Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn – (PlayStation 5)

Genuine
Genuine

Excelente juego
Es un remake genial y difícil como el original

Great update!!
Played the original on the NES 30+ years ago. Great game then and even better now. Worth every penny.

A Classic Returns…But should it have?
I own the NES game. The NES is better. This game looks like a browser flash game. If it let you toggle between old school and modern, it would be worth the buy. As is, for me, its a pass.

I’m a big fan of the modern remaster/reworking jobs Tengo Project has done for both SNES classics Wild Guns and The Ninja Warriors but, to my shock, they’ve fumbled the ball badly on their remake of Shadow of the Ninja. All the promising signs were in that trailer: gorgeous spritework, rocking music, classic single-player action ready to stand the test of time. What the hell happened?Baffling design decisions. That’s what happened.Because the main thing that bothered me while playing SotNR is that this is supposed to be a ninja game– fast, fluid and focused– yet I couldn’t get over how stiff the character control is. Every move feels slightly delayed and halts you when you expect fluidity. It comes off clunky, or stilted.For example, if you grab onto a pole to swing up, you’re stuck on it until you press up on the analog/d-pad again to finish the swing, which makes for some awkward platforming in a ninja game. (You can’t continue the swing in a fluid fashion by holding up as you grab onto the pole, either; you must delay between actions to complete them manually.) And if you’re grabbing a ledge, you don’t hoist up there by pressing up the same manner. You press… the jump button instead? That makes no sense! Why make the controls different there?Also, trying to heal during battle (specifically, boss battles) is *really* awkward, because healing items are mixed in with your weapons, which requires you to stop moving, hold the R1 button and scroll through the inventory manually before finding your potion, and then heal. And the more weapons you pick up, the more you have to scroll through! Why the hell would you do that in a ninja game? It’s so bloody awkward!That sums up the control for me: awkward. It is *unreal* how awkward it is to control your character in this game. It constantly stops me from getting into the flow state. I can’t focus when delayed controls are actively battling against my hands. Even the time between restarts from death to continue is a 20-second wait time, every time. That means there’s no fluidity, no speed… IN A NINJA GAME.Now, for my biggest personal gripe. I’ve always had an ear for sound and, I theorise, what makes the best action games of all time, ultimately depends on their sound design in both effects and music. Action games should sound BALLSY. Think of the greats. Contra. Metal Slug. Gears of War. Street Fighter. And even Tengo’s very own Ninja Saviors remake! Those games make every hit FEEL like you did it YOURSELF! That’s the IMPACT of superb sound design! But here, both sound and music lack that exciting bottom-end punchiness that is so characteristic of classic action games. Here, they come off fey and dainty. And they literally mixed it that way! That’s the deathblow right there: no auditory impact whatsoever… IN AN ACTION GAME.Okay, so the animation and art detail are as ravishing, as usual, and was the major draw of my attention throughout. Of course it is, I can admit that. (This is Tengo Project, after all.) But, so what? Great visuals aren’t enough to excuse all the other flaws! Otherwise, you’d have no different a philosophy than the corporation who markets you a AAA game. Visuals don’t make Space Invaders or Tetris the timeless fun games they are. And we all know dazzling visuals aren’t enough to pass muster when it comes down to the gaming experience itself. So, big deal. Who cares… when the game still controls and sounds like crap.It’s really unfortunate, but all of those issues soured me on the experience as a whole, so I gave up. And I’m not going to let fanboys or gatekeepers on the internet gaslight me back into this game the way they have with bad From Software games. All I can do is go on my gut and my instinct as honestly as I can. And here, Tengo Project has failed me. I’m genuinely shocked that a studio with such a high pedigree could fall so short on an old-school, fast-paced action game. To think, they could’ve had another classy remake on their resume. It really breaks my heart to have to give this one the score I have, but they’ve done what they’ve done, and I’ve paid what I paid in both time and money wasted.Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is, for me, the most shocking gaming disappointment of 2024.