Shinobi III Analysis

Shinobi III was one of the first games I played on the Sega Genesis. I thought that it would be an interesting idea to go back and look at the first level. It's one of the first games that actually taught me how to do wall jumps along with double jumps. The first level is fairly flat with a very little amount of jumping.

The game becomes much crazier as it goes, but it starts out like a traditional ninja game. You walk through the forest defending yourself against other ninjas and then you come across 3 samurai in a cave.  As the game progresses, you find that the game takes place it what seems to be a distant future.

The level starts you off pretty slow with about 2 standard enemies. If you wait to long to attack them, they will jump and throw a projectile at you. As the level progresses, you will come across 2 other types of enemies. One of which is a walking man with a blowpipe and helmet. He takes 2 hits to kill. The first hit will knock him back which makes him get into his attacking pose.The second hit will kill him. The other type of enemy you will come across is a guy that is colored red and hops around. He only takes one hit, but he is one of the harder enemies to kill at first. 

There are many standard enemies throughout the level. There are only 3 blowpipe men who are mostly in the first half of the level. There are 2 hopping enemies towards the end of the level. When the player enters the cave, they will have to fight 3 samurai. The first 2 are fairly easy while the last one takes a couple more hits. The first 2 have an attack where they swipe their sword and you have to jump over their slash. The last samurai changes it up a bit because when he shoots out his slash attack, it will come towards the player, making them jump. The slash will actually come back to the samurai like a boomerang. 

The player can also pick up item boxes which will give them more ammo, powers, or replenish their health. Some have time bombs in them which the player has to avoid. There are other ways the player can move and attack if they are more experienced. Tapping twice on the D-Pad will allow the player to run. You can also shoot a small wave of projectiles if you jump and hit a certain button. If you have a power when you get into the cave, the samurai become much easier to defeat.

Gameplay: