How did Sega muck this up so much? The controls are frustrating, the music is bland, the stage design is mostly boring and repetitive and there's a complete lack of memorable set pieces or impressive bosses.
With all the power that the Saturn has to offer over previous consoles, Sega were unable to make a game which looks or sounds as good as any of the Mega Drive Shinobis in terms of the backgrounds and general presentation, quite a feat indeed. When it comes to the rotoscoped / digitised character graphics, they are subjective. I personally prefer pixel art graphics, but what is here is OK and would not be an issue if the rest of the game held up, which sadly it doesn't.
It just doesn't feel like any of the previous Shinobi games, and it certainly doesn't feel better either. Control is unpredictable, meaning that often you will not be able to pull off certain moves just at the time required, for no apparent reason. This leads to the inevitable deaths / falls etc that just shouldn't have happened, so frustration builds up frequently. I am indifferent to the silly FMV cut scenes, they are cheesy and low budget and add nothing to the game but I just skip past them.
The only improvement they have made is Joe's range of moves, he can now elect use his Katana in a number of ways, defensively or offensively, and still has plenty of throwing weapons to use too. He can crawl, roll and double jump, do a spinning attack jump, lunge, run, perform a satisfying running attack, jump up walls and a few other things. All that *should* make for a fun game but unfortunately, as stated, the controls are not reliable, making many bosses and areas much more of a pain than they should be.
Combine that with the lacklustre stage design and bosses and this game just doesn't cut it compared to the excellent older games in the series. Great shame indeed.
