I noticed in the recent Switch release, they removed Marylin Monroe's poster from the second level and replaced it with the werewolf from altered beast. Oh, the amstrad port was done by Richard Aplin, an insanely talented Amstrad programmer, all the really good arcade ports on the CPC were done by him. THe Amstrad port is also infamous for having a mile long rant by Aplin hidden in the game's code! :D
Aplin was famous for his rants 🤣. He's also famous for the shit heap known as Amiga Final Fight 😜. But yeah, the guy did well on the CPC. One of the few who did.
@@RetroCore Well, to his credit, although Amiga Final Fight is not very playable (and that's being kind) it is technically quite competent with its large sprites and good frame rate. Richard Aplin himself admitted that he wished he had understood the gameplay mechanisms better back then but alas he had no interest in beat'em ups so he coded it without even trying to replicate the gameplay properly. Also, it did not help that he had only six months to code the whole thing by himself. Although the port can be considered bad overall, for such a small budget it could have been way worse. Obviously, that is no compensation for the end player who just feels cheated. ;) But hey, US Gold.
It is true that arcade games are usually hard to incite quarter insertion, something that obviously makes no sense for a home port. However, tuning down difficulty is also a dangerous proposition as those games were generally completed in 30 minutes of consecutive play time, which would have made the game excessively easy and short. I would personally prefer if ports offered both "original" and "adapted" difficulty settings, so that one could both enjoy a more reasonable difficulty level or the challenge of the arcade as they desire.
Master System version also added a subtle amount of depth and strategy with the slower paced gameplay and different powerups from hostage ninjas (eg. remembering which one gives you a health increase, and the added weapons like bouncing bombs). The Mandala boss stage was stupidly impossible on that port tho!
The Mega Drive version is a brilliant surprise! Hope this'll get finished. Shame about the Amiga / ST versions by the Sales Curve. John Croudy and Ronald Pieket Weeserik (Ninja Warriors, SWIV, Rodland) were the really talented coders they contracted but alas, not for Shinobi. Nice that you showed level 2-2 of the Arcade game, which has one of my favourite pieces of music in any game.
@OperationPhantom It's a shame that the internal team of The Sales curve did not get to do that port. It looks like it was Binary Design which was contracted to do it and on the Amiga they produced mostly crap except for Double Dragon II (by Richard Aplin) hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_developer=74. Another crappy Amiga port, sigh. I actually made a list some time ago of the Amiga arcade ports I would love to see redone with a competent team and the list is sooooooo long that it's both laughable and sad at the same time. 😂 Also, I love these remasters with added versions and better image quality, keep them coming!
The PC Engine port is good but it’s missing close up attacks, has no power ups, Level 2 is gone, and there are no Bonus rounds. I’m really glad you included the incomplete Shinobi unofficial Mega Drive port, it’s freaking amazing!!!
I think the MD port sounds as close as possible for the system. 6 FM channels vs 8 in the arcade. And yeah it looks and plays almost identical. After all the MD arquitecture was based on the System-16 board, the same running Shinobi so it makes sense.
Biggest problem with the PC Engine version is they removed the close quarters melee attacks entirely, probably due to ROM size restrictions. This changes the gameplay significantly, since you have no other option but to spam shurikens against enemies with block them.
I love that you're going back to these vids, many thanks as this is one of my favourite arcade games. I could always get good value out of my 10p's with this game in the day and man I miss walking through those Smokey arcades watching the attract sequences.
Amazing remixed episode, you shocked me i got by surprise to see the Master Tryphon amazing work be displayed here, thank you too much for share! keep going with the good work
No worries Pyrons Lair. I've been keeping an eye on this one for a while. Awesome work! I hope someday the game will be completed. By the way, nice job on the colour. Some parts despite having less colour than the System 16 version look much better.
@@RetroCore I agree that some parts look better than the arcade original. that's something I've commented some months ago in another video. once again this shows that color use matters as much as the amount of colors available and this also shows that colors is mostly a subjective thing anyway also I wonder if the sound could be improved over the original, by using one of these recent sound drivers such as XGM that can handle up to 13 or 14 sound channels overall the mega drive port could be awesome and it would be ace if sega would be OK to acknowledge it and release it officially as a stand alone cart. imagine that? there's also an impressive WIP port of the original fantasy zone for the mega drive. the guy is trying some interesting sound approaches and got great results!
Modern re-releases of the AC version (Wii, Switch, Astro City Mini, etc.) has a censorship: The Marlin Monroe posters at 1-2 was been replaced by the wolf from Altered Beast.
My favorite is the Shinobi Master System port played when I was a little kid with a US Master System in 1989. Now, I have a Japanese Master System with the FM sound and it sounds better like a remaster.
Great to see Shinobi featured this week. I love the series and always enjoyed the original. I even named one of my cats Shinobi. I also had the Master System version growing up and it was one of my favorite games on the system. With that said, I revisited the game a few years ago with a critical eye and I thought it held up well and could stand against other action-platform games that I love but did not have or play growing up. I think it's genuinely well designed, even with the changes for the home version while still retaining much of the feel of the arcade original. I find both the Master System and Arcade versions worth playing for different reasons. As for the PC Engine port, it's impressive on a technical level. It looks reasonably close to the arcade and feels pretty good. However, it's actually missing an entire area, the second one as I recall. That's due to the HuCard being quite small for the game. But it's also missing the close-range attacks, which is the thing I dislike the most about the game. The loss of those attacks adds to the already-increased difficulty since some enemies can block shurikens and being up close is no benefit as it is in the arcade. It was so disappointing to me. I've been checking in on the MD version that's been in development, and I really like what they've done with it. It looks great. The MD was designed to be able to provide reasonably-close System 16 ports, and we've seen that with enough ROM space, the MD could come very close.
Looks like the Master System was the best official port, though I do wish it had all the content from the arcade. The PC Engine should theoretically have had an easy win.... but it appears to be running WAY too fast, and worse still I know it's missing content like the bonus stages (which are the only way to earn well-needed extra lives), the entirety of stage 2, and melee attacks. The mobile one must have come out around the release of the PS2 reboot of Shinobi, because Musashi has the same outfit there, and I find it interesting that the children are replaced by blue outfit Mai Shiranui. The unofficial Mega Drive port looks nice but it begs the question why Sega never ported it themselves. The Mega Drive was essentially a slightly-detuned System 16, so it would have been very easy to do. Oh well, at least the Mega Drive Shinobi trilogy was superior to the arcade original anyhow.
The poor Joe Musashi making a surprised Pikachu face at the NES port had me LMFAO :). It's a shame that the PC Engine version is way too hard for everyone's tastes, otherwise it would be as close to arcade perfect as we could get. As for the Genesis/MD port, it really shows the effort and love the programmers for the other versions should have poured. Here's hoping that it will be eventually completed. Have a good one.Mark!
They hugely dropped the ball not including short range attacks for Musashi on the PC Engine. Let's be honest, a conversion of Shinobi would have sold no matter what, so they did not care.
Great video from a fantastic channel. Shinobi is one of my favourite arcade games, such a unique soundtrack. The remixed tunes on that Mobile Java version sound awesome, and the Mega Drive port looks incredible, hopefully it will get finished at some point. Imagine if that came out back in the day? Killer App for sure!
