Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Shadow Dancer and Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

Seeing the plan for this years extended Shinobi Coverage on the podcast, I went down to my library to pick up a copy of Sega Mega Drive Classics.
I had no prior experience with the series, and reasoned that I would initially approach it like an older Castlevania game and allow myself savestates simply as semi-regular checkpoints.
As I booted up Shadow Dancer I quickly had to relax these restrictions, as I was surprised to find it an "one hit and you're out" affair. Whether taking a half-step too far or changing directions a half second too late my deathcount skyrocketed, and I began using the rewind feature freely. By the latter stages which heavily feature throngs of the bouncing-spinning ninjas it felt more like I was playing Prince of Persia: The sands of time. Bosses were surprisingly manageable though, and your canine companion does help, even if the final stages enemies sadly largely seem to have dog-immunity. The games short length took me by surprise; my copious assist usage of course means that I rushed through it, but it also felt like the level design never really got interesting before the end.
Still, Shadow Dancer had enough enjoyable facets that I moved on to Revenge of Shinobi immediately, but that is a story for another podcast.


3 word review: Brittle Ninja Adventure