The 1989 NES version of Sega‘s Shinobi was converted and published by Tengen, in North America only. Why the game wasn’t released in Japan, I don’t know. Maybe because Sega didn’t think it was good enough?

It’s actually not a bad version of the arcade game, and isn’t quite as hair-tearingly difficult. At least, not initially, but the first boss battle (“Ken Oh“) is frustratingly hard to beat…

Graphically, the NES version of Shinobi is perfunctory. There are very few visual flourishes, and the character animation isn’t as good as in the original (Joe Musashi‘s crouch kick looks pretty terrible; like he’s letting out a fart, rather than actually kicking). Gameplay-wise, the game is okay. Like other console versions of Shinobi, you have a life bar, so at least you’re not killed with one hit, like in the arcade version.

The bonus game – where you have to throw shuriken at advancing ninja – is more frequent, and easier (compared to, say, the C64 version of Shinobi, which is almost impossible), in this version of the game. If you complete the bonus game, and stop the ninja, you are then (randomly) awarded a single use of some ninjutsu magic, which you can collect multiple of and use to clear the screen of enemies during the main game.

I did notice that you can fall between a box (or wall) and an enemy, and get stuck in a cycle where you continually lose health and can’t immediately jump away from, which I’d count as a bug (or at the very least an annoyance). And that first boss, as previously mentioned, is ridiculously difficult to get past and has no damage indicator, so you don’t know if you’re hurting him or not (but it’s his fireballs, that follow you around, that are the biggest obstacle to overcome; they seem almost impossible to avoid).

At times there’s some pretty bad sprite tearing, and the jumping between levels is also confusing in places. So the NES version of Shinobi does have its issues. It’s not the worst version of Shinobi out there, but it’s certainly nowhere near the best either. It could and should have been better.

More: Shinobi on Wikipedia