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Post thoughts here or on the youtube page. Video responses are encouraged.
Video forum meign.
3 without a doubt. revenge is good, but 3 just has way more variety. similar to contra 3.
Revenge was pretty good, but No. 3 is my favorite and perhaps one of the best side-scrollers of all time. He had a very useful move list from the wall jump to the drop kick and run. Graphically, it still holds up to this day. But as for difficulty, Revenge takes the cake.
Ive been talking about this for the longest.
Shinobi 3 is one of the greatest games ever released for Genesis. Its range of attacks, level design and difficulty (Stage 6 and 7 respectively) clearly makes it a great game. Revenge however, was most known for its immense difficulty and the ability to have multiple endings depending on how your final battle ended. I got a few footnotes on this shit since I’ve beaten (and still play to this fucking day) both of these great games.
Revenge of Shinobi
- Introduction to Joe Musashi and Neo Zeed Co. type stuff. Nice backstory.
- Level design was pretty much diverse and was usually filled with many obstacles that either take life or in some cases, your death. (Example being Stage 3-2 with airplane doors and Stage 5-2 with oncoming traffic) This made the difficulty level very challenging.
- You started out with a set number of shurikens and possibly introduced the double jump into 8 shuriken throws. Also had the infinite shuriken code.
- Gameplay was way ahead of the times back in the 90s. The ability to choose from 4 very good and well thought out ninjutsu at will was an excellent idea for a game like this.
- Multiple endings at the last boss depending on whether or not you saved the girl. The last battle was hard in itself but then to have more pressing matters while staying alive made it one of the most ingenious final battles on the Genesis. It gave meaning to never always a happy ending.
- Yozo Koshiro did the soundtrack so of course that was good.
- Batman and Spiderman was on it, just not your friend. :mad:
- The game was usually slow paced when you’re just shooting things ahead of you due to the fact that you couldnt run in this game. If the stage was a straight shooter, it got wack quick.
- The lack of attacks without a POW powerup. All you had was shurikens and double jump shurikens. When you did have a POW, you could use your sword which was pretty stupid seeing that he had a sword on his back the whole time.
- Some boss battles never ended if you didnt use your ninjutsu. It would take alot of shurikens to take down a boss and the mode to kill these bosses is pretty repetitive especially the last one.
- Frustration over flipping. It was pretty hard to do and when you mastered it, sometimes it doesnt come out when you need to. Only when you used Fujin did you have guaranteed flips.
Shinobi 3 - Return of the Ninja Master
- Intro video was too great.
- Level design was over the top from its predecessor. Mostly involving vertical situations that if you were at the bottom of the screen you would die. Also, the design itself was more colorful and detailed than Shinobi 1.
- Continued on with the shurikens but to the addition of your shurikens, you could use your sword at will if you were close enough to an enemy. A POW powerup just made your day.
- The ability to run was introduced in 3. This made the game way more fast paced as you would have to watch out for anything coming at you while running. Benefits from running would make the sword slash that was invisible for just a few frames. Your best friend.
- Dive kicks after jumping and also easier double flips. The ability to jump off of walls and climbing poles was a great feature.
- Ninjutsu was basically broken and stronger. You could use Mijin as long as you had lives compared to Shinobi 1 when you died after you used Mijin twice in a stage.
- Gameplay was more upbeat and faster with more obstacles and the use of other things such as surfboards and horses. Very exciting stages.
- Once again the OST was done by Yozo Koshiro and easily beats his early work.
- Difficulty dropped a notch from easier enemies and bosses. Still, level design wise, both games had about the same difficulty.
- The later stages (5-2, 6 and 7) were usually hell on earth if you didnt know what you were doing.
- The lack of a real story was the only thing that righteously fucked this game up. You were sent out on a mission with absolutely no motivation or no love interest. Just straight up killing things from Neo Zeed Co.
Overall, both of these games deserve the praise they both get. Even though Shinobi 3 was the better game, this is a prime example of when a game has its shortcomings the sequel is guaranteed to deliver.
I was thinking of making a reply vid to that video but its too late at night to get the cam out. Just tell the guy about this post lol.