There's also a Supergrafx port on the work and apparently the guy takes the time to make it even closer to the arcade than the Mega Drive version so I guess someone will have to make a 32X port to keep the Mega Drive still on top ;) Joke aside, I'm really curious as to how the Supergrafx hardware compares to the Mega Drive and Super Famicom. One thing that always baffled me is that the Supergrafx cost about two times the Mega Drive price yet it doesn't seem to be ultimately better. The Supergrafx has some graphic advantages (it can theoretically handle more sprites (the CPU might be a bottleneck though) and can display more colors) but the Mega Drive also has some graphic advantages (better sprite size flexibility and some special features such as column scrolling) and then the Mega Drive seems to have a more powerful CPU and definitely has better sound capabilities. Furthermore the Mega Drive also has two controller ports and native RGB vs single controller port and either RF or composite for the Supergrafx. So that's absolutely crazy considering, again, the price difference and also the fact that the Mega Drive was released 1 year earlier. Now Supergrafx vs Super Famicom, the Supergrafx has a faster CPU but is it really better? It defo seems to be able to handle more stuff but maybe less complex (I've yet to see something like TMNT Turtles in Time or Contra 3 on Supergrafx). Then the SNES has more compromised resolution capabilities but on the other hand it has some special features such as Mode 7, better sound capabilities and, just like the Mega Drive, native RGB and two controller ports. And the SNES was somewhere in-between in terms of retail price. edit: about the resolution, most SNES games are stuck in 256x224 pixels but actually most Supergrafx games too. Only the Mega Drive usually runs its games in higher res than that (320x224).
The Super Grafix is just an over priced console. NEC had lost the plot when the made that. Even more evident by the release of the overpriced Pcfx. Still, didn't know there was a PC Engine Supergrafx version in the works.
Well to be fair we are yet to see pretty much anything on the SGX, seriously though Ghouls and Gosts looks better and the R-Type hack is pretty impressive too. The SGX was NEC's knee-jerk reaction to the MD, which ultimately was abandoned in favour of the CD-ROM that was already there. That's sad because it's a system with potential, to see exactly what that is we just need to see some more software. But I expect roughly games that look slightly better than on the MD and sound the same as on the PCE.
@@RetroCore Ah yes, the PC-FX. That, was also a perplexing system indeed. I can't find any infos about its retail price though. Do you know how much it cost? It's already surprising that it was released that late (1 month after the Saturn and a few weeks after the PlayStation), especially given its rather weak specs, but now you make me really curious about how much it cost.
@@jbmaru Well, we've seen Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Aldynes which are both pretty cool but which don't justify the SuperGrafx's retail price at all! ^^' And Ghouls 'n Ghosts might look better than the Mega Drive port for the most part but it sounds worse. And Ghouls 'n Ghosts looks better mostly thanx to being released later (1990 vs 1989) and using a larger cart (8 meg vs 5). Had the Mega Drive port being released in 1991 and using a 12 or 16 meg cart, things would have been even worse for the SuperGrafx... And by the time that the SuperGrafx got Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the Mega Drive got newer and even flashier games such as Super Shinobi or Strider! Anyway I still somehow want a SuperGrafx because I'm in the minority of people who actually like the look of the console and also because I really enjoy Aldynes but overall it's more of a caprice than something I'm like "Whoa, I NEED to do that!!" ^^
The moral of the story here is: DON'T bother with the home and microcomputer ports. As a fan of the original Shinobi, just play the arcade version. Yeah, its more brutal but the controls are much tighter, the game plays faster and both the presentation and music is better. Once that homebrew Mega Drive version comes out complete, i'll give it a try to see how it plays to see if its worth a try...
13:30 - I'm still amazed Sega never made this for Genesis. I LOVED this game in the arcades, not even so much for the game as it's totally a ripoff of Rolling Thunder, but then let's be honest, which arcade cabinet was more popular? I have never to this day seen a Rolling Thunder cabinet of any kind in person, but I've seen Shinobi SO many times both back in the day and in modern retro arcades. If there had been this nearly-arcade-perfect version available for Sega Genesis, it would have been one of the first games I bought. #nostalgiatrip #tl:dr When I bought my genesis in January 1990 (Christmas money, hell yeah! First system I bought myself!), I was torn between Genesis and Turbo-Grafx 16. I knew the Genesis was the more advanced machine, but those HuCards were really appealing, and also seeing a Turbo Express immediately made me question what was so damn special about the GameBoy I had just gotten that Christmas! You mean I can take the same games from the console and pop them into my portable?! (Insert Fry meme of "Take My Money!") But I chose the Genesis instead as I couldn't discount my brand-new GameBoy so quickly (and glad I didn't, I loved it!), and my Dad knew just enough about tech to convince me that the Genesis was more next-gen (can't argue that!). So I got mine in that magical period where it still came with Altered Beast but also a voucher for the yet-to-be-released Sonic the Hedgehog! Both games included essentially for $129.99 in 1991 money. I lived with Altered Beast for SIX MONTHS until Sonic finally arrived unannounced and unexpectedly in June 1991, my focus being on cheap used/garage sale NES games in the meantime (no regrets, this is when I got MT Punch-Out! and Jackal, two all-time faves). Let's just say by this time I was STARVING for new Sega games, and my third game was......... Hard Drivin'. Fight me, that game is amazing considering the hardware it runs on! The physics engine is brilliant even on Genesis! Plus it was 75¢ per play in the arcade back then for a kid who did NOT know how to drive... it felt like a waste of money every time, so having a home version was HUGELY valuable (and the birth of my love of both racing games and driving itself). But back to the point, if Shinobi in this form, nearly-arcade-perfect, had existed at that time, that moment when my aunt took me to Toys R' Us and told me to pick any game I want for a birthday present would have been a very different 3rd choice. If Shinobi had been there, boom, totally different history. I'm not sure the point of this story, guess it's for anyone who wants to take a nostalgia trip with me, lol!
The Atari ST game has ONE thing going for it, however. They reversed the colors of the unauthorized obviously supposed to be Spider-Man character climbing down the walls the right way around for that extra copyright infringing goodness.
I am joining the C64 fan crowd here, I absolutely loved it back in the day and consider it one of the best C64 Sega ports ever. Growing up in Europe, though, I was used to the PAL version, and can inform that it is in every aspect similar to the version you're playing here, but being only 50Hz, it probably ran a little slower - maybe a good thing in this case.
@@RetroCore Man, don't get me wrong. What you do is amazing Inwish I could have my own channel and talk about stuff like this you just take your time and do what you do just great.
I own Shinobi on the Master System and the Nintendo Switch. Though I like the MS version, the Switch version by M2 is my favorite. I'm surprised that version wasn't featured on this episode. But it's okay. It's really cool to finally see multiple versions of Shinobi. Thanks for the upload. Keep up the amazing work, good sir
@@RetroCore Makes sense. Thanks for your input. On the subject of one of the ports you covered, I kinda wished the people who made the Mega Drive port would pick it up again and finish it. What they did was truly impressive.
Shinobi was a technical challenge for the C64, the magic alone required more than 8 sprites, so coder Simon Pick had to write some very nifty coding routines. He had the coin op in his living room and Sega provided sprite and background data, but this sadly wasn't of much use. He also coded a little loading game, to play between levels on the C64 cassette version, but this had to be dropped 😭
I noticed some UK C64 games seem to be a bit better than their US counterparts; take Turrican, for example. The shift from PAL to NTSC made the game run almost unplayably faster, and the color count and palette is actually worse on the US release, on top of the few songs in the game being too high pitched - it doesn't have any in-game music either aside from the two jetpack stages. It looks to be the same exact case with Shinobi here. It's clear that Shinobi wasn't designed for NTSC hardware and the conversion is poor, though at least they weren't using any PAL-exclusive tricks like Turrican was doing.
At the end of the 80s the C64 was pretty much dead in North America (understandbly, after 8 years) but reasonneably alive in Europe where it was sold as an entry level gaming platform until at least 1992. Most early C64 games play better on NTSC machines, most later C64 games play better on PAL, due to the market they were aiming to. I think you could say the C64 nostalgia nowadays is almost split in two: Americans, they are older and tend to be nostalgic of games like Space Taxi and Ultima. Europeans, they tend to be a bit younger and remember games like Katakis or Creatures.
There's a remastered CPC version that is extremely nice. Not are just the colors different (personally I find them better), but the main character sprite is awesome!
