How do you remake a cult classic? Changing too much will alienate diehard fans of the original, while failing to adapt and improve on old mechanics will leave modern audiences cold. While NatsumeAtari tries well, it’s a puzzle they never manage to satisfactorily solve over the course of their retro 2D slash-’em-up Shadow of the Ninja-Reborn.
The original Shadow of the Ninja was released in Europe back in 1991 on the NES. It was a sideways 2D 8-bit platformer that stood out in a dark genre for its highly entertaining 2-player co-op mode, where two ninjas jump, run and throw shurikens without restraint. Now, more than thirty years after its EU debut, Shadow of the Ninja has been reborn under the watchful eye of Tengo Project. In the meantime, original creative minds Dynamic Productions and Iku Mizutani have returned to take care of the character illustrations and music respectively. And their dedication paid off, as Shadow of the Ninja Reborn’s presentation is absolutely perfect. Graphically, Reborn is still a huge improvement over the original’s 8-bit visuals, but it retains the unmistakable pixel-coated retro charm of its predecessor.
The character models are so chunky you could almost chew them; giant mechs lumber into battle, oiled-up musclemen flex their biceps before charging into battle, while armed robo-mercenaries unleash a hail of bullets at every possible second. It’s so charming, so wacky, it’s like the ’90s never ended! The sprites of returning ninjas Hayate and Kaede are delightful too. Their animations are beguiling and they both look cool slicing through hordes of minions – even if Kaede seems to have forgotten to put on pants again. The music is – given Mizutani’s return, of course – a brilliant, grin-inducing guitar score, while the environments themselves are dripping with inconsequential details: lightning flashes, thunder gathers, and rain pours down in sheets. The atmosphere that Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn exudes is tangible, who needs polygons, right?
Local coups are present, correct, and as entertaining as ever. So why doesn’t Shadow of the Ninja Reborn deliver on all its promises? For me, it’s too deferential to the original game. The ’90s levels were probably reproduced with too much care; often they became a teeth-gnashing scrum of pixel-perfect jumps, endless baddies, and a peculiar penchant for making it hard to tell whether or not you can hold onto a surface. My skilled ninja warrior often hilariously bounced off a wall rather than clinging to it, even though the wall looked virtually identical visually to the other one I’d climbed.
The controls are also unnecessarily complicated. Climbing is chaotic, Hayate and Kaede barely behave and therefore die needlessly. Also, being able to access only one collected power-up at a time adds nothing to the intended strategy, just being frustrating when you drink a healing potion instead of throwing the bomb. There’s also a noticeable input lag, which combined with some old-fashioned difficulty settings can lead to nearly insurmountable difficulty spikes. So much so, in fact, that my local buddy soon turned down the arduous challenge, forcing me to go through it alone, which proved to be an endless slog, although there were occasional – and very welcome – checkpoints.
While the right balance between homage and reinvention is always subjective in a remake, I think Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn stays too faithful to its predecessor. If you want that super-sophisticated, old-school retro experience with all its flaws and weaknesses, you’ll love this. For the rest of us, a few more modern design elements would be a welcome change.
