I really love the live action cutscenes and look of this game. It gives it a life all its own and it looks very distinct from other action platformers. The music (in Shinobi X) is quite good and lends to the games atmosphere. That's where my positives end. This game sucks ass and it's one of the most tedious things I've ever played. It controls so much worse than shinobi 3. The levels in this are absolute cock and ball torture. There is this mine cart level and it just never ends, it neeeeever ends. There is nothing in this game that feels satisfying. I was certainly getting better at it, there is definitely a feeling of being able to get through stuff faster. But my only reward was more tedious bullshit. It's definitely worth checking out as an interesting oddity in the series but I would rather not touch this again.

What the fuck. This game is incredible. Why does no one talk about this? Oh my gosh. I would put it up there alongside games like Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood as being one of the absolute greatest action-platformers I've ever played in my life. Great balance between challenging platforming, methodically-paced combat, and boss fights that demand both a mastery of the mechanics, as well as the patience to learn their attack patterns. It's a disservice that more people don't talk about this one.

I 1CCed this game. mwehe