While way back in the arcade days Shinobi may not have been one of my top go-to machines, there’s no question that over the years I sunk quite a lot of quarters into it, as well as its sequel Shadow Dancer. They each took what could have just been a generic side-scrolling format and tried to make the most of it, implementing a bit of strategy and in the boss battles even requiring more nuanced skill than most of their competition. While I’ve seen the name pop up periodically over the years though, until now I hadn’t had the chance to be reunited with it. It turns out that this adaptation of the series by the talented folks at Lizardcube (who previously worked on both Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and the iconic Streets of Rage 4), is the perfect time to jump back into the franchise.

While the revenge story that fuels the game may not be terribly original, it does the required job of putting your character, Joe Musashi, on the warpath. Armed with what becomes a truly impressive arsenal of attacks and movement skills, you’re absolutely capable of being death in motion when you’re on a roll. Quickly moving from enemy to enemy, building your combo meter, and then unleashing deadly finishing attacks that will typically net you coins, supplies, and healing, once you get on a tear you can do some serious damage. That said, the further along you go, the more you’ll need to be mindful of what your various enemies are up to, being sure to go after the more dangerous ones first before you allow yourself to get overwhelmed.

If anything, I think you could argue you may have too many potential capabilities to make use of, but since you can choose how you level yourself up, the great thing is that on a general level you can likely play whichever way suits you. Exploration, finding secrets, and knowing how to get the most out of the traversal skills you possess is also one of the game’s great strengths. While not everything may be accessible early on, once you’ve gotten the proper skills or are simply juiced up enough to tackle challenging Elite Squad skirmishes, in general getting back to most key spots tends to be pretty easy using the highly functional world map. What’s nice is that you likely won’t have to chase everything down if you don’t want to, even with just your default skills you can be quite formidable, you’ll just need to figure out what works for you.

In terms of the downsides, I’d say that since the core slashing combat and traversal tend to be so satisfying, some of the sequences like when you’re riding on the back of your companion Yamato don’t hold up as well. They’re great for variety, but they also don’t always feel as well-honed by comparison. The other is that the degree of challenge can feel all over the place at times, with some environmental complications in spots causing some frustrations, sometimes more than even the odd boss battle. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a terrific and very modern take on a classic side-scrolling slasher, it’s hard to argue against this being an outstanding choice.