I think I commented about Shinobi on your first video, you seem a bit harsher on the C64 version on this remastered video. I actually didn't know that there was a separate NTSC version. Bloody yanks LOL! That Megadrive version looks amazing! Now that I think of it, it would have been the perfect launch title, the game that came with the first batch of Megadrives here in Australia was Altered Beast, Shinobi was WAY more iconic of Sega IMO. Aussies had to wait a bit longer for the Megadrive than everyone else, it wasn't released here until 1991, but if Shinobi was released back then it would have fit perfectly alongside other strong early Megadrive titles like Afterburner, Strider, Ghouls 'N'Ghosts, Revenge Of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer:Secret Of Shinobi, Super Monaco GP, Super Hang On, Road Rash, Streets Of Rage, and of course Sonic The Hedgehog
I don't know which title screen is better. The NES one where Joe Musashi looks like he saw the 5th dimention, or the Amiga/ST one where he looks like he fell on drugs.
I am sure the PAL version on Commodore 64 is different to the NTSC version with the enemy pattern being more like the original.. I have real hardware with ten's of thousands of games from both regions.. I will need to check it out soon. My favourite version other than Arcade would be Master System as this was my first experience playing it.. and it is a good playable game.
What the hell happened to the ninja in the Amiga and Atari Nas-T versions? Looks like he's got osteoporosis or something. I don't think the close-up in the title screen is doing him any favors, either.
Yeah, he looks like he is afflicted with severe arthritis. Although his case does not look as advanced as that of the protagonist of the Haunted Castle, the arcade port of Castlevania, who seems to be half paralyzed from the hip up.
But his name is also on the Amiga game and let's be honest, that is total crap. Same goes with Final Fight on the Amiga. Maybe he just didn't care about that system?
I like the C64 version. Yes it's too fast and has too many enemies, but it's still more accurate than any of the other official versions, console included. The PC Engine version has so much missing that you didn't mention. I do like what they did with the Master System version though.
Yes I agree. Sega Master system for me also. It was the version I had but looking objectively without nostalgic goggles on its still the best home version although the PC Engine version looks mint!
Master system version was my 2nd game ever (not including built in hang on, safari hunt and snail maze) - My first was choplifter I have very weird memories of picking up that case in woolworths and unsure of its content as an 8 year old (or thereabouts) - recently the product of divorced parents - this game cemented my childhood 'best Friend' in sega..... good times.
I lived the master system version too. I remember clearly buying it from Toys R US along with Space Harrier and Aztec Adventure. Those 3 games lasted for almost a year. Kids today with their new games everymonth having got a clue.
@@RetroCore You don't say. I remember playing Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga for more than a month straight both because it impressed me so much graphically and because that was the only "good" game I had at the time for the machine. Let me tell you that if I had had another good platformer as a comparison point I would not have been torturing my self for so long on that game. 🤣
The PC engine version lacks the second level, sadly... The Commodore ports has a place in my heart. A solid conversion un My opinion. I always asked wy there wasnt a megadrive version. It's a Nice surprise to know there is a Port un development. Hope these guys can finish it!
No good home versions of Shinobi! This is the reason I hate home computers to this day. You can't even make a competent version of Shinobi, but now PC's want to rule the world. The "what if" Mega Drive version is the stuff of dreams. Great battle.
Way too harsh on the C64 version! Many, myself included, consider it to be an excellent port. Once you adapt to the controls, it becomes a fast, fluid, silky-smooth, responsive, and most importantly, a fun gaming experiece. However, a superb video as usual!
Richard Alpin was behind the CPC version and said fitting the game into 64K was the hardest part, apparently there is only music on the 128K version, the 64K Version is silent?
The European Master System version also had level music on the cart that is never used and some tracks are used twice instead iirc. Maybe it was a licencing issue with the NES and MS ports?
Absolutely wonderful remastered video, Mark. I love me some Shinobi (and other Rolling Thunder-esque games). The original is not my favorite in the series-that would be Shinobi III-but it's still great fun, and I love it...in fact, I prefer the arcade Shinobi over Revenge of Shinobi, which I'm sure is sacrilegious in many Sega circles. I first played Shinobi at a laundromat my aunt worked at. I was with my grandma, and we stopped there to drop off something to my aunt. I saw Shinobi, dropped a quarter in and was instantly hooked. I put a few quarters in it that day but didn't play Shinobi again until I saw the Tengen NES version for sale years later. I don't know why but none of the arcades near to me had Shinobi. The NES version might not hold a candle to some of the other versions, but it was the only version I had access to for a few years, and I had fun with it. Now, when I ended up with a Genesis and a power base converter a couple years later, I bought the SMS Shinobi from a used shop. Definitely a nicer port than the NES version, but sadly just PSG music for me. I do like the PSG soundtrack, but that FM soundtrack is very nice. I've never played any of the home computer ports-that PC version seems almost as bad as some of the shite from Hi Tech Expressions-but I do own the PC-Engine HuCard thought it's a much more recent purchase. It does look quite nice, but I think I prefer the Master System version because it's difficulty is not jacked through the roof. I think most will agree that Tryphon's homebrew Genesis port is exactly what we wished Sega would have put out themselves.
Joe model in Java version seem to be taken from 2002 Shinobi PS2 remake. Richard Aplin worked on Amstrad version of Shinobi? Then no wonder it is so good.
Tha Amiga version uses Dual Playfield for parallax scrolling. This reduces the amount of colors shown a lot (8 for each layer), so you need a good artist to make it look good... which unfortunately is obvious it isn't the case here. There's also a copper split to show the score in a different bitplane of the rest of the screen, which speeds up processing a lot. Now if they actually bothered to change the code from the ST to the Amiga to include the Parallax Scroll and that copper split (neither can be done on an ST), why the HELL they didn't go fully and actually removed the jerky scrolling so typical from ST games? It's really a shame, because obviously the Amiga could have done a very good Shinobi port. Bur oh well, this happened so many times :) The MSX version barely works. It's a direct Spectrum port but it's ridden with bugs and sometimes it doesn't even load. Also it's way slower than the Spectrum version and it has no sound. It has been recently patched to work properly and with better speed, that's probably not the version you got :)
Once again, a crappy port from the ST version that was even a disaster to Amiga. So I have nothing to say more to save this version than you told. GFX are so crap. Another quick port direct to the bin. The good surprise is the CPC version. Colors are a bit disappointing (some guys are at the moment working on a patched version with new color scheme) but musics are really nice, almost all the stuff is there and to be honest it's nice to play too. Don't forget it needs 128k RAM and really uses the floppy disk system with loadings between levels. It was really nice for 6128 owners like me that regretted that most of the CPC games were limited to the use of 64K RAM and with a unique loading time to work on the 464 and its terrible tape drive. CPC is capable of the better in the hands of the good ones.
I need to defend the NES version. It's not great... none of Tengen's NES games were GREAT, but many like Gauntlet or RoadBlasters did a decent-enough job that you felt like you could play that instead of dumping quarters into the local arcade machine. I feel like this would have been the same, but I never found it in the wild. Even growing up in New Jersey where a lot of stuff popped up ahead of other markets (I remember seeing a Game Genie before they were even released in the US, literally called a friend a liar over it until he brought it over, lol!), this was one Tengen game I never saw, and it would've been an instant rental from me! It is a shame they based it on the SMS version since that version changed so much about the music and sound in the first place.
