Released: 1987
System: Arcade
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
In this classic Arcade action game, Joe Musashi must rescue his students which have been kidnapped by a terrorist organization. The game is comprised of five missions with objectives given at the beginning; these objectives are extremely obvious, to say the least. "Pursue the Terrorists" and "Destroy the Enemy Ninja Group" are two examples of the objectives; pretty simple, but the life of a ninja is not complicated (kill!). Shinobi fights with a sword and can also throw shuriken. One hit will kill most bad guys, which often have guns; some, however, are ninjas with swords (there's even a bad guy that crawls on the wall like Spider-Man!). The game looks primitive by today's standards, but was huge for the time. The port of Shinobi for Sega's Master System remains one of the best games for the system. Classic. Shinobi would go on to star in several more games for the Sega Genesis.
I have fond memories of playing through this game. It's almost like a Genesis version of Kung Fu. Those Spider-man enemies are hilarious too. Shinobi 3 totally blows this one away though.
Shinobi III is the best of the bunch. This is still a classic though.
We had the arcade cabinet in the student center at my college. I didn't play it myself (too busy playing the pinball machine next to it), but I used to watch my friend Kenichi play. He was really good at it.
Wow, that's awesome! What a shame you never played it, but pinball is fun too.
I was counting my quarters carefully back then, I paid for school myself and everything was budgeted to the last penny. I had x amount set aside for entertainment, and I could get more out of a quarter playing Pinbot than I could out o Shinobi. Plus, it was a lot of fun watching Kenichi kick ass (or learning swear words in Japanese when he wasn't kicking ass, lol).
Oh, Pinbot's cool.
That looks amazing for a 1987 console game.
No, this is the Arcade version. Here's what the Master System port looked like:
Ah. Gotcha. Read too fast.
This looks fun, I'd waste so many quarters on this game if I saw it at an arcade.
I would do the same. Any ninja game draws me in like a magnet.
this is kind of a weird game. I remember playing it on arcade and on my SMS. I never got very far... it was tough for me. But I always had this feeling for its mystique.
I eventually played Revenge of Shinobi and the others like a maniac.
Yeah, it's a little rough perhaps, but the sequels certainly improve on everything. Sadly, the only one I've played is Shinobi III for Genesis, but I really want to play the others.
Arcade Shinobi and Arcade Roling Thunder always reminded me of each other. Who copied who? Namco or SEGA? Who can say, they both did it to each other!
Well, they might both feel the same, but RT had a female protagonist along with the male protagonist, and it was espionage, not simple ninja missions. At this time, many games were copying the formulas of others (sad shame).
Always loved playing Shinobi. I never beat it though.
Played some Shinobi III on the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. Liked that one. Shinobi arcade is an unlockable on that collection too.
Shinobi broke my will to live. Why do you do this,why?!