 When it comes to the Sega Genesis or Mega Drive, three things immediately come to mind, for me anyway. Sonic, shoot-em-ups, and ninjas, namely the Shinobi series, which started in 1987, continued in the arcades with Shadow Dancer two years later, and proceeded onward with Revenge of Shinobi, the first game in the series made specifically for the Genesis. So why do a video on this game? There's a bunch of reasons, most importantly because it's really the first Shinobi game that got it right, in a manner of speaking, but also because of the incredible music, and because the original version of this game features some laugh-out-loud funny characters that need to be seen to be believed, but I'll get to that later. Now Revenge of Shinobi wasn't quite a launch title for the Genesis, but it was designed with the intent of showing off the system's hardware, similar to the purpose Pilotwings or F-Zero served as launch titles for the Super Nintendo. And sure enough, Revenge of Shinobi is so immediate, so in-your-face, and just so 1989 Genesis. I'm sorry, there's just no other way to put it. If you want the quintessence of Sega Genesis or Mega Drive before Sonic showed up, this game is it. The graphics, the music, the art direction, the action, the controls, all of it. It's just so late 80s Sega, for better or for worse. And I think it's for the better. There's eight levels here, and you get a life bar unlike earlier games in the series, and the game takes place friggin' everywhere. You're hopping across rooftops, you're in a nightclub, you're playing in traffic, you're fighting on a plane trying not to get sucked out the door, you're fighting nuns. It's tremendous. And the action is all tied together by a fun weapon system and solid enemy and level design. This is one of the earliest examples of a game that gives the player control of a character that's overpowered as hell, while also giving them a ton of space to play around in. The double jump here plays into that big time, and yeah, I admit the jumping is pretty floaty at first, like you're jumping on the moon, but it's definitely not a deal breaker or anything, especially with this shuriken attack you can use. There's also four different spells you can collect, like a lightning shield, a high jump spell, a screen clear attack, and a suicide attack, which takes away one of your lives but does a ton of damage. You collect these by hacking and slashing all these boxes you come across, also finding ammo for various weapons, as well as power and range upgrades, but unfortunately there's also bombs you come across here and there, so you can't just indiscriminately plow through every box, you do have to be careful, and that's kind of a bummer, but I get why it's there. Like I said earlier, this game is very Sega, and a big part of that is because of the music made by Yuzo Koshiro, who did the music for games like Actraiser, East Book 1 and 2, and of course, the Streets of Rage series. The music here is one of those timeless soundtracks that you can just listen to on its own because it's just so energetic and fun, but also, and I know this is subjective, but I think it's one of the most important game soundtracks ever made because it really set the standard as to what was possible on the console. Let's get to the boss fights. The first three boss fights are pretty normal as far as video game bosses go, but then you fight this buffed out dude, and he starts to turn color the more damage he takes, and wait a second, okay that's just straight up the incredible Hulk right now. Oh wait, now it's the Terminator. In addition to that, you've got Rambo, Godzilla, and funniest of all, you've got Spider-Man tossing spiderwebs onto you before he turns into freaking Batman. It is laugh out loud funny seeing this because it's so out of nowhere, and you'd think this would be a blatant copyright infringement, right? Well believe it or not, Sega actually did get the rights to use Spider-Man's likeness in the game, at least for a little while. Most of the others though, were just flat out stolen and had to be changed in later additions to the point that there were already four different versions of the game by late 1990, and later a fifth revision when the game was released for the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network. For instance, Rambo was changed to a random bald guy, Batman was turned into some shirtless demon dude, Godzilla was changed into a skeleton monster thing that looks like something out of Super Metroid, but that's only in the Wii Virtual Console version, Spider-Man also had to get changed for that version since the rights expired. Now he's just some random purple guy. Oddly enough, the Hulk Terminator guy was never changed, I guess they're vague enough to stick around as is. So yeah, Revenge of Shinobi is fantastic. No, I don't think it's as good as Shinobi 3 Return of the Ninja Master which came a few years later, but come on, that's probably one of the five best Genesis games ever. Revenge of Shinobi is still very good, and it's one of those games that's very important for its time, since the visuals, sound, and gameplay had an arcade-like quality to them on a home console, and that was a huge deal back in 1989. Now, today I can see someone being a little turned off by how slow this game can be compared to its peers, and the controls are a little labored in a sense, and the jump takes a little bit of getting used to, but like I said, I don't perceive those things to be deal breakers. In fact, if anything, those flaws play into a weird instance where they actually play into the game's charm a little bit. It's a little like Star Fox for Super Nintendo in that regard, if that makes sense. Unfortunately, Revenge of Shinobi is not on the upcoming Genesis Mini here in the US, it's only on the Japanese version, so this is one you gotta play any way you can. And I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.