The Amiga version is a far cry from the Arcade but not bad for it's day I found myself enjoying it because a lot of Amiga games don''t even have music during gameplay lol. The physics are terrible in the NES port when you do the jump to the upper platform the enemies can still attack you unlike the Master System version. The Megadrive version would have been considered Arcade perfect if it had released during the 16bit Era
Seeing that java port makes me wish that Sega did the same with the awful GBA's Revenge of Shinobi: A port of the classic Mega Drive game, but with the 2002's game aesthetic. I find the Amstrad port very pleasant, especially compared to the whole load of bullcrap ports that the system received during it's lifespan. And if we need to REALLY be nitpicking something on the Master system port, is the lack of a proper ending. You give your sweat, blood and tears, and all you get is a Game Over screen... The same screen you already saw hundreds of times 😂
Even the Amiga magazines pointed up the jerky scrolling on the Amiga port and with bad animations generally. Im do might have enjoyed dispite that back in the game, but diddent have that. But im did do played quite a bit on the arcade version back in the days throught (and im remember liked the game as well). And yes its a direct Atari ST ports with no effort other to replace the sound (which is not that bad). Hence its faster on Atari ST.
The Sales Curve did all 5 home computer ports. The Amstrad is the best one out of the 5 ports. Also There was some effort made to the Amiga version for the bonus stage, but did not safe the game throught.
It's been a while since your last remaster, the break from last week was worth it. You should also remaster the Fatal Fury Special one, you put in the same video FF2 and FFS. Even though FFS is based upon FF2, they are not the same game, FF2 has a rough combo system, is slower and has an odd collision detection. FFS not only allows the boss charcters and returning ones from the first game; it's faster, has a polished combo system (the first SNK produced game with one) and refined controls. Comparing FF2 with FFS is like comparing SF II with SSF II, they are not in the same league.
@@RetroCore I've been watching some of the old ones, the G'nG defenitely needs your voice and I'm sure that after all these years of making this series, your thoughts on some of the ports have changed. I'd love to see that one.
One of my arcade favourites. Amiga wasn't great, especially with hindsight, but when you're 14 and you got to play it at home on the miggy it did hit the spot. I remember it being better, sometimes I hate adult eyes. 😁
Me to. I live in Belgium and the master system was very popular in here. It was my very first console back in the day. It have a special place in my hart.
my favorite music rendition? on NES version of this. it's faster and imo much more catchy than the original i'm not kidding, that's the reason why i tried NES version!
it's horrible to play tho lmao i played it just for a curiosity. i listened to the whole musics (why in game only some lol) and it's pretty ok albeit screeching chiptunes. i still like it the best lol
Amstrad is my favorite home version. Your bonus level had glitches, it's not like this. Oh the Megadrive port. Where did u get the rom , I'm looking for it for sometime :-/
Yeah my copy of the Amstrad one is a bit glitch. Sadly images of old computer games tend to be like this 😢 The Mega Drive rom I've had for a while. I think I found it via a Google search "Mega Drive Shinobi Beta 3.0"
the very existence of a NES port at a time that sega and nintendo were the equivalent of the US and cuba probably had Bill Merry screaming cats and dogs living together mass hysteria.
You don’t have to use an extra key to jump on the Spectrum version by the way. You can just press up and fire on the joystick just like the other versions.
@@RetroCore Ok, just had a look and yes it’s because you were using the kempston option. So if you use a Sinclair joystick or keyboard you just define BIG JUMP as to whatever you’ve defined fire as and then it lets you do the high jump by pressing up and fire. It is silly that you can’t do that when using a Kempston.
did anyone ever beat that bonus stage? you even have to cheat on name ........ dont you just love how you can have the most violent game ever made in japan but have the most kickback soothing tunes tunes playing as you annihilate everything in existence? The same goes for shumps ....... so the ps2 shinobi game was something different? on and someone who suffered through the new version many times i can agree with your basement of it
I certainly don't plan to make the Amiga look bad. It just is with most arcade conversions. Check out my videos on Snow Bros, Water Kids or Toobin for example to see I don't crap on the Amiga all the time. Those are great ports done well. Just a shame most ports are half arsed Atari ST ports or lazy Amiga originals. Funny how ST owners never get upset when a game on that system is crap
@@RetroCore I'm not an amiga fan. LOL. I don't remember a single instance where I disagreed with your assessment of an Amiga port. It's just that most ports of Japanese games for the Amiga are crap. I have just read what I wrote and it did not come out as I wanted. Sorry, Mark. You are doing a great job and for that I am grateful. Keep it up.
Sorry I don't agree with the ZX port. Highly coloured graphics, in game music. Very good speed, with many enemies on screen. Very playable, and a fine gameplay system. A top conversion that plays like an arcade game. Many people see this game as either a hit, or miss.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 76 | คู่เอก "ผึ้งหลวง vs สมิงดำ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9SBshmGQOIM/mqdefault.jpg)
I noticed in the recent Switch release, they removed Marylin Monroe's poster from the second level and replaced it with the werewolf from altered beast.
Oh, the amstrad port was done by Richard Aplin, an insanely talented Amstrad programmer, all the really good arcade ports on the CPC were done by him. THe Amstrad port is also infamous for having a mile long rant by Aplin hidden in the game's code! :D
Aplin was famous for his rants 🤣. He's also famous for the shit heap known as Amiga Final Fight 😜. But yeah, the guy did well on the CPC. One of the few who did.
@@RetroCore Well, to his credit, although Amiga Final Fight is not very playable (and that's being kind) it is technically quite competent with its large sprites and good frame rate. Richard Aplin himself admitted that he wished he had understood the gameplay mechanisms better back then but alas he had no interest in beat'em ups so he coded it without even trying to replicate the gameplay properly.
Also, it did not help that he had only six months to code the whole thing by himself. Although the port can be considered bad overall, for such a small budget it could have been way worse.
Obviously, that is no compensation for the end player who just feels cheated. ;)
But hey, US Gold.
Helloooo you....
Also I think they've changed the colour of Spiderman
That Master System port got it right in my opinion. The brutal difficulty of arcade ports SHOULD be toned down for the home release.
It is true that arcade games are usually hard to incite quarter insertion, something that obviously makes no sense for a home port.
However, tuning down difficulty is also a dangerous proposition as those games were generally completed in 30 minutes of consecutive play time, which would have made the game excessively easy and short.
I would personally prefer if ports offered both "original" and "adapted" difficulty settings, so that one could both enjoy a more reasonable difficulty level or the challenge of the arcade as they desire.
Master System version also added a subtle amount of depth and strategy with the slower paced gameplay and different powerups from hostage ninjas (eg. remembering which one gives you a health increase, and the added weapons like bouncing bombs). The Mandala boss stage was stupidly impossible on that port tho!
The Mega Drive version is a brilliant surprise! Hope this'll get finished.
Shame about the Amiga / ST versions by the Sales Curve. John Croudy and Ronald Pieket Weeserik (Ninja Warriors, SWIV, Rodland) were the really talented coders they contracted but alas, not for Shinobi.
Nice that you showed level 2-2 of the Arcade game, which has one of my favourite pieces of music in any game.
I do like the music on that stage also
@OperationPhantom It's a shame that the internal team of The Sales curve did not get to do that port. It looks like it was Binary Design which was contracted to do it and on the Amiga they produced mostly crap except for Double Dragon II (by Richard Aplin) hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_developer=74.
Another crappy Amiga port, sigh.
I actually made a list some time ago of the Amiga arcade ports I would love to see redone with a competent team and the list is sooooooo long that it's both laughable and sad at the same time. 😂
Also, I love these remasters with added versions and better image quality, keep them coming!
One of the best arcade games ever. LOVED the hell out of the Master System version. That unfinished Sega Mega Drive port is extremely impressive.
The PC Engine port is good but it’s missing close up attacks, has no power ups, Level 2 is gone, and there are no Bonus rounds. I’m really glad you included the incomplete Shinobi unofficial Mega Drive port, it’s freaking amazing!!!
Not even 5 seconds in and I already know this Battle of the Ports episode will be a good one!
I hope that was still the verdict by the end :)
I think the MD port sounds as close as possible for the system. 6 FM channels vs 8 in the arcade. And yeah it looks and plays almost identical. After all the MD arquitecture was based on the System-16 board, the same running Shinobi so it makes sense.