Just a minor correction to your fine assessment, Silent Shinobi. Shinobi 3’s soundtrack was NOT composed by Yuzo Koshiro. It was written by Masayuki Nagao, Hirofumi Murasaki and Morihiko Akiyama
Ugh, 4-ish yrs old when these games came out? Does that mean shadow dancer isn’t out on virtual console yet?
Shinobi 3: easy even on hardest. Fucking scrub game. Pretty, but overrated. Dive kick?
Revenge: pretty, pretty to the ears, way more interesting gameplay-wise in that old really challenging platformer way. Gotta get the one with all the comic book bosses in it before it was changed too. 
Shadow Dancer: pretty, great soundtrack, noticable challenge varieties in the difficulty modes, arcade style pacing, best variety in ways to approach people (range, melee, dog, bump, jump bump, stealth, speedrun), most fun of the 3 in non shuriken mode, truest to shinobi 1 style.
Oh yeah, and the bonus stage. God damn I love Shadow Dancer. (and no i’m not talking the arcade one)
Not just Batman and Spiderman, but Terminator and Godzilla. However there were many versions of RoS because of copyright issues.
Revision 1.00 showed complete detailed clarifications for Batman, Spiderman, and Godzilla. However, this revision is perhaps the hardest to acquire for the game now.
Revision 1.01 showed detailed clarifications of only Spiderman and Godzilla. Batman is now replaced with modified bat-looking man that shows no real uniqueness towards the real thing.
This revision is seen more on ROM’s of the game.
Revision 1.02 is pretty much what you see off every genesis cartridge RoS now. Spiderman remains unmodified, but Batman and Godzilla are now replaced with laughable clarifications. Godzilla is now a giant walking skeletal structure of the real thing. License for Spiderman were already dealt for another game he appeared in at the time for Sega, so he remained unchanged.
Shinobi 3 definitely had more playability and animations, but I love RoS to death. There’s a story, everybody is after you, and the challenge of double jumping is appealing to more individuals who are seeking a challenge. Shinobi 3 gets VERY tough in later levels, but RoS is already a pain at the beginning because you are forced to shuriken abuse everything.
That’s a very much easy mistake I have. If someone did the first I assumed they did the rest. Thanks on the correction (the more you know :woot:)
I will agree Shinobi 3 was pretty easy and well orchestrated if you play it alot for the first 5 levels which is clearly over half the game. But seriously the transitions from stage to stage were insane. You finish a boss in 5 and you’re suddenly on rocks to jump on in 6 with you almost near the bottom. Plus most of the early stages dont get hard until later. Also Dive Kick is quite possibly the best move in 3. Down + B in the air and you could reset it so you can stay in the air with dive kicks. Gdlk.
As for Shinobi 1, Stage 8-2 had me on some overnight bullshit and this was before the internet…:sad:
Shadow Dancer…I’ve played it before a few times. Its pretty good but its kinda short to me. I was never a fan of the Contra Rules of Life (one hit deaths) but I actually came to like Shadow Dancer. Bumps were pretty lol tho. The use of just 1 ninjutsu a stage was pretty dumb (this was after I played the other 2) until I figured out how awesome it was. Also, no shuriken mode was fucking beast and when you did have shurikens, they were unlimited and came out super fast. Bonus Stages were great. Its funny sometimes even if you sway back and forth between buildings, at least 1 ninja gets past you.
Silent: 8-2 in Shinobi 1? Do you mean ROS or Shinobi for arcade? I know there are hidden levels in Shinobi for arcades, but I didn’t think they were accessible.
Thanks everyone for the input. I would really like to see some video responses to flood youtube, but I’ll take what I can get. Also, kinda weirded out that it seems like a one-sided argument - I know there are a lot of ROS lovers out there who would want to speak up.
Yeah I meant RoS.
Shinobi III, even today, remains as of my top favorite games of all time. The platforming at the time was virtually unheard of. I’ve only beat RoS one time, but I’ve beaten SIII multiple times. I’m going to have to obtain RoS now that you guys are talking about it.