music and lush graphics; the kind of game we would have seen more often on 32-bit systems if not for the dick-dribbling, tech-chasing writers of magazines like Next Generation, who never missed a chance to tell their readers that their games aren't worth shit if they don't have polygons. (What, me bitter?)

Unfortunately, Shadow of the Ninja Reborn brings back all the annoyances of video games from the 8-bit and 16-bit generations, along with lead-footed assassins that make an already frustrating experience that much more agonizing. Reborn is ostensibly a remake of Natsume's similarly named sleeper hit for the NES, but the designers have taken creative liberties with the source material. Stages have been expanded, character sprites have been redrawn, and the weapon system has been completely redesigned, with everything from caltrops (you know, floor tacks that always land point first) to giant swords to laser beams added to the slim arsenal in the original game. 

The Kasurigami (hooked chain) is now
a permanent part of your arsenal,
but each throw leaves you locked in
position until the head of the chain
returns, and doesn't snuff bullets or
shuriken. This becomes a problem
when fighting the elusive aquatic ninjas in
the second stage. Prepare to pick a lot
of ninja stars out of your keister.
(image from Nintendo)

You might think this would improve the experience, but the new weapons quickly become a nuisance, with massive set up times and weird trajectories that make using them more trouble than they're worth. Adding to the frustration is a weapon select system that forces you to hold in a button while cycling through the available items with left and right. Left on the D-pad moves the current selection right and vice versa, forcing you to adapt your muscle memory to the mad whims of the designers. Just pressing the weapon select button swaps between the default katana and the first of the seven items in your inventory. This must have seemed like a good idea in theory, but leaves the player struggling to reach the one health restoring item in their stock that could save their lives in a tense situation. Got milk? Nope, you got a mallet instead, and now you got killed by that giant robot samurai flinging chunks of metal in your face.

Oh, but the frustration doesn't end with the weapon system! In addition to way too many useless weapons, Kaede and Hayate are armed with ninja techniques that would be impressive... if they weren't so kludgy to perform. Take for instance hanging from platforms. Jumping under a platform makes your ninja cling to it... simple enough. Up flips your hero up to the top, while jump drops them back down to a lower level. Up and jump would vault your character upward in any other side-scrolling platformer, but here, you just fall... possibly into a pit, which robs you of precious energy. 

Your ninja can also climb walls, but pressing up and down to adjust your poisition a'la Ninja Gaiden II won't cut it... you have to press up and toward the wall, then hammer the jump button to make them race upward. Similarly, there's a spin that lets you float over gaps in tight areas, but that's triggered by holding down and to the left or right, while pounding the jump button. You can't double tap in the direction you'd like to air dash, as has been customary in video games since 1996's Guilty Gear. No, Natsume had to be unique, and the player suffers for it. (Really, you're making me press DOWN on the controller to defy gravity, a force which tends to pull you downward? That makes perfect sense. Wink wink, give middle finger.)

And ANOTHER thing! Power ups
increase the length of your katana
blade, but taking damage takes
that advantage away, forcing you to get
dangerously close to that chimpanzee
with spike-lined armor.
(image from Nintendo)

Worst of all, these two ninjas are gallingly weighty and sluggish, making you think they should have considered a career in accounting instead. In that 8-bit tradition, Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is a demanding game, forcing players to make split-second adjustments to their positions to cleanly leap from platform to platform, and to keep a safe distance from their enemies. Kaede and Hayate are just too doughy to match the reflexes of their foes and meet the game's overwhelming demands, which means players will have to memorize each stage and react a half-second before each enemy strikes. You can adapt to the slight reaction delays, but when you're playing as ninjas and not sumos, it shouldn't even be necessary.

Look, I want to love Natsume-Atari's games. Unfortunately, whether it's Wild Guns or Pocky and Rocky or Shadow of the Ninja, they feel like the twelve labors of Hercules with Sisyphus' boulder clamped to your ankle. If you're going to present me with a brutal challenge, at least give me the tools needed to meet that challenge. Don't give me shinobi who spend most of their downtime at the all you can eat buffet.