Thank you, Mark, great comparison. Shinobi III on MD was one of my all time favourite games on that system, an absolute masterpiece.
Over the years I have come to see how awesome a system the Master system was. It was way ahead of its time.
Luv the vid.
Biggest problem with the PC Engine version is they removed the close quarters melee attacks entirely, probably due to ROM size restrictions. This changes the gameplay significantly, since you have no other option but to spam shurikens against enemies with block them.
I love that you're going back to these vids, many thanks as this is one of my favourite arcade games. I could always get good value out of my 10p's with this game in the day and man I miss walking through those Smokey arcades watching the attract sequences.
Glad you like them! Ah, the good old days when arcade games were 10 pence a pop and the really fancy ones were only 50 pence a pop.
Amazing remixed episode, you shocked me i got by surprise to see the Master Tryphon amazing work be displayed here, thank you too much for share!
keep going with the good work
No worries Pyrons Lair. I've been keeping an eye on this one for a while. Awesome work! I hope someday the game will be completed.
By the way, nice job on the colour. Some parts despite having less colour than the System 16 version look much better.
@@RetroCore I agree that some parts look better than the arcade original. that's something I've commented some months ago in another video. once again this shows that color use matters as much as the amount of colors available and this also shows that colors is mostly a subjective thing anyway
also I wonder if the sound could be improved over the original, by using one of these recent sound drivers such as XGM that can handle up to 13 or 14 sound channels
overall the mega drive port could be awesome and it would be ace if sega would be OK to acknowledge it and release it officially as a stand alone cart. imagine that?
there's also an impressive WIP port of the original fantasy zone for the mega drive. the guy is trying some interesting sound approaches and got great results!
Modern re-releases of the AC version (Wii, Switch, Astro City Mini, etc.) has a censorship: The Marlin Monroe posters at 1-2 was been replaced by the wolf from Altered Beast.
My favorite is the Shinobi Master System port played when I was a little kid with a US Master System in 1989. Now, I have a Japanese Master System with the FM sound and it sounds better like a remaster.
Great to see Shinobi featured this week. I love the series and always enjoyed the original. I even named one of my cats Shinobi. I also had the Master System version growing up and it was one of my favorite games on the system. With that said, I revisited the game a few years ago with a critical eye and I thought it held up well and could stand against other action-platform games that I love but did not have or play growing up. I think it's genuinely well designed, even with the changes for the home version while still retaining much of the feel of the arcade original. I find both the Master System and Arcade versions worth playing for different reasons. As for the PC Engine port, it's impressive on a technical level. It looks reasonably close to the arcade and feels pretty good. However, it's actually missing an entire area, the second one as I recall. That's due to the HuCard being quite small for the game. But it's also missing the close-range attacks, which is the thing I dislike the most about the game. The loss of those attacks adds to the already-increased difficulty since some enemies can block shurikens and being up close is no benefit as it is in the arcade. It was so disappointing to me. I've been checking in on the MD version that's been in development, and I really like what they've done with it. It looks great. The MD was designed to be able to provide reasonably-close System 16 ports, and we've seen that with enough ROM space, the MD could come very close.
Looks like the Master System was the best official port, though I do wish it had all the content from the arcade. The PC Engine should theoretically have had an easy win.... but it appears to be running WAY too fast, and worse still I know it's missing content like the bonus stages (which are the only way to earn well-needed extra lives), the entirety of stage 2, and melee attacks. The mobile one must have come out around the release of the PS2 reboot of Shinobi, because Musashi has the same outfit there, and I find it interesting that the children are replaced by blue outfit Mai Shiranui.
The unofficial Mega Drive port looks nice but it begs the question why Sega never ported it themselves. The Mega Drive was essentially a slightly-detuned System 16, so it would have been very easy to do. Oh well, at least the Mega Drive Shinobi trilogy was superior to the arcade original anyhow.
I had the Amstrad version and was super impressed with it
The poor Joe Musashi making a surprised Pikachu face at the NES port had me LMFAO :). It's a shame that the PC Engine version is way too hard for everyone's tastes, otherwise it would be as close to arcade perfect as we could get. As for the Genesis/MD port, it really shows the effort and love the programmers for the other versions should have poured. Here's hoping that it will be eventually completed. Have a good one.Mark!
They hugely dropped the ball not including short range attacks for Musashi on the PC Engine. Let's be honest, a conversion of Shinobi would have sold no matter what, so they did not care.
4:10 Ah yes, mastering the art of ninjutsu and the most traditional and ancient weapon of the warrior, the hand pistol.
Great video from a fantastic channel. Shinobi is one of my favourite arcade games, such a unique soundtrack. The remixed tunes on that Mobile Java version sound awesome, and the Mega Drive port looks incredible, hopefully it will get finished at some point. Imagine if that came out back in the day? Killer App for sure!
I reckon is the Super Shinobi wasn't a thing, the Mega Drive would have received a Shinobi port.
Great video and amazing Mega Drive version! (the CPC got a little graphics update last year)
Nice, I wasn't aware of that.
There's also a Supergrafx port on the work and apparently the guy takes the time to make it even closer to the arcade than the Mega Drive version so I guess someone will have to make a 32X port to keep the Mega Drive still on top ;)
Joke aside, I'm really curious as to how the Supergrafx hardware compares to the Mega Drive and Super Famicom. One thing that always baffled me is that the Supergrafx cost about two times the Mega Drive price yet it doesn't seem to be ultimately better. The Supergrafx has some graphic advantages (it can theoretically handle more sprites (the CPU might be a bottleneck though) and can display more colors) but the Mega Drive also has some graphic advantages (better sprite size flexibility and some special features such as column scrolling) and then the Mega Drive seems to have a more powerful CPU and definitely has better sound capabilities. Furthermore the Mega Drive also has two controller ports and native RGB vs single controller port and either RF or composite for the Supergrafx. So that's absolutely crazy considering, again, the price difference and also the fact that the Mega Drive was released 1 year earlier.
Now Supergrafx vs Super Famicom, the Supergrafx has a faster CPU but is it really better? It defo seems to be able to handle more stuff but maybe less complex (I've yet to see something like TMNT Turtles in Time or Contra 3 on Supergrafx). Then the SNES has more compromised resolution capabilities but on the other hand it has some special features such as Mode 7, better sound capabilities and, just like the Mega Drive, native RGB and two controller ports. And the SNES was somewhere in-between in terms of retail price.
edit: about the resolution, most SNES games are stuck in 256x224 pixels but actually most Supergrafx games too. Only the Mega Drive usually runs its games in higher res than that (320x224).
The Super Grafix is just an over priced console. NEC had lost the plot when the made that. Even more evident by the release of the overpriced Pcfx.
Still, didn't know there was a PC Engine Supergrafx version in the works.
Well to be fair we are yet to see pretty much anything on the SGX, seriously though Ghouls and Gosts looks better and the R-Type hack is pretty impressive too.
The SGX was NEC's knee-jerk reaction to the MD, which ultimately was abandoned in favour of the CD-ROM that was already there. That's sad because it's a system with potential, to see exactly what that is we just need to see some more software. But I expect roughly games that look slightly better than on the MD and sound the same as on the PCE.
@@RetroCore Ah yes, the PC-FX. That, was also a perplexing system indeed. I can't find any infos about its retail price though. Do you know how much it cost? It's already surprising that it was released that late (1 month after the Saturn and a few weeks after the PlayStation), especially given its rather weak specs, but now you make me really curious about how much it cost.
@@jbmaru Well, we've seen Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Aldynes which are both pretty cool but which don't justify the SuperGrafx's retail price at all! ^^'
And Ghouls 'n Ghosts might look better than the Mega Drive port for the most part but it sounds worse.
And Ghouls 'n Ghosts looks better mostly thanx to being released later (1990 vs 1989) and using a larger cart (8 meg vs 5). Had the Mega Drive port being released in 1991 and using a 12 or 16 meg cart, things would have been even worse for the SuperGrafx...
And by the time that the SuperGrafx got Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the Mega Drive got newer and even flashier games such as Super Shinobi or Strider!
Anyway I still somehow want a SuperGrafx because I'm in the minority of people who actually like the look of the console and also because I really enjoy Aldynes but overall it's more of a caprice than something I'm like "Whoa, I NEED to do that!!" ^^
Where have you seen/read about that port ?
The Master System version is my favorite Mark. i use to see those commercials from Sega growing up, and I was hooked. 8^)
Anthony..
The moral of the story here is: DON'T bother with the home and microcomputer ports. As a fan of the original Shinobi, just play the arcade version. Yeah, its more brutal but the controls are much tighter, the game plays faster and both the presentation and music is better. Once that homebrew Mega Drive version comes out complete, i'll give it a try to see how it plays to see if its worth a try...
13:30 - I'm still amazed Sega never made this for Genesis. I LOVED this game in the arcades, not even so much for the game as it's totally a ripoff of Rolling Thunder, but then let's be honest, which arcade cabinet was more popular? I have never to this day seen a Rolling Thunder cabinet of any kind in person, but I've seen Shinobi SO many times both back in the day and in modern retro arcades. If there had been this nearly-arcade-perfect version available for Sega Genesis, it would have been one of the first games I bought.
#nostalgiatrip #tl:dr When I bought my genesis in January 1990 (Christmas money, hell yeah! First system I bought myself!), I was torn between Genesis and Turbo-Grafx 16. I knew the Genesis was the more advanced machine, but those HuCards were really appealing, and also seeing a Turbo Express immediately made me question what was so damn special about the GameBoy I had just gotten that Christmas! You mean I can take the same games from the console and pop them into my portable?! (Insert Fry meme of "Take My Money!") But I chose the Genesis instead as I couldn't discount my brand-new GameBoy so quickly (and glad I didn't, I loved it!), and my Dad knew just enough about tech to convince me that the Genesis was more next-gen (can't argue that!). So I got mine in that magical period where it still came with Altered Beast but also a voucher for the yet-to-be-released Sonic the Hedgehog! Both games included essentially for $129.99 in 1991 money. I lived with Altered Beast for SIX MONTHS until Sonic finally arrived unannounced and unexpectedly in June 1991, my focus being on cheap used/garage sale NES games in the meantime (no regrets, this is when I got MT Punch-Out! and Jackal, two all-time faves). Let's just say by this time I was STARVING for new Sega games, and my third game was......... Hard Drivin'. Fight me, that game is amazing considering the hardware it runs on! The physics engine is brilliant even on Genesis! Plus it was 75¢ per play in the arcade back then for a kid who did NOT know how to drive... it felt like a waste of money every time, so having a home version was HUGELY valuable (and the birth of my love of both racing games and driving itself). But back to the point, if Shinobi in this form, nearly-arcade-perfect, had existed at that time, that moment when my aunt took me to Toys R' Us and told me to pick any game I want for a birthday present would have been a very different 3rd choice. If Shinobi had been there, boom, totally different history. I'm not sure the point of this story, guess it's for anyone who wants to take a nostalgia trip with me, lol!
The Atari ST game has ONE thing going for it, however. They reversed the colors of the unauthorized obviously supposed to be Spider-Man character climbing down the walls the right way around for that extra copyright infringing goodness.
Unofficial Ports exist for the FM-77AV, the PC-88, the sharp x1, atari 8-bit, TRS-80 CoCo, and the Apple II.
Nice.
I am joining the C64 fan crowd here, I absolutely loved it back in the day and consider it one of the best C64 Sega ports ever. Growing up in Europe, though, I was used to the PAL version, and can inform that it is in every aspect similar to the version you're playing here, but being only 50Hz, it probably ran a little slower - maybe a good thing in this case.
Ah, I think running a little slower would help quite a lot.
Good to see you back doing what you do best. Game reviews and comparing different ports. I wish you could do more of this more regularly.
Sorry man, these videos take a lot of time to put together. If I never had to do a real job I'd be more than happy to make more videos like this.
@@RetroCore Man, don't get me wrong. What you do is amazing Inwish I could have my own channel and talk about stuff like this you just take your time and do what you do just great.
The fanmade Sega Mega Drive port feels like something that should have been released on the Sega Mega Drive from the get-go.
I think so but since they had Super Shinobi / Revenge of Shinobi in the works, it seemed like a waste of time.
I own Shinobi on the Master System and the Nintendo Switch. Though I like the MS version, the Switch version by M2 is my favorite. I'm surprised that version wasn't featured on this episode. But it's okay. It's really cool to finally see multiple versions of Shinobi. Thanks for the upload. Keep up the amazing work, good sir
The Switch version is Arcade emulation so it isn't really a port. Besides, I no longer have a switch in the house.
@@RetroCore Makes sense. Thanks for your input. On the subject of one of the ports you covered, I kinda wished the people who made the Mega Drive port would pick it up again and finish it. What they did was truly impressive.
Shinobi was a technical challenge for the C64, the magic alone required more than 8 sprites, so coder Simon Pick had to write some very nifty coding routines.
He had the coin op in his living room and Sega provided sprite and background data, but this sadly wasn't of much use.
He also coded a little loading game, to play between levels on the C64 cassette version, but this had to be dropped 😭
I remember seeing Spiderman as a boss character in The Revenge of Shinobi and i curious about what's he doing in that game.
The original System16 version is one of my favorite arcade games. The SMS, PCE and C64 are great versions as well
👊💥🏆🏅
Not sure it's been mentioned below but, the Java version really surprised me! Looks and sounds excellent (no doubt much better off emulation 👍)
Shinobi was released in November 1987 in Japan. And the guy who was tasked with porting Shinobi to the Mega Drive made super Shinobi instead.
I noticed some UK C64 games seem to be a bit better than their US counterparts; take Turrican, for example. The shift from PAL to NTSC made the game run almost unplayably faster, and the color count and palette is actually worse on the US release, on top of the few songs in the game being too high pitched - it doesn't have any in-game music either aside from the two jetpack stages. It looks to be the same exact case with Shinobi here. It's clear that Shinobi wasn't designed for NTSC hardware and the conversion is poor, though at least they weren't using any PAL-exclusive tricks like Turrican was doing.
At the end of the 80s the C64 was pretty much dead in North America (understandbly, after 8 years) but reasonneably alive in Europe where it was sold as an entry level gaming platform until at least 1992. Most early C64 games play better on NTSC machines, most later C64 games play better on PAL, due to the market they were aiming to. I think you could say the C64 nostalgia nowadays is almost split in two: Americans, they are older and tend to be nostalgic of games like Space Taxi and Ultima. Europeans, they tend to be a bit younger and remember games like Katakis or Creatures.
There's a remastered CPC version that is extremely nice. Not are just the colors different (personally I find them better), but the main character sprite is awesome!
Cool, I'd like to check that out.
Can you imagine if that Mega Drive version existed in a completed form back in 1989! My God!
That would have been mind blowing.
I think I commented about Shinobi on your first video, you seem a bit harsher on the C64 version on this remastered video. I actually didn't know that there was a separate NTSC version. Bloody yanks LOL!
That Megadrive version looks amazing! Now that I think of it, it would have been the perfect launch title, the game that came with the first batch of Megadrives here in Australia was Altered Beast, Shinobi was WAY more iconic of Sega IMO. Aussies had to wait a bit longer for the Megadrive than everyone else, it wasn't released here until 1991, but if Shinobi was released back then it would have fit perfectly alongside other strong early Megadrive titles like Afterburner, Strider, Ghouls 'N'Ghosts, Revenge Of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer:Secret Of Shinobi, Super Monaco GP, Super Hang On, Road Rash, Streets Of Rage, and of course Sonic The Hedgehog
I don't know which title screen is better. The NES one where Joe Musashi looks like he saw the 5th dimention, or the Amiga/ST one where he looks like he fell on drugs.
Lol, both a laughable.
I am sure the PAL version on Commodore 64 is different to the NTSC version with the enemy pattern being more like the original.. I have real hardware with ten's of thousands of games from both regions.. I will need to check it out soon. My favourite version other than Arcade would be Master System as this was my first experience playing it.. and it is a good playable game.
What the hell happened to the ninja in the Amiga and Atari Nas-T versions? Looks like he's got osteoporosis or something. I don't think the close-up in the title screen is doing him any favors, either.
Yeah, he looks like he is afflicted with severe arthritis.
Although his case does not look as advanced as that of the protagonist of the Haunted Castle, the arcade port of Castlevania, who seems to be half paralyzed from the hip up.
The Amstrad CPC port shows once again that if you see Richard "mad as a hatter" Aplin's name, don't abandon hope just yet.
But his name is also on the Amiga game and let's be honest, that is total crap. Same goes with Final Fight on the Amiga. Maybe he just didn't care about that system?
@@RetroCore Apparently he HATED the Arcade version of Final Fight....
*Master System and PC Engine are the best!* ⭐️
I like the C64 version. Yes it's too fast and has too many enemies, but it's still more accurate than any of the other official versions, console included. The PC Engine version has so much missing that you didn't mention. I do like what they did with the Master System version though.
November 1997? Glad you corrected in the subs. Funny mistake.
The description shows the correct date too. He was off by a decade in the video, lol. I swore I played this in the 80's when I was 13-14.
that java version looks really cool
Thanks for this video. Did not know about the java version and the mega drive version will look for it.
You're very welcome.
The Mega Drive version is fantastic. Just shows how capable the machine is.
Excellent video. The remaster was even nicer than the original. Congratulations.
The MegaDrive port.
I am amazed!!!! How is that possible?
Yes I agree. Sega Master system for me also. It was the version I had but looking objectively without nostalgic goggles on its still the best home version although the PC Engine version looks mint!
Shinobi is broken on the Amiga. The one thing it does well is the BGM. Thankfully the Amiga port of Shadow Dancer isn't half bad.
Master system version was my 2nd game ever (not including built in hang on, safari hunt and snail maze) -
My first was choplifter
I have very weird memories of picking up that case in woolworths and unsure of its content as an 8 year old (or thereabouts) - recently the product of divorced parents - this game cemented my childhood 'best Friend' in sega..... good times.
I lived the master system version too. I remember clearly buying it from Toys R US along with Space Harrier and Aztec Adventure. Those 3 games lasted for almost a year. Kids today with their new games everymonth having got a clue.
@@RetroCore oh fer sure! (Ref - boomer kids statement lol)
@@RetroCore You don't say. I remember playing Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga for more than a month straight both because it impressed me so much graphically and because that was the only "good" game I had at the time for the machine.
Let me tell you that if I had had another good platformer as a comparison point I would not have been torturing my self for so long on that game. 🤣
The PC engine version lacks the second level, sadly...
The Commodore ports has a place in my heart. A solid conversion un My opinion.
I always asked wy there wasnt a megadrive version. It's a Nice surprise to know there is a Port un development. Hope these guys can finish it!
Fantastic game, still play the arcade version now. Was released in 1987 though, not 97.
Did I say 97? Man, hope not. Well, at least the subtitles will be correct
No good home versions of Shinobi! This is the reason I hate home computers to this day. You can't even make a competent version of Shinobi, but now PC's want to rule the world. The "what if" Mega Drive version is the stuff of dreams. Great battle.
Consoles forever with physical media👍
Way too harsh on the C64 version! Many, myself included, consider it to be an excellent port. Once you adapt to the controls, it becomes a fast, fluid, silky-smooth, responsive, and most importantly, a fun gaming experiece. However, a superb video as usual!
But it's not Shinobi. That's the biggest problem.
Instant upvote
And the winner is... Megadrive port. But Shinobi III is still better xD
Great updated BotP!
The Immortal battle of ports
Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, NES, Sega Genesis The Apple II
It's on the list to cover at some point, 👍
A so underrated game. It would be so nice if it could be on the top of the list, yep.
Richard Alpin was behind the CPC version and said fitting the game into 64K was the hardest part, apparently there is only music on the 128K version, the 64K Version is silent?
Feeling pretty good about the SMS version right now !
The European Master System version also had level music on the cart that is never used and some tracks are used twice instead iirc. Maybe it was a licencing issue with the NES and MS ports?
I guess we will never know.
Absolutely wonderful remastered video, Mark. I love me some Shinobi (and other Rolling Thunder-esque games). The original is not my favorite in the series-that would be Shinobi III-but it's still great fun, and I love it...in fact, I prefer the arcade Shinobi over Revenge of Shinobi, which I'm sure is sacrilegious in many Sega circles. I first played Shinobi at a laundromat my aunt worked at. I was with my grandma, and we stopped there to drop off something to my aunt. I saw Shinobi, dropped a quarter in and was instantly hooked. I put a few quarters in it that day but didn't play Shinobi again until I saw the Tengen NES version for sale years later. I don't know why but none of the arcades near to me had Shinobi. The NES version might not hold a candle to some of the other versions, but it was the only version I had access to for a few years, and I had fun with it. Now, when I ended up with a Genesis and a power base converter a couple years later, I bought the SMS Shinobi from a used shop. Definitely a nicer port than the NES version, but sadly just PSG music for me. I do like the PSG soundtrack, but that FM soundtrack is very nice. I've never played any of the home computer ports-that PC version seems almost as bad as some of the shite from Hi Tech Expressions-but I do own the PC-Engine HuCard thought it's a much more recent purchase. It does look quite nice, but I think I prefer the Master System version because it's difficulty is not jacked through the roof. I think most will agree that Tryphon's homebrew Genesis port is exactly what we wished Sega would have put out themselves.
I never made the comparison with Rolling Thunder but now that you mention it there is clearly some truth to it.
Joe model in Java version seem to be taken from 2002 Shinobi PS2 remake. Richard Aplin worked on Amstrad version of Shinobi? Then no wonder it is so good.
Tha Amiga version uses Dual Playfield for parallax scrolling. This reduces the amount of colors shown a lot (8 for each layer), so you need a good artist to make it look good... which unfortunately is obvious it isn't the case here. There's also a copper split to show the score in a different bitplane of the rest of the screen, which speeds up processing a lot.
Now if they actually bothered to change the code from the ST to the Amiga to include the Parallax Scroll and that copper split (neither can be done on an ST), why the HELL they didn't go fully and actually removed the jerky scrolling so typical from ST games?
It's really a shame, because obviously the Amiga could have done a very good Shinobi port. Bur oh well, this happened so many times :)
The MSX version barely works. It's a direct Spectrum port but it's ridden with bugs and sometimes it doesn't even load. Also it's way slower than the Spectrum version and it has no sound.
It has been recently patched to work properly and with better speed, that's probably not the version you got :)
Once again, a crappy port from the ST version that was even a disaster to Amiga. So I have nothing to say more to save this version than you told. GFX are so crap. Another quick port direct to the bin.
The good surprise is the CPC version. Colors are a bit disappointing (some guys are at the moment working on a patched version with new color scheme) but musics are really nice, almost all the stuff is there and to be honest it's nice to play too. Don't forget it needs 128k RAM and really uses the floppy disk system with loadings between levels. It was really nice for 6128 owners like me that regretted that most of the CPC games were limited to the use of 64K RAM and with a unique loading time to work on the 464 and its terrible tape drive. CPC is capable of the better in the hands of the good ones.
It's a shame there were not more modern ports like the mobile java version
So true. But at least the Arcade game got an emulated port to the switch.
In the Java version you rescue multiple Mai Shiranui wearing Kasumi(DOA)'s costume XD
Lol, that you do.
there was a ROM hack for NES that aim to fix Tengen broken ass ports btw. fixed the color, playability and so on
I need to defend the NES version. It's not great... none of Tengen's NES games were GREAT, but many like Gauntlet or RoadBlasters did a decent-enough job that you felt like you could play that instead of dumping quarters into the local arcade machine. I feel like this would have been the same, but I never found it in the wild. Even growing up in New Jersey where a lot of stuff popped up ahead of other markets (I remember seeing a Game Genie before they were even released in the US, literally called a friend a liar over it until he brought it over, lol!), this was one Tengen game I never saw, and it would've been an instant rental from me! It is a shame they based it on the SMS version since that version changed so much about the music and sound in the first place.
You definitely said hit arcades in November 1997? I'm sure you meant 1987.
Yes, I mean 1987. The subtitles that I put up do say 1987.
Another great video. Excellent!
The Amiga version is a far cry from the Arcade but not bad for it's day I found myself enjoying it because a lot of Amiga games don''t even have music during gameplay lol.
The physics are terrible in the NES port when you do the jump to the upper platform the enemies can still attack you unlike the Master System version.
The Megadrive version would have been considered Arcade perfect if it had released during the 16bit Era
I actually enjoyed the c64 version back in the day
Seeing that java port makes me wish that Sega did the same with the awful GBA's Revenge of Shinobi: A port of the classic Mega Drive game, but with the 2002's game aesthetic.
I find the Amstrad port very pleasant, especially compared to the whole load of bullcrap ports that the system received during it's lifespan. And if we need to REALLY be nitpicking something on the Master system port, is the lack of a proper ending. You give your sweat, blood and tears, and all you get is a Game Over screen... The same screen you already saw hundreds of times
😂
The lack of a real ending on the Master System version is quite a downer. Back then a few games had poor to no endings, 😢
Even the Amiga magazines pointed up the jerky scrolling on the Amiga port and with bad animations generally. Im do might have enjoyed dispite that back in the game, but diddent have that. But im did do played quite a bit on the arcade version back in the days throught (and im remember liked the game as well).
And yes its a direct Atari ST ports with no effort other to replace the sound (which is not that bad). Hence its faster on Atari ST.
The Sales Curve did all 5 home computer ports. The Amstrad is the best one out of the 5 ports. Also There was some effort made to the Amiga version for the bonus stage, but did not safe the game throught.
It's been a while since your last remaster, the break from last week was worth it.
You should also remaster the Fatal Fury Special one, you put in the same video FF2 and FFS. Even though FFS is based upon FF2, they are not the same game, FF2 has a rough combo system, is slower and has an odd collision detection. FFS not only allows the boss charcters and returning ones from the first game; it's faster, has a polished combo system (the first SNK produced game with one) and refined controls. Comparing FF2 with FFS is like comparing SF II with SSF II, they are not in the same league.
Maybe I'll redo the Fatal Fury videos in the future. I'm looking to remake the Ghost'n Goblins video next.
@@RetroCore I've been watching some of the old ones, the G'nG defenitely needs your voice and I'm sure that after all these years of making this series, your thoughts on some of the ports have changed. I'd love to see that one.
One of my arcade favourites. Amiga wasn't great, especially with hindsight, but when you're 14 and you got to play it at home on the miggy it did hit the spot. I remember it being better, sometimes I hate adult eyes. 😁
Plenty of Amiga games still look good now ...
I have the master system version, that is pretty good in my opinion. And i also have the arcade port on Xbox 360. Great game but damn hard!
Yep big fan of the Master System version myself.
Me to. I live in Belgium and the master system was very popular in here. It was my very first console back in the day. It have a special place in my hart.
Thanks for the great video. The MD version was certainly a surprise. 👍😁
November 1997. 😁
Special future edition 😉
my favorite music rendition?
on NES version of this.
it's faster and imo much more catchy than the original
i'm not kidding, that's the reason why i tried NES version!
it's horrible to play tho lmao i played it just for a curiosity. i listened to the whole musics (why in game only some lol) and it's pretty ok albeit screeching chiptunes. i still like it the best lol
I'm quite a fan of the mobile java music.
Great episode as always!
On another topic, have you already played Alien Hominid HD or any of the previous console versions?
No, I've not play Alien Hominid HD or any version yet. I have not had time to play anything recently except for when making videos.
Amstrad is my favorite home version. Your bonus level had glitches, it's not like this.
Oh the Megadrive port. Where did u get the rom , I'm looking for it for sometime :-/
Yeah my copy of the Amstrad one is a bit glitch. Sadly images of old computer games tend to be like this 😢
The Mega Drive rom I've had for a while. I think I found it via a Google search "Mega Drive Shinobi Beta 3.0"
I'm sure you meant to say it was released in 1987 in the first sentence.
yep :)
Shit. Disregard my comment.
the very existence of a NES port at a time that sega and nintendo were the equivalent of the US and cuba probably had Bill Merry screaming cats and dogs living together mass hysteria.
You don’t have to use an extra key to jump on the Spectrum version by the way. You can just press up and fire on the joystick just like the other versions.
I tried that but it just wouldn't work. Do you think it has something to do with using the Kempston joystick?
@@RetroCore I don’t think so. I’ll have to check and let you know.
@@RetroCore Ok, just had a look and yes it’s because you were using the kempston option. So if you use a Sinclair joystick or keyboard you just define BIG JUMP as to whatever you’ve defined fire as and then it lets you do the high jump by pressing up and fire. It is silly that you can’t do that when using a Kempston.
Parabéns Retro Core, excelente trabalho! 🕹🙋🏻♂️🇧🇷
0:00 14:02 Muted Music looks a Copyright
Copyright is a bitch
I grew up with the master system port and I loved it i still do along with the ninja, both 2 of my favourite games on the system
Lets be honest most of these havent aged the best 🤣
Pretty sure the Arcade release of Shinobi was 87, not 97.
Mark. Did you say " November 1997" in the beginning?! One small fault in an otherwise awesome video.
Lol, I did. Should have been 87. Oh well.
did anyone ever beat that bonus stage? you even have to cheat on name ........
dont you just love how you can have the most violent game ever made in japan but have the most kickback soothing tunes tunes playing as you annihilate everything in existence? The same goes for shumps ....... so the ps2 shinobi game was something different? on and someone who suffered through the new version many times i can agree with your basement of it
I can do the special stage on the Arcade version quite easy, or at least the first special stage.
Auto fire is your friend!
Battle of the ports unintentionally makes the Amiga look bad through no fault of its own.
I certainly don't plan to make the Amiga look bad. It just is with most arcade conversions.
Check out my videos on Snow Bros, Water Kids or Toobin for example to see I don't crap on the Amiga all the time. Those are great ports done well. Just a shame most ports are half arsed Atari ST ports or lazy Amiga originals.
Funny how ST owners never get upset when a game on that system is crap
@@RetroCore I'm not an amiga fan. LOL. I don't remember a single instance where I disagreed with your assessment of an Amiga port. It's just that most ports of Japanese games for the Amiga are crap. I have just read what I wrote and it did not come out as I wanted. Sorry, Mark. You are doing a great job and for that I am grateful. Keep it up.
Sorry I don't agree with the ZX port. Highly coloured graphics, in game music. Very good speed, with many enemies on screen. Very playable, and a fine gameplay system. A top conversion that plays like an arcade game. Many people see this game as either a hit, or miss.
Hey Mark. What's the deal with these being remastered? What did you need to change?
Sniff... I smell Saturday.... I smell BATTLE OF THE PORTS ❤❤❤♥️❤♥️❤♥️❤❤